Human Trafficking in [Haiti Street Children in [Haiti] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Haiti] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the
first ten years of the 21st Century -
2000 to 2009
Scope and Magnitude: Several NGOs noted a sharp
increase in the number of Haitian children trafficked for sex and labor to the
Dominican Republic and The Bahamas during 2008. The majority of trafficking
cases are found among the estimated 90,000 to 300,000 restaveks
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Haiti: Socio-Political Crisis OCHA Situation Report No. 14 www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/AllDocsByUNID/e495dc5b203af05585256ed6005e7d00 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
CHILDREN AT RISK 9. Child domestic workers are
perhaps amongst the most exploited sectors in Haiti. A child who stays with
and works for another family is called a "restavec"
(rester avec), in Creole. According to the Restavec Children Foundation, these children are often
given away or sold by poor families in order to survive. Frequently the
children's most basic rights to health and education are denied. They are not
paid for their work and often abused. For instance, the restavecs
have to return to their duties in the house, after having escorted the house
owner's children to school. The restavec boys and
the girls often flee at the age of 12-13, joining one of the many street
gangs or ending up as prostitutes. HAITI: SUGAR SLAVES - Next time you add sugar to your
coffee, think of Andre Prevot. A Haitian, Prevot met a man who promised him a good job nearby in
the Dominican Republic (DR). But, as we've seen with the Asian slavers, this
is a classic lure. "He took me across the border and sold me to the
Dominican soldiers for $8," explains Prevot.
Once in their custody, he suffered the fate of thousands of his countrymen
who are forced against their will to cut cane for six or seven months — from
December to June — for little or no money. Though many Haitians work
willingly in the Dominican sugar plantations (Haiti is one of the poorest countries
in the Western Hemisphere), there is a perennial shortfall at harvest time.
The State Sugar Council, known as the CEA, fills the gap with a system that
violates nearly every internationally recognized labor code against forced
labor. Although political turmoil in Haiti has put an end to cross-border
recruiting, the enslavement of blacks continues. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - A common form of exploitive child labor in Bur of Democracy, Human
Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Rural
families continued to send young children, particularly girls, to more
affluent city dwellers to serve as restaveks in
exchange for that child's room and board. While some restaveks
received adequate care, including an education, the Ministry of Social
Affairs believed that many employers compelled the children to work long
hours, provided them little nourishment, and frequently abused them. The
majority of restaveks worked in low-income homes
where conditions, food, and education for non-biological children were not
priorities. The results of the most recent
study of trafficking across the border conducted by UNICEF in 2002 reported
that between two thousand and three thousand children were trafficked to the Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child - 2003 [60] The Committee is deeply
concerned at the high incidence of trafficking of children from Assistance for children victims of human trafficking in
Haiti www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/HMYT-6W6NSM?OpenDocument At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
After the death of his father,
Daniel was torn from his sobbing mother to work in Daniel says he felt "not
human" when preparing the children's uniforms and lunches while being
denied an education himself. Despite being regularly humiliated, abused and
under-fed, Daniel did not attempt to return home alone lest he be forced to
join the street children. Survival
is Greatest Challenge for Haiti's Children Violence and Abuse. There are
thousands of street children throughout Haiti. Many children are forced to
fight in gangs or become part of the restavek
subculture of bonded servitude, where 300,000 children work as unpaid
domestic servants. Girls account for three-quarters of these workers. - htsc 30,000
Haitian children smuggled annually Around 30,000 Haitian children are
illegally smuggled into the Haitian Children Sold as Slave Laborers and Prostitutes www.gnn.tv/headlines/5161/Haitian_Children_Sold_as_Slave_Laborers_and_Prostitutes At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
On market day in Dajabón, a bustling Dominican town on the Haitian border,
you can pick up many bargains if you know where to look. You can haggle the
price of a live chicken down to 40 pesos (72p); wrestle 10lb of macaroni from
60 to 50 pesos; and, with some discreet inquiries, buy a Haitian child for
the equivalent of £54.22. There is a
thriving trade in Haitian children in the Servitude's chains steal childhoods Each day, 13-year-old Claudia Lundi wakes at 4 a.m. and begins cooking, sweeping, fetching
water and doing other household chores that last until well after
sunset. She sleeps on the concrete
floor cushioned by a pile of clothing and eats sparingly, alone, in the
kitchen. "If I don't finish my work they will beat me up," said
Claudia, picking nervously at her fingernails. "They beat me with a whip
all over my body."
- htsc Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 4 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Children at Risk Foundation (CARF) - HAITIAN STREET
CHILDREN & RESTAVEKS www.carfweb.net/haiti_appeal.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
On average, restaveks
work eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, have extremely poor health,
nutrition, low educational attainment and their living conditions are
appalling. They sleep on the bare floor or on a mat on the floor next to
their master's bed or under the kitchen table. They use an old rolled up
dress as a billow or a blanket. Restaveks wear
dirty, old clothing and shoes with holes in them, sometimes too big for their
small bodies. Also, they are permitted to bathe only once a week. While these
children prepare meals for their masters, they are not allowed to eat with
the family and must wait until everyone finishes and leaves the table in order
to eat the leftovers from the meal that he or she cooked. The master requires
that the child domestic use a specific plate, cup, and fork, made out of tin
and bent out of shape. The restavek must wash and
store these utensils separately, perhaps for a fear that he or she will
contaminate the rest of the family's "good" dining equipment. The
child is further separated from social life as the restavek
spends virtually the entire day indoors unless he or she is fetching water,
cleaning chamber pots, or visiting the market. And while indoors, he or she
sits in isolation when not doing chores. These children are not allowed to
speak unless their owners speak to them or permit them to speak. In addition
to the daily schedule and tasks and the living conditions, these children
suffer great physical and emotional danger, are beaten, tortured, raped,
falsely accused and verbally assaulted. — Recollections by a former restavek,
Jean-Robert Cadet 1998 in his autobiography, "Restavec:
From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American" www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/AllDocsByUNID/e495dc5b203af05585256ed6005e7d00 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
CHILDREN AT RISK 9. Child domestic workers are
perhaps amongst the most exploited sectors in Haiti. A child who stays with
and works for another family is called a "restavec"
(rester avec), in Creole. According to the Restavec Children Foundation, these children are often given
away or sold by poor families in order to survive. Frequently the children's
most basic rights to health and education are denied. They are not paid for
their work and often abused. For instance, the restavecs
have to return to their duties in the house, after having escorted the house
owner's children to school. The restavec boys and
the girls often flee at the age of 12-13, joining one of the many street
gangs or ending up as prostitutes. Prosecutors to seek reduction of sentence for Pines woman
in slavery case www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/IRC/newsdesk_articles.asp?SCID=1409 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] A 12-year-old girl, referred to in
the indictment as "W.K.," was nicknamed "Little Hope" in According to the indictment, the
girl was smuggled from Haiti after her mother, who once worked there for the Pompees, died in 1996. Haiti -
Tarnished Children [PDF] [page 7] LESLIE - I am eleven years old. I don’t
remember how long ago my mum placed me in the care of my aunt. I’m the only
one to sleep on the floor in her house. Every day, I get up at 4 o’clock. I
do everything. I prepare breakfast for the children, I sweep the floor, I go
to collect water. And when my aunt goes to work in the market, I carry on: I
go for more water, I do the washing, and I wash the dishes… One day I had a
quarrel with one of my aunt’s daughters, and she whipped me for that. On another
occasion I was watching television and the food that was on the cooker got
burnt. I also got whipped for that. My
mum lives in the province. She came to see me last Sunday, but it’s very
rare. I have given up asking her to take me back with her. I know she doesn’t
have enough money to feed me. Haiti's
Dark Secret: The Restavecs Haiti, a nation of only eight
million people, is home to some 300,000 restavecs
-– young children who are frequently trafficked from the rural countryside to
work as domestic servants in the poverty-stricken nation's urban areas. Among her other duties, Josiméne cares for two younger children, cleans the
house, washes dishes, scrubs laundry by hand, runs errands and sells small
items from the family's informal store. She has lived this way for over two
years, since she was seven. It has been over six months since she has seen
her family. Aristide leaves Haiti bonner.house.gov/HoR/AL01/News/Columns/2004/03-04-04+Aristide+leaves+Haiti.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Haiti also has a long record of
human rights and security violations. The government of that country has not
fully complied with international regulations regarding the trafficking of
children for both labor and sexual exploitation. As one major example, a 2003
report issued by the Organization of American States stated that between
90,000 and 300,000 children between the ages of four and 14 in Haiti and the
Dominican Republic are used as unpaid domestic labor. Additionally, following
a 2001 announcement of "zero tolerance" policy towards suspected
criminals, the Haitian police and organized mobs committed numerous
executions and lynchings. The national media was
forced to self-censor itself, and many reporters either fled the country as
the result of death threats or were captured and executed. HAITI: SUGAR SLAVES - Next time you add sugar to your
coffee, think of Andre Prevot. A Haitian, Prevot met a man who promised him a good job nearby in
the Dominican Republic (DR). But, as we've seen with the Asian slavers, this
is a classic lure. "He took me across the border and sold me to the
Dominican soldiers for $8," explains Prevot.
Once in their custody, he suffered the fate of thousands of his countrymen
who are forced against their will to cut cane for six or seven months — from
December to June — for little or no money. Though many Haitians work
willingly in the Dominican sugar plantations (Haiti is one of the poorest
countries in the Western Hemisphere), there is a perennial shortfall at
harvest time. The State Sugar Council, known as the CEA, fills the gap with a
system that violates nearly every internationally recognized labor code
against forced labor. Although political turmoil in Haiti has put an end to
cross-border recruiting, the enslavement of blacks continues. Haitian
Coalition Unveils Report On Slavery And Trafficking Of Haitian Children "Estimates reveal that as
many as one out of every ten children in Haiti is a child domestic servant,
known in Creole as a restavèk," said Merrie Archer, co-author of the report and Senior Policy
Associate at NCHR, "and there is evidence that this practice has been
carried over to the US and other places where Haitians have migrated." All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin,
"Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - |
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Human Trafficking in [Haiti Street Children in [Haiti] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Haiti] [other countries]