May 20 2008
Haitians in Miami convicted of child slavery
(Source: Children at Risk Foundation)
The word “restavek” means “stay-with” in Creole, and 300,000 children in Haiti (or, 10 percent of the population under 18 years old) are restaveks. Coming from impoverished rural areas in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, most of these children are given up by parents who cannot afford to take care of them. Families are often promised by middlemen that their children will be cared for and educated, but in most cases they are sold to families who are only a little bit better off: Households that cannot afford to employ real servants and so buy children as domestic slaves instead. They frequently double as sex servants, too.
It is, well, normal, as Carmen Russel and Dane Liu uncovered last summer for MSNBC. The report also features a video about a restavek-owning household.
As inexcusable as such a practice is in Haiti, it seems all the more appalling when someone who has immigrated to the U.S. bring restaveks with them to slave away in their suburban homes. Not that the U.S. has such a great track record, of course.
The New York Times reported that Simone Celestin, who was adopted at 5 years old, was forced to work 15-hour days for Evelyn Theodore, 74, and Maude Paulin, her 52-year-old daughter. She escaped and pressed charges, resulting in the conviction of the women.
Lawyers for the defense accuse the girl of lying about her working conditions, claiming that Haiti and Haitian culture is simply old-fashioned.
