CALLEBAS, Haiti (AP).— Parents in this struggling village above Haiti's capital said Wednesday that they willingly handed their children to American missionaries who are being investigated on child-trafficking allegations.

Orphanage worker Isaac Adrien said he told the villagers their children would be educated at a home in the Dominican Republic so that they might eventually return to take care of their families.

Many parents jumped at the offer when the Baptist group arrived in a hired bus after the Jan. 12 quake.

"It's only because the bus was full that more children didn't go," said Melanie Augustin, 58, who gave her daughter, Jovin, 10, to the Americans.