They are left along roads and sewers or on hospital grounds, dumped as if they were trash. These are Haiti's disabled children in a country wracked by four storms last summer, still trying to cope with thousands of homeless and unemployed.
Dozens of special-needs babies are kept at the government-run and corruption-plagued Abandoned Baby Unit, two or three to a crib while older mentally disabled children stare in a catatonic state or lash out violently when they are touched.
As reported last month from Port-au-Prince by Miami Herald writer Jacqueline Charles, these are the children no one wants in a tiny nation already struggling to care for an estimated 50,000 children living in orphanages.
But despite the challenges left by coups and hurricanes, Haiti's government must not ignore these special children.
To read the complete editorial, visit The Miami Herald.