UNICEF's Haiti Child Registry

In an effort to help orphaned or displaced children, UNICEF, along with Save the Children and Haitian officials has launched a child registry, the goal of which is to find relatives who can take care of these kids on a permanent basis. In this photo, one of the registry volunteers, Ruthza St. Louis, interviews Dieu Fatane, 6, who lost her mother in the quake. Dieu is temporarily staying with her aunt, who is already struggling to support her own children.

The newly formed registry, which is similar to one UNICEF created in South Asia after the tsunami in 2004, is keeping track of and also searching for decent homes for orphans like Nana, 10, in the yellow shirt, and Landy, 8, her cousin.

To help track down extended family members to take them in, St. Louis asks kids a lot of questions about such things as where they went to school and what birthdays or other celebrations they can remember.

So far, UNICEF has registered close to 200 children and hopes to have thousands logged by the end of the year. Aid workers do a lot of detective work to find suitable caregivers and also check up on the children regularly.

St. Louis, an accredited therapist, spends time with Nana and Landy as she looks for a place for them to stay. UNICEF and other organizations provide support -- both moral and material -- to relatives and foster families.

Gabriel Regilus, 4, left in the red shirt, and Napolean Mezil, 3, seated next to him, play at the SOS Children's Village in Port au Prince. Both of them were a part of the group of Haitian children that 10 US missionaries tried to smuggle out of the country before being arrested for kidnapping.

Also living at SOS is five-year-old Leila Laurentus. There are some responsible orphanages in Haiti, but there are also scores of loosely monitored ones, and children who end up in the latter often get adopted by people who turn them into slaves or prostitutes. That's why the goal of the UNICEF registry is to place children with relatives.