We’ve been watching news reports detailing the catastrophic damage in Haiti with special concern for the country’s children. The Center for Children, Law and Policy recently published Children, Law and Disasters (ABA) analyzing the legal framework in the United States in responding after Hurricane Katrina. The impact of the earthquake in Haiti is far worse. In the wake of such devastation, one wonders whether the rule of law is felt at all and legal analysis must take a back seat to the efforts of first responders.

Ann Veneman, the executive direct of Unicef, offered a good summary of the issues in taking first steps in responding to the needs of children in natural disasters in an interview with Charlie Rose.

What you worry about in these situations is, are children displaced from their families. Were their parents killed? Are they alone on the streets?

So one of the things you want to do is to make sure that they are protected, that they’re in a safe place, and that people are helping to find family members so that they aren’t subjected to trafficking or exploitation. So that’s one very important thing.

I mean, obviously, the immediate means for medical care, food, and clean water, and sanitation. We’re very concerned about the spread of disease, particularly childhood diseases like diarrheal diseases which can sap the system of nutrition, making children very weak.

And I think that clearly, in the aftermath of a huge tragedy like this, disease and disease spread is something we’re very concerned about which could cause additional deaths. So supplies getting in quickly, food, medical assistance, shelter, and clean water.

Such disasters naturally engender an outflowing of support and charitable donation. Those of us too distant to physically lend a helping hand are nevertheless instrumental in making financial contributions and focusing the world’s attention on what can be done to ease the damage and help in reconstruction.

We’ve collected information on the various ways people interested in helping children can make a difference with whatever gifts, skills and resources they may have. Due to the logistical difficulty of transporting goods and the damage to the port, monetary donations are most appropriate.

Organizations Active in Haiti

• Washington Post: A List of Charitable Organizations Active in Haiti
• Today Show: A List of Charitable Organizations Active in Haiti

Donations by Text
Donations by Text have already raised millions. For example, texting “HAITI” to “90999″ will create a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill.

An excerpt from a recent post from the University of Houston Law Prof Blog, What should we learn from disasters affecting children?

Together with the ABA, the UHLC’s Center for Children, Law & Policy has published a book on the effect of the hurricanes of 2005 on children. It is filled with interdisciplinary insights about what happened to children in families, foster care, and the juvenile justice and educational systems. Our contributing scholars have a lot to say about how legal deficiencies inhibited the best short and long term responses and about how to achieve better outcomes the next time disaster strikes.

Read the post in its entirety at the University of Houston Law Prof Blog, What should we learn from disasters affecting children?

Texas Monthly,: Mimi Swartz, Children of the Storm

Texas Monthly leads with a heartbreaking story that weaves many of the issues facing children and parents in the aftermath of Katrina as well as a revealing look at the larger social dynamics.

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Shaila Dewan’s recent article in the New York Times, Many Children Lack Stability Long After Storm, focuses on the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina on children who were subsequently uprooted. The effects are more pervasive and devastating that commonly thought, with the problem all but vanished from the news cycle and political discussion.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Last January, at the age of 15, Jermaine Howard stopped going to school. Attendance seemed pointless: Jermaine, living with his father and brother in the evacuee trailer park known as Renaissance Village since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, had not managed to earn a single credit in more than two years. Not that anyone took much notice. After Jermaine flunked out of seventh grade, the East Baton Rouge School District allowed him to skip eighth grade altogether and begin high school. After three semesters of erratic attendance, he left Baton Rouge in early spring of this year and moved in with another family in a suburb of New Orleans, where he found a job at a Dairy Queen. A shy, artistic boy with a new mustache, Jermaine is one of tens of thousands of youngsters who lost not just all of their belongings to Hurricane Katrina, but a chunk of childhood itself.

Children, Law and Disasters

The Center for Children, Law and Policy recognized both the tremendous risk of fallout from Hurricane Katrina and the difficulty of knowing how to confront the issue and began a study that grew into a conference in 2007 and now a book, Children, Law and Disasters, that is being published by the American Bar Association this month. (The book can be pre-ordered through the ABA website).

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Hurricane Ike was an ill wind for tens of thousands of Houston-area children, who, more than a month after the storm blasted the Texas coast, are still hungry, fearful and sometimes abused, a coalition of social service providers warned Thursday.

"Things are getting back to normal," said Bob Sanborn, president of Children of Risk. "The lights are back on and schools are open. … But there are still problems, still needs. … Children are still in poverty. They still have hardships."

The children’s advocates gathered to call for support of the Houston Food Bank, which distributed 12 million pounds of food in the hurricane’s wake, and area day care centers, many of which were damaged and have not reopened.

Houston Chronicle: Storm over, but hunger, fear remain, Advocates push for food donations, day care support