Gulnara Shahinian, the chief United Nations investigator on slavery intimated today that Haiti “has entrenched child enslavement through its long-denounced ‘restavek’ system.” After a tour of Haiti, she has concluded that the system of restavek (or staying with)—through which parents unable to support their children send them to live with more affluent relatives or strangers for whom they receive food, shelter and education in return for work—“subjects children to multiple forms of abuse, including economic exploitation, sexual violence and corporal punishment. Hours of work typically run from early in the morning until the last adult in the home goes to bed at night, witnesses have said.” Ms Shahinian found that although placement with children with other family members has long been a practice in Haiti, nowadays “paid recruiters scour the country looking for children to traffic both within and outside Haiti. This practice is a severe violation of the most fundamental rights of the child,” said Ms. Shahinian. “[It] reinforces a vicious cycle of violence. It should be stopped immediately.”
The International Labour Organization estimates that 300,000 children work as restaveks in Haiti, population eight million.
For more go to http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1682834
Photo: from A Child’s Hope International. Go to http://www.achildshopeintl.org/HomePage.html
[...] attention to Haiti's Restavec (sometimes Restavek) system has also become an issue. In a post from before the quake, Repeating Islands says the system, “through which parents unable to [...]
By: Global Voices Online » Haiti: Why All The Stories About Orphans? on February 11, 2010
at 8:24 pm
[...] attention to Haiti’s Restavec (sometimes Restavek) system has also become an issue. In a post from before the quake, Repeating Islands says the system, “through which parents unable to [...]
By: Haiti: Why all the stories about orphans? – Conversations for a Better World on February 12, 2010
at 2:22 pm
[...] Restavec Haiti [dal francese “reste avec” ovvero “sta con”] è un tema importante. In un post [in] precedente il terremoto, Repeating Islands [in] afferma che il sistema, “attraverso il [...]
By: Global Voices in Italiano » Haiti: come mai gli ‘orfani’ attirano tanta attenzione in certi ambiti all’estero? on February 14, 2010
at 9:34 pm
[...] Suffering (Deuteronomy 28:17) 7% of babies are aborted (mostly by Voodoo practitioners). 300,000 children are virtual slaves under the Restavek System, many are sexually abused. At age 17, … 200,ooo children have lost parents because of AIDS. One in four children are [...]
By: Why All The Outrage To Pat Robertson’s Remarks About Haiti? (Part 11) « Larry Who on February 17, 2010
at 9:59 am
I feel bad for those people. they are getting sick and dying while their children are out living on the streets because they have nowhere to go. :C
By: Samantha on March 1, 2011
at 9:17 am
my views on this topic dfeifr from you.its good that you brought this up on your blog,it was a nice controversial read.
By: Younes on February 11, 2012
at 6:30 am