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Combating Child Labor in Haiti
Ending Modern-Day Slavery
In modern Haiti more than 300,000 children are victims of domestic slavery. In Haitian Creole they are called “restaveks” from the French “rester avec” meaning “stay with.” Many parents who live in poverty are unable to feed their children and give them away to orphanages or to more affluent families, hoping that their child will be fed, cared for, and sent to school. Unfortunately, that’s not often the case. But, with a few exceptions, these children become slaves, working in the homes of their “masters” from early morning till night. Girls comprise the majority of restavek children and are particularly vulnerable to abuse, sexual violence, and rape.
For many children, the day is filled with chores. Even the youngest are expected to fetch heavy buckets of water, hand-wash clothes, carry loads to and from the marketplace, and work in the fields—often laboring for 14 hours a day for no pay—sleeping on the floor, dressed in rags, eating leftovers, and often beaten. When confronted with reality, we must respond. This is not someone else’s crisis…it’s all of ours.
Project Hope
Although in the Haitian constitution education is “free”, only half of all children are enrolled in primary school. This is because 92% of schools are private, leaving most families unable to pay school fees. The average yearly cost to send a child to school ranges from $1,400.00 USD in the inner-city area and $552.00 USD in the countryside. This includes enrolment fees, tuition, uniforms, books, shoes, and all other supplies. This fee eliminates nearly all children’s attendance, especially in rural Haiti where 70% of the Haitian population lives.
At Risk Children’s “Project Hope” views schooling as an essential component to the solution of Child labor. Through increasing quality and access to affordable education for poor children and skills training for poor youth and women, this project aims to give a concrete possibility of social and economic empowerment to the adults of tomorrow and to all their families
This community approach is based on the argument that building community consensus against children in domesticity (restavèk) can prevent and reverse the flow of children into child labor, and to take preventive action with their neighbors, support the return and reintegration of these children.
The overall goal of this project is to allow overage students to complete the standard six-year primary school curriculum in three years, while teaching them skills, and livelihoods interventions that integrate food and household security components to match the community’s will to protect children while keeping them at home.
Economic Empowerment
