WASHINGTON (CMC):

The United States (U.S.) says it is planning to expand to the rest of the Caribbean a model programme that helps deported Haitians reintegrate into Haitian society.

Charles Shapiro, the U.S. State Department's principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said Tuesday that the project in Haiti is the "sort of thing" the United States is looking at doing in other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations.

HIV/AIDS testing

"Not every comma and period [of the programme] will be the same as in Haiti, but it will be similar," he said in a statement.

Shapiro said the programme provides deportees with HIV/AIDS testing, counselling and micro-loans to help them set up businesses.

He said a similar programme, formerly run by the United States in Central America, ensured that deportees were "not just dumped into airports," but it gave them "a place to spend the night, and food and bus fare" to get back to their town or village if they did not live in the capital city.

The official said the programme involved the 'humanitarian issue' of helping deportees reach their final destinations once they are back in their native land.

The State Department official said the one-year U.N. project in Haiti provides "resettlement and reintegration services for the Haitians who have been sent home from the United States and other countries after being convicted and serving their sentences for armed robbery, drug offences, possession of illegal firearms, murder and other crimes".

Pilot project

The pilot project in Haiti operates with a US$1 million grant from the U.N. Development Programme to the International Organisation for Migration.

Maureen Achleng, IOM chief of mission in Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, said since October 2006, when the pilot project began operating, 350 of 650 deportees to Haiti have registered as participants.

She said one of the greatest obstacles to the reintegration of Haitian deportees, many of whom have lived away from Haiti for many years, concerns the stigma in Haitian society attached to bearing the label 'deportee'.