More than anything, the Haiti quake is a children's emergency, writes Dennis McKinlay, executive director of Unicef NZ.
New Zealanders have been generous in opening their hearts to the people of Haiti after that country's devastating earthquake.
Those first sketchy reports and horrifying images of absolute destruction in and around the capital, Port-au-Prince, started a tidal wave of charitable giving.
New Zealanders have given millions of dollars.
It is now believed there could be as many as 150,000 dead, with three million people injured, displaced or otherwise affected in what is the seventh most deadly quake in history and the worst ever in the western hemisphere.
The truly shocking reality, however, is that children have been hardest hit.
Close to half of those affected by the quake are likely to be children under the age of 18 - that's around 1.5 million children.
Most are under 14.
The earthquake has been a double disaster for children.
Haiti was already one of the poorest countries on earth.
Four out of every 10 children live in homes with mud floors or in severely overcrowded conditions, with more than five people living in each room.
Haiti had the highest rates of infant, under-5 and maternal mortality in the western hemisphere.
Eight out of every 100 children die before they reach five years of age.
Years of violence and a string of recent natural disasters have weakened the country's infrastructure and boosted the number of orphans.
Pre-quake, there were an estimated 380,000 orphans, 50,000 of whom had lost both parents.
The total number of orphans is more than the population of the Otago, Southland, West Coast and Nelson regions combined.
The capital Port-au-Prince has about 300 orphanages, with a similar number around the rest of the country.
With each one home to 100-200 children, that's well over 30,000 children living in orphanages in Port-au-Prince alone.
The number of new orphans, along with separated and unaccompanied children, is expected to increase by several thousand.
Children who survived the quake are now at increased risk from a host of dangers, including disease, malnutrition, trafficking, sexual exploitation and serious emotional trauma.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has pointed to the special vulnerability of children in post-quake Haiti, calling for urgent measures to protect children.
It's no exaggeration, therefore, to call this a children's emergency.
There is no doubt the emergency has presented an opportunity for child traffickers and those facilitating illegal adoptions.
Trafficking was already an issue before the quake, with as many as 2000 children a year taken to the Dominican Republic.
Now, with the chaos in Haiti, the thousands of lost or separated children present a large pool of vulnerable children.
Unicef is aware of reports of children being removed from Haiti illegally and has passed these to the Haitian Government to investigate.
Unicef and its partners have rolled out a range of measures to protect vulnerable children, such as identifying lost children and accessing orphanages and other spaces so as to provide the help that is needed, but it is a huge task.
Assessments have been done at 77 orphanages so far.
Other measures include supporting the Government to boost vigilance at exit points, the setting up of safe spaces for unaccompanied children, and establishing a child-protection hotline.
Hospital staff have been briefed to be mindful of releasing children to only authorised adults and child protection messages have been broadcast on local radio stations.
For now, the focus is very much on protecting children and where possible, reconnecting them with surviving family members.
In the longer term, however, adoption by loving New Zealand families will become another effective way to help Haiti's orphans.
Other concerns for children in the aftermath of the disaster include disease, malnutrition and lack of education.
The crowded conditions many people are living in will contribute to the spread of water and sanitation-related diseases like diarrhoea and cholera.
These are major killers of children under 5 and ensuring access to clean water and sanitation will save children's lives.
This is why Unicef is supporting the supply of safe water to up to 400,000 people daily.
To stop the spread of childhood diseases, which can also kill, an immunisation campaign will give 600,000 children vital protection from measles, diphtheria, and tetanus.
Poor nutrition for children under 2 can cause lifelong health and developmental problems.
Unicef is working with the World Food Programme to provide supplementary feeding for children most at risk Children's education has also been badly affected.
Some 500,000 children aged between 5 and 14 are without a school to attend.
Temporary learning spaces are being set up so children can return to their studies and some sense of normality until schools can be rebuilt.
The children of Haiti will face many challenges, both now and in the months and years ahead.
The unprecedented level of support from the international community, however, offers a major opportunity for transformation.
Haiti's recovery starts with children and their communities, and only with children at the centre of reconstruction efforts can we build a new Haiti.
- Dennis McKinlay is executive director of Unicef NZ
