Haitian parents increasingly abandon kids with disabilities

From the Miami Herald (with video):
A growing number of children with disabilities are being abandoned in Haiti by parents who cannot cope, advocates say. The children are being left for dead along roadsides, hospital courtyards and sewers.

In this grindingly poor country, disabled children seem to disappear, hidden away as burdens in a culture where parents count on their children to someday provide for them.

… The problem with unwanted disabled children in Haiti stems from a society that stigmatizes parents who give birth to imperfectly formed children, in a place where few women get prenatal care amid an exploding birth rate.

Advocates say the Haitian government’s Institute of Social Welfare and Research is not equipped or funded well enough to care for children with disabilities. They are pushing the Haitian government to make children with disabilities a priority.