RESTAVEK OR "STAY WITH"

   Disadvantaged children in Haiti face a problem called the Restavek. A restavek can be defined as either the person or the system. Often rural families who cannot care for their children send them to other caretakers in urban areas where education and living conditions are better. The intent is positive. The children are expected to do housework in exchange for receiving care and education. But often these children are subjected to abuse and poor treatment by their "caretakers." As a result, these children do not receive a proper education and suffer physical, mental and emotional abuse.
   Jean Cadet was once a restavek himself and has founded a non-profit organization called the Jean R. Cadet Restavek Organization which brings awareness of this travesty and works to end child slavery in Haiti. The Pan American Development Foundation did a door-to-door poll recently and discovered 225,000 restaveks in Haiti, as well as "11% of households who have restaveks send their own children to work as restaveks for someone else."
   According to CNN. "The United Nations condemns Restavek as a 'modern form of slavery' where children are forced to serve the families they've been sent to by doing domestic work." Restaveks and the Restavek system are the main focus of the Internaional Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti. Sadly, restavek is translated as "stay with," which has a sense of irony for these children who may never get out of this system. Some of the children who manage to escape are picked up by authorities and are referred to the Haitian Social Welfare Institute. They are then sent to another care taking facility until their biological families can be reached. When these children are no longer needed, their "caretakers" release them from the household. The children are left to fend for themselves. Girls may be forced into servitude or become prostitutes and the boys often become criminals. IOM seeks to address and help them.
   Most of the restaveks are taken from their homes because the parents are told, "You have too many children. Let us take them and you will get money to start a small business. You 'll be able to visit the United States.." Since these parents live in impoverished conditions, they give their children away to what they believe is a better future.
   Haitian Homes for Haitian Children works to keep families intact and prevent child abandonment. Their goal is to see a day when the abuse of the restavek system ends and child slavery in all forms seeks to exist.

              By Alex Le