PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP): In a quake-smashed city where hundreds of thousands go to sleep hungry and hurting in sordid street camps, eight-year-old Benoit Wodson has at least a bunk bed, food and friends to play with on a lawn beneath the mango trees.

The boy with the big grin and the big scar across his nose wants something more, though: "Can we go look for my mum? Can we go look for my parents?" he asked a worker on Wednesday at the orphanage where he's been brought.

The smallest survivors of Haiti's catastrophic earthquake are growing into one of the biggest problems in its aftermath.

Countless thousands of children are scattered among Port-au-Prince's makeshift camps of homeless and many have nobody to care for them, aid workers say, leaving them without protection against disease, child predators and other risks.

"They are extremely vulnerable," said Kate Conradt, a spokeswoman for the aid group Save the Children. She said United Nations experts estimate there may be one million youngsters who lost at least one parent in the January 12 quake or are separated from their families.

Some young Haitians are even being released from hospitals with no one to care for them. There just aren't enough beds.

alone and begging

UN workers had spotted Wodson for several days, alone and begging on the street in the refugee camp that has filled the Champs de Mars plaza before the National Palace.

When a reporter asked him what happened, he said in a matter-of-fact way, "I felt the ground shaking and I just stood there. I saw the National Palace falling down."

The l'Escale orphanage where Wodson stayed is among a handful of private institutions around Port-au-Prince that the UN children's agency UNICEF is using for Haitian children separated from parents.

Ringed by a big stone wall, the orphanage had a couple of dozen children before. UNICEF has brought eight since the quake with five more on the way, a tiny fraction of those in need.

UNICEF, Save the Children and the Red Cross have begun registering at-risk children and sending some to orphanages such as l'Escale - the name means 'in transit' - where they can be temporarily sheltered, said Bo Viktor Nylund, a senior UNICEF adviser for child protection.

Adoption Procedure

STEP 1: The Adoption Board issues a pre-adoption form which should be completed by all applicants and returned to the Adoption Board by post or in person.

STEP 2: The completed form, when returned, is reviewed by the boards office. An applicant who is considered suitable in the initial review is provided with an application form, a medical form and a listing of documents required. There is usually a period of four weeks for a response to be given from the time the pre-adoption form is received in the office.

STEP 3: Forms are reviewed on completion and additional documents requested. Satisfactory cases are assigned to our assistant adoption officers for further processing.

STEP 4: Parents of children to be adopted and their consent to the adoption is requested.

STEP 5: A home study/assessment is done of the applicant in the form of home visits, interviews, counselling, etc. A written home study is completed at the end of the process. The applicant who lives abroad should submit a home study report.

The applicant is informed of his/her case status after the above is completed. This usually takes four weeks.

STEP 6: The Adoption Board assists applicants to identify children who are available for adoption. In general, an overseas applicant requires a licence and he/she may come to Jamaica to decide on an available child.

STEP 7: Before an adoption is completed, locally placed children and their prospective adoptive parents are supervised by local social workers from the Adoption Board's office for a period between three and four months.

STEP 8: Cases that appear to be satisfactory are submitted to a review committee of the Adoption Board.

STEP 9: An applicant approved by the committee is required to make a formal application to the court. The applicant's case worker will provide guidance on this process.

STEP 10: A court hearing is arranged for the parish of residence.

STEP 11: The applicant and the child to be adopted are required to meet with their case worker for a briefing on a day prior to the court hearing.

STEP 12: The applicant and the child to be adopted locally are required to attend the court hearing. The licensed applicant is not usually required to attend court, however, the court can request his/her attendance. The child is always required to attend court and he/she can be accompanied by a guardian.

It is at the court hearing that an application for a licence/adoption order is heard and it is here that it can be granted or denied.

For more information please visit the website of the Child Development Agency - cda.gov.jm.