While there are associations of voodoo practitioners and priests, there is no organized hierarchy or established voodoo church. Foreign missionaries operate freely. They enter on regular tourist visas and submit paperwork similar to that submitted by domestic religious groups in order to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Many are affiliated with U.S.-based denominations or individual churches. Others are independent, nondenominational Christian groups.
Missionary groups operate hospitals, orphanages, schools, and clinics throughout the country.
U.S. churches often send teams to Haiti on short-term projects. Some of these projects involve humanitarian or educational work, while others are purely evangelistic in nature. While some missionaries were concerned by the slowness of the Government to issue them residence permits, there was no indication that such delay was due to deliberate harassment on the part of the authorities. The Constitution stipulates that persons cannot be required to join an organization or receive religious instruction contrary to their convictions. This is accepted to mean, among other things, that in parochial schools run by the Catholic Church or one of the Protestant denominations, the school authorities may not permit proselytization on behalf of the church with which the school is affiliated.