The question here is if this unregulated system leads to slavery. Clearly there are many children being cared for in Haiti in a compassionate manor by this system. Yet, there are children being abused and enslaved by the same system. Is the restavek system slavery? No. Can it lead to the enslavement of children? Yes.
We are left with how to honor a cultural tradition and protect the rights of children. At 100% for Haiti we believe that these answers lie in education and empowerment of communities. Please feel free to join us on our blog for a discussion of this issue.
Ideas and discussion on how to address this issue?
Please read article at
http://leoganais.com/2011/03/is-restavek-in-haiti-really-slavery/comment-page-2/#comment-6237
2 comments:
Long ago when a bright child was sent to city relatives for secondary school in return for household work and company for an elderly aunt or similar, when the city was much more civilised (Port au Prince was the pride of the Caribbean with 1/4 million people, 30 years ago - not the sprawling slum of 3 million of today), restavek was different. Now that the US has killed Haiti's almost food-self-sufficient rice farming industry, and the rural population has no choice but to seek the few sweatshop jobs in cities, crowding the slums... no sanitation, no civil engineering, no infrastructure have been achieved for the 12x greater urban population... it's a hellish life for the original city dwellers let along the rest, and restavek kids are on the bottom of the heap.
To my mind it is slavery, and the consequences - particularly in the lives of restavek girls - are often horrific as sexual abuse (and hence pregnancy and early entrapment in childbearing) becomes more and more likely when they are teenagers, from almost any male in the host family or community, or even school. However I do know several adult Haitians who survived it and feel the opportunities it gave them in living in the city and education, offset all the problems - and in their cases, enabled them to become real citizens. This means the system is self-perpetuating as many older people don't admit its failures. In the sense that for those whose restavek environment is less abusive, it comes to an end when they are adult and have enough education to find a real job, it can't be called slavery. But then Haiti is estimated to have between 45 and 70% unemployment... so what these children are aquiring may be mainly city street-skills to enable them to survive?
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