Jude Chery has heard talk of armed gangs for most of his life.

The 30-year-old Haitian activist remembers that he started to learn the names of powerful gang leaders even as a child in primary school.

In the decades since, new gangs have formed, and new gang leaders — including some with international profiles — have taken over, as Haiti experienced multiple waves of political upheaval and uncertainty.

Now, the Caribbean nation is in the grips of a period of deadly gang violence and instability that many Haitians say is the worst they have ever seen.

Yet for Haiti’s children — the millions caught in the crossfire, no longer able to attend school, or pushed to join the armed gangs amid crippling poverty — the situation is especially dire.

The United Nations child rights agency UNICEF estimates that between 30 and 50 percent of the country’s gang members are now children.

“Our youth should be worrying about how to study, how to innovate, how to do research, how to contribute to society,” Chery told Al Jazeera in a phone interview from the capital Port-au-Prince.

“But us in Haiti, we have other worries as youth: It’s about what to eat. Can I go outside today? We live each day, 24 hours a day, hoping to see tomorrow.”

‘Institutional limbo’

For decades, armed gangs with connections to Haiti’s political and business elites have used violence to gain control of territory and exert pressure on their rivals.

With funding from wealthy backers, as well as money gathered through drug trafficking, kidnappings and other illicit activities, Haiti’s gangs filled a void caused by years of political instability and accrued power.

But it was the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise that created an opening for the gangs to strengthen their authority. No federal elections have been held in years, and faith in the state has plummeted.

Haiti continues to undergo a shaky political transition, as it seeks to fill the power vacuum created by Moise’s killing. But experts say the gangs — now believed to control at least 80 percent of Port-au-Prince — have become even more emboldened.

The gangs are “probably stronger than ever”, said Romain Le Cour, a senior expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, a research group in Geneva.

They have maintained their firepower as well as territorial and economic strength even as a United Nations-backed, multinational police force led by Kenya was deployed earlier this year to try to restore stability, he explained.

This month, the gangs again captured global attention after passenger planes were hit by gunfire at the airport in Port-au-Prince, prompting international airlines to suspend flights into the city and isolating the country further.

The incidents came amid an internal power struggle. On November 11, Haiti’s transitional presidential council, which is tasked with rebuilding Haitian democracy, abruptly dismissed the country’s interim prime minister and appointed a replacement, highlighting ongoing political dysfunction.

Against that backdrop, Le Cour told Al Jazeera that the gangs’ propaganda has been especially effective.

Haitian political leaders as well as international bodies have so far failed to stem the violence, which has paralysed large swaths of Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced, and the country faces a humanitarian crisis.

The gangs are able “to capitalise on their discourse”, Le Cour said, “that the government, the state, the international community, everybody is unwilling, unable, incapable of … doing anything to take Haiti forward.

“Their argument resonates so deeply right now because, in front of them, there is no one left.”

Out of school, out of options

That stark reality has pushed some Haitian children and youth, particularly from impoverished areas of Port-au-Prince and communities under gang control, to join the armed groups.

Some enlist under threats of violence against them and their families, while others hope to get money, food or a means of protection. Often, they join simply because they have no alternatives.

Children carry out a variety of tasks within the gangs, from acting as lookouts to taking part in attacks or transporting drugs, weapons and ammunition. Girls are also recruited to clean and cook for gang members. Many are subjected to rape and sexual violence as a means of control.

Robert Fatton, a professor at the University of Virginia and an expert on Haiti, said for youth in the country’s slums, “there is a certain appeal to [becoming] a big man with a weapon”.

“It gives you a sense, to put it crudely, of ‘manhood’ and a sense that you can do something with your life — however violent that might be,” he told Al Jazeera.

But Fatton said socioeconomic hardships are a large part of the reason children and youth end up participating in armed groups. “There are no jobs. They are stuck in poverty. They live in horrible conditions, so the gangs are the alternative.”

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. In 2021, the UN Development Programme estimated (PDF) that more than six million Haitians lived below the poverty line and survived on less than $2.41 a day.

The recent surge in violence has made a dire situation worse.

More than 700,000 people have been displaced from their homes, while access to healthcare, food and other basic services is severely limited. Half of those who have been displaced in recent months are children, according to the UN.

In late September, the World Food Programme also said that about 5.4 million Haitians faced acute hunger, with children particularly hard hit. One in six Haitian kids now lives “one step away from famine”, the humanitarian nonprofit Save the Children said.

Meanwhile, more than 900 schools have been forced to close, leaving hundreds of thousands of children out of the classroom. The UN’s humanitarian agency said these kids face a heightened risk of gang recruitment and could “experience ‘lost years’, growing up without the skills needed for their future and survival”.

“I’ve never seen a deeper crisis in Haiti in my life,” Fatton said of the overall situation befalling the country.

Noting that he grew up during the rule of Haitian dictators Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, he added: “I don’t think the situation even in those dark days is as bad as now.”

Challenge of reintegration

Yet despite these challenges, Haitian rights advocates are trying to support children in need.

Emmanuel Camille heads KPTSL, a group that defends the rights of Haitian children. He painted a dire picture of daily life for all children in the country, from a lack of access to education, food and healthcare, to a general absence of safety and security.

“In terms of education, health, nutrition, social justice,” he told Al Jazeera, “I can say that we’re dragging children into hell.”

Camille said trying to get children out of armed groups is especially challenging. The first step, he explained, is to get them and their families out of their physical environment — the neighbourhood, town or city, for instance, where they fell in with armed groups.

“We need to sever the link between the child and their previous environment to hopefully give them a better life,” he said.

But relocation alone will not solve the problem. The children also need a re-education plan tailored to their specific needs, as well as psychological support and economic assistance for their families, Camille said.

In 2019, Chery himself founded a volunteer group called AVRED-Haiti to help support the reintegration of people who spent time in prison, including youth who had served in gangs.

He also said reintegration is difficult when children go back to their homes in gang-controlled areas: Most end up going back to stealing or rejoining an armed group.

“There’s nothing we can do about it because they have other concerns that we can’t address,” he told Al Jazeera.

Chery added that “the best way to fight insecurity or banditry in Haiti” is for the state to address the basic needs of its citizens: food, housing, employment and poverty. “That would bring many more solutions in the long term.”

Urgency grows

The need to address those root causes appears more urgent than ever as Haiti plunges deeper into catastrophe.

The UN warned on Wednesday that at least 150 people were killed, 92 were injured and about 20,000 others were forcibly displaced in a single week amid violent confrontations between armed gang members and Haitian police.

In one particularly violent episode, gang members launched a coordinated attack on the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petion-Ville.

Police fought back alongside armed residents — some part of a vigilante movement known as Bwa Kale — and more than two dozen suspected gang members were killed.

Camille said two child gang members who attended activities organised by KPTSL were among the casualties. They were aged eight and 17.

“At all levels, there needs to be justice — very strong justice — to change this situation,” he said of the crisis Haiti faces.

“All we want is to offer children a chance,” Camille added. “Right now, children are living like adults. They don’t have a life. They aren’t treated like human beings.”