11% of the entire population of the capital Port au Prince were killed in the tragedy and one and a half million were displaced. Half of all Haiti schools were destroyed in the earthquake along with all of the country's three universities. Although that event was now over a decade ago, even before it occurred, thousands of Haitian children were orphaned or abandoned by their parents with an estimated 440,000 children growing up without parental care. With 200,000 dead from the earthquake that number rose exponentially and many of those infants are still only teenagers or young adults today.

This in a country where hundreds of thousands of children already worked in conditions similar to slavery with many engaged as domestics for wealthier families where they are frequently abused even having to sleep outdoors using cardboard for bedding. Other chidlren populate the roads selling wares, shining shoes or worse in a country where the literacy rate is about 61% (64.3% for males and 57.3% for females), significantly below the 90% average rate for Latin American and Caribbean countries. This is probably because around 375,000 children between the ages of 6 and 11 (one-third of this group) are not in school and few children ever complete their seconday education.