Posted on 12/22/2009 9:52:12 PM PST by jerry557
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Poverty has forced at least 225,000 children in Haiti's cities into slavery as unpaid household servants, far more than previously thought, a report said Tuesday.
The Pan American Development Foundation's report also said some of those children — mostly young girls — suffer sexual, psychological and physical abuse while toiling in extreme hardship.
The report recommends Haiti's government and international donors focus efforts on educating the poor and expanding social services such as shelters for girls, who make up an estimated two-thirds of the child servant population.
Young servants are known as "restavek" — Haitian Creole for "stays with" — and their plight is both widely known and a source of great shame in the Caribbean nation that was founded by a slave revolt more than 200 years ago.
Researchers said the practice is so common that almost half of 257 children interviewed in the sprawling Port-au-Prince shantytown of Cite Soleil were household slaves.
Most are sent by parents who cannot afford to care for them to families just slightly better off. Researchers found 11 percent of families that have a restavek have sent their own children into domestic servitude elsewhere.
Despite growing attention to the problem, researchers said their sources were unaware of any prosecutions of cases involving trafficking children or using them as unpaid servants in this deeply poor nation of more than 9 million people.
Glenn Smucker, one of the report's authors and a cultural anthropologist known for extensive work on Haiti, said he believes the number of restavek children is increasing proportionally with the population of Port-au-Prince as more migrants flee rural poverty to live in the capital.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
reste avec, in French.
It would be nice if those who report on French-speaking countries would know some French. “Restavek,” indeed.
Quelle fromage! ;)
I thought Bill Clinton fixed this.
Yeah, I thought it was now a Communist paradise almost as wonderful as Cuba.
Black slavery in the western hemisphere and not a peep from people like the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Sharpton, and all the other phonies in the civil rights industry.
Our future.
Slavery is a disgusting practice. Those who promote it should be shot in the head!
It's time for the US to stop wasting taxpayer money on these “developing” countries and force them to actually develop a source of income for themselves.
It would be nice if those who report on French-speaking countries would know some French. “Restavek,” indeed.
Quelle fromage! ;)
Actually....restavek is Haitian Creole...what the Haitians speak....its like a dialect of French. Educated Haitians can speak standard French, but most speak Haitian Creole (which is somewhat understandable to those who speak standard French)
Meanwhile, in the US, the American Socialist Party (formerly known as the Democrats) is about to enslave 300 million men, women and children. Or, if you only count those who actually earn a living and pay taxes, about 100 million.
Sounds a lot like Canada; very painful for those taught standard French! Still, ‘reste avec’ would to my eyes be pronounced in the same way as ‘restavek.’ Perhaps one has to hear the difference?
bttt
Well well, what happens when the Dummies and the U.N. get together to “help” a country.
Sick a- holes
So they’ve had 200 years to put their plans into action.
Truth stings like a scorpion.
I agree. We should start with those that perpetuate the lie that we need an income tax and the IRS.
Thanks! I was wondering about the derivation of the word.
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