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Haiti
Restavek: Haiti’s modern day slavery
As a result of unfair trade rules, international debt and a succession of corrupt leaders, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. These desperate times are seeing a return to the barbaric practice of slavery, albeit under a different name.
While slavery does not exist in the same systematic, legally-sanctioned way it did in the 18th century, millions must work without pay, in unhealthy, dangerous – even life-threatening – conditions, simply because they have no other means of survival.
Wherever there is extreme poverty, there is economic enslavement. Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is a particularly stark example. On the United Nations human development index it rates 153 out of 177. Even war-ravaged Sudan has a higher ranking at 142.
It is often children who suffer the most. The UN estimates that as many as 300,000 Haitian children are separated from their families and live in unpaid domestic servitude. This means that nearly one in ten of Haiti’s children are effectively living as slaves.
Haiti has a long-standing tradition of families in rural areas sending their children to live with more prosperous host families in the cities, so that they can get an education. These children were known as Restavek, which comes from the French ‘rester avec’ or ‘stay with’. In return for room, board and school fees, these children were expected to help with household chores.
But in recent decades, this tradition has been distorted by the extreme poverty in which many rural families live. Instead of sending a nine-year-old child to the city for a couple of years, many families are forced to pack off children as young as five. They simply cannot afford to feed them at home. Because the parents are so desperate to find someone to look after their children, they can’t be careful about where they send them.
Hundreds of children end up being exploited and made to work 18-hour days selling goods in street markets or looking after other children almost the same age as themselves.
It has been pointed out that this practice has degenerated over the years to a form of internal slavery because the family situation has broken down. You have a situation now where very poor people in the cities need these slaves to look after their children, while they're out making say two dollars a day.
One 15-year-old girl living in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, described how she is abused by the woman she works for: 'she bites me, she burns me, she beats me. One time her baby son spat in my face, so I smacked him lightly on the hand. She went crazy. She grabbed the spoon she was cooking with and thrashed me with it. The spoon was burning hot and now I have these scars on my legs. Living with her is like living in hell.'
The widespread abuse of Restavek has led the charity, Anti-Slavery International to condemn the practice as “one of the most severe examples of child domestic work, both in terms of the children’s young age and the abuses they suffer. These children are hidden from view, making them particularly vulnerable to physical, mental and sexual abuse.”
Poverty in the cities also plays a role in encouraging child exploitation. In the past, richer families would have used Restavek almost like au pairs. Today Restavek are much more likely to live with poor families who cannot afford to pay an adult to look after their own children while they are out trying to scrape a living.
About 20 years ago, Haiti came under tremendous international pressure to allow tax-free imports of basic food items. This made it impossible for local farmers to compete with cheap, subsidised food that was dumped onto the Haitian market by richer countries, mainly the US. Local rice production has fallen by half and sugar cane saw a similar steep decline. As a result, 82 % of families in the countryside live below the poverty line.
The Christian Aid country representative in Haiti explained that the only way to overcome the abuse of the Restavek system was to tackle rural poverty. “The Restavèk system is an odious system which deserves to be banished,”' he said . “But it will only be overcome if the international trade rules that keep people poor are reformed.”
Freedom! Sculpture by Haitian artists
As the UK commemorates the end of the slave trade, a group of Haitian artists have created a unique sculpture to represent their continuing struggle for freedom and human rights. The Freedom! Sculpture, made out of recycled objects such as metal car parts and raw junk found in the dangerous slums of the capital, Port-au-Prince, was created by young Haitians and sculptors in collaboration with Mario Benjamin, an internationally renowned Haitian artist.
To incorporate a sense of what freedom and slavery mean to people in Haiti today, the artists held workshops with young people. One of the young collaborators said: “People don’t have chains on their arms and legs now, but people still have chains in their minds. When you have problems getting enough food, housing and education, you are not living in a free country.” But, he said, working on this project made him see there was hope and “strength in being united”.
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