Restavec is a child in Haiti who is sent to work for a host household as a domestic servant by their parents because the parents do not have adequate opportunities to provide food and shelter to their children. In many cases, the child is abused.(1)
There is needed an enforceable and efficient protection of law to prevent Child Abuse in Haiti, however the Government is disable to fight with Child Slavery. Despite a state is liable for protecting fundamental human rights, Haitian Government does not adopt domestic laws against child abuse.
I intend to highlight state liability for protection of fundamental human rights (especially child rights), and measures which are adopted in the international platform such as; "The Convention On The Rights Of The Child" (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly). Governments that ratify The Convention On The Rights Of Child or one of its Optional Protocols must report to the Comitee On The Rights Of The Child. The Commitee is made up 18 experts who have legal backgrounds in the field of children's rights from different countries. They are nominated and elected by States but they act in a personal capacity, not as representatives of their countries.
Having agreed to meet the standarts of The Convention, Governments are obliged to bring their legislation, policy and practice in accordance with the standarts in the Convention; to transform the standarts into reality for all children; and to abstain from any action that may preclude the enjoyment of those rights or violate them. Government should report, periodically, to a commitee of independent experts on their progress tp achieve all the standarts. Report Samples of Haiti are given a place below.
Haiti is a Carribean country and she taes place on the island Hispanola, "Little Spain". The larger part of the country is mountanious and inhabitable, therefore the urban cities are densely populated.(2)
According to the census in 2009, Haiti has about 9 million citizens. The Capital; Port-au-Prince has 2.5 million habitants. There is a cramped narrowness with noise, dirt, dust, constant daily traffic jams at the inadequate roads. There is a very significant infrastructure problems.
Haiti is a low income country which suffers from high inflation rates and lack of investment. There are grants from USA and the other developed countries for solving this problem, but without much success. Haitians' incomes depend on a small scale farming. Because of the fact that the country suffers from natural disasters, the agriculture sector is being damaged. Nevertheless Haiti has an agricultural export sector. There is also fishing and forestry. Mangos, coffee, cocoa and soap are the dominant products of the industry.
In Haiti, 70% of the population live under the subsistence level, the unemployment rate is about 65% and unfortunately only %5 of the citizens live in prosperity. according to the results of Unicef research; Haiti has the highest rates of infants under five and maternal mortality in the Western Hemisphere. Malaria, tuberclosis and HIV/AIDS are leading cases of death. 60% of the population, primarily in rural areas, lack access to basic health-care services. Only a little over half of primary school age children are enrolled in school. Less than 2% of children graduate from secondary school.
As many a 2.000 children are trafficked to the Dominian Republic in a year, often with their parents' support.
There is a kind of child slavery which is known as "Restavec System". Parents who are too poor to feed and clothe their kids give away their children to other families. In this system the children are supposed to be fed properly, get shelter and be sent to school in return. Nevertheless for many, the reality is very different. The restavec children face bad threatment. They are forced to work in very heavy conditions. Most of them sleep under a kitchen table, are beaten (in many cases; with whips). They are physically, emotionally and psychologically abused and their parents are often unaware of how their children being threated.
Unicef estimates that there could be as many as 300.000 restavec children in Haiti, tousands living with the constant threat of violence. "There are cases of rape and there are children who actually die from abuses." emphasized Julie Bergeron, Unicef Head of Children Protection in Haiti.(3)
A United Nations expert on contemporary forms of slavery, Gulnara Shahinian visited Haiti on the invitation of the government and issued a report that included the recommendations summarized below:
She urges the Government to establish a national commission on children, with special attention given to vulnerable children, to monitor and ensure protection of the rights of children. The Special Rapporteur further recommends that in the area of prevention, the Government develop proactive complex prevention programmes to eliminate the practice of restavec. She believes that the Government of Haiti should take urgent measures to bring local legislation into conformity with international legal instruments ratified by Haiti; ratify the International Covenant on Economic,, Social and Cultural Rights, The International Convention On The Protection Of The Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; and adopt immediate and long-term measures to adress shortcomings in Te Aministration of Jstice in the country.
Jonathan Willis (photographer) stated that; He got the phone call in July. Two weeks later he stapped off a plane into the shanty hills of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. With his camera gear strapped to his back, he was ready to begin telling the story of the restavec children.
He had no idea what he would find.
He is a father. On his second day in Haiti, he walked into a room filled with children given unknowingly into slavery by their own fathers and mothers. Seventy-five children and nota sound. The silence was unnatural and horrifying. Not a child made eye contact; they looked to the corners of the ceiling, to the ground. In their ill-fitting clothes - some in rags, some wearing the handed down dresses of their owner's legitimate children - they filed into a smaller room where his team asked them questions. If they were indeed restavec children, Willis asked if they wanted to go to school.
"Qui" the child would answer. Yes. They knew school provided some escape. The restavec system is a common Haitian practise, so the injustice is ignored. Parents are lured into sendind their children to families in the city in hopes they'll find a better future and education. But many children become an object of labour and abuse. Poverty breeds desperation. Lack of education breeds slavery. This exhibition is filled with those restavec children. These story is in their faces, and it's a consistent story. The same fear, confusion and detachment rises again, again, and again. If there is any hope there, it is buried. If there is a rescue there, it will happen through the people who look into their faces and see the injustice - and the beauty - and then act on it.
When he finished taking the portraits, he walked away from the building. Some of the restavec children were standing behind a pole, while other children - the parented - laughed at them. It was such a dark place.
He got back to his home in the United States and reached for his own children. In his bag, he had hundreds of photographs demanding he stayed engaged with what he just left behind. He hadaen those children into a vulnerable place by taking their portraits - by being an adult who smiled at them, said "bonjour" and "merci" and did not strike them. It could not stop with that.
"What will you do?", his wife asked.
"Take their stories out to others", he said. "I will not meet the restavec silence with my own silence".
He is right.
The Haitian Government does not comply with the provisions of the Convention On The Rights Of Child because it has not created adequate domestic legislation to fight against child servitude.
In November 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention On The Rights Of The Child, recognizing "that in all countries in the worls, there are children living in exceptionally difficult conditions, and that such children need special consideration."
Then in May 2000, the General Assembly adopted an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
In 1990, the UN Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography with a mandate to investigate the problem and submit reports to the General Assembly.
The Convention On The Rights Of The Child is signed by 191 countries. Somali and USA have not signed the convention. Article 4 regulates that parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures for the implemention of the rights recognized in the present Convention. With regard to economic, social and cultural rights, States Parties shall undertake such measures to the maximum extent of their available resources and, where needed, within the framework of international co-operation. Although Haiti is a state party, the government failed to perform it's obligations due to poverty.
According to the Humanitarian Action Report 2010, the emergency needs to fulfill core commitments for children (for 2010) are these;
Healt and Nutrition 5.400.000 USD
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) 2.200.000 USD
Education 2.800.000 USD
Child Protection 2.100.000 USD
HIV/AIDS 500.000 USD
TOTAL 13.000.000 USD
By ratifying the Convention On The Rights Of The Child in 1995, Haiti effectively gave it superior legal authority to all domestic legislation, with the exception of the Constitution. Though Haiti attemptted to strengthen the implementation of the Convention in presenting a draft Children's Code to Parliament in 1998, after a postponement of the Code's review, the lack of functioning Parliament has prevented it from making further progress in the legislatiive process. Even before Haiti signed the CRC, the Constitution passed in 1987 called for a Family Code, but the legislature has yet to approve one. Haiti did, however, adopt a law in 2001 prohibiting the use of corporal punishment.
Although law has established several government agencies to provide social assistance, including protection to children, in practise, the systems cannot be properly functioned due to a lack of resources and political upheaval. The Social Welfare and Research Institute and the Social Welfare Fund (which are established by the Ministry of Social Affairs) are responsible for aiding parents with their parental responsibilities. Nevertheless, Haiti reported to the Committee on the Rights of the Child that, "the State does not intervene directly in family life in order to safeguard the best interests of the child, owing partly to the opposition of the families themselves and partly to the State's own lack of resources."
If the government had the resources and political stability to implement the child protective legislation, Haiti has no provision requiring children to be heard in protective proceedings. Despite Haiti's admission that the government does not intervene in families to protect children, in the same report, Haiti states:
In practice, there are a number of administrative procedures that bear witness to the Government's desire to respect children's views. Separation from parents, for example, is never a decision guided purely by the objective interests of the child, but usually occurs within the agreement and consent of the child in particular. The IBESR and the juvenile court take account of children's preferences in this regard. (4) So, presumably, were child protective procedures to take place in Haiti, administrative procedures direct authorities to consult the child. At the same time, Haiti acknowledges that a cultural lack of tolerance often prevents children from participating in decisions affecting them, especially in poorer populations. (5)
Numerous factors prevent Haiti's implemention of the CRC. After a violent rebellion forced the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to escape from the country in February of 2004, Haiti has not been able to establish new permanent government. Haiti is a low income country, suffers from natural disasters and there are significant infrastructure problems. Moreover, the country suffers from social unrest and violation.
Sources of Law;
The Consitution of the Republic of Haiti (Constitution de la Republique d'Haiti) (6)
Article 261:
The law ensures protection for all children. Any child is entitled to love, affection, understanding and moral and physical care from its father and mother.
Article 262 :
A Family Code must be drawn up to ensure protection and respect for the rights of the family and to define procedures of the search for affiliation. Courts and other Government agencies charges with the protection of these rights must be accessible free charge at the level of the smallest territorial division.
Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified Jun. 7,1995
Article 12 :
1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.
Law No. 9 on Minors, Custodianship, and Emancipation (7)
Art. 336 :
Any minor without a guardian will be provided one by the family council. This council will be convoked at the request of the parents of the minor, his creditors or other interested parties and even by itself, through the judge of the peace of the domicile of the minor.
Any person can inform the judge of the peace of the facts that give rise to the naming of a guardian.
In conclusion, Haitian law does not specifially prohibit trafficking internally or cross-border, so seeking judicial redress is futile, and police child protection unit does not pursue these cases because statutory restrictions do not exist.
Nonetheless, in March 2009, the Haitian Parliament ratified (but does not enforce) the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its protocols on human trafficking and smuggling. The parliament is also considering a human trafficking
law, but real social charge was never before achieved, except under Aristide. Haitians have been oppressed for over 500 years. The current government has done nothing to change the situation, and now cannot under occupation.
Last but not least;
"Please let me go back home! Don't make me stay here! I think I'm only about 11 and why can't I be with my family? Why do I have to stay here? I wish I were back home. I miss it so much!"
This tragic plea of help is not only a problem of Haiti but a global issue that should be solved.
Footnotes:
1) Restavec From Haitian Slave Child to Middle Class American - Jean Robert Cadet
3)Julie Bergeron, Unicef Head Of Children Protection in Haiti
4) Initial reports of States parties due in 1997: Haiti
5) Initial reports of States parties due in 1997: Haiti
6) Constitution de la Republique d'Haiti (art; 261, 262)
7) no. 9 sur la minorite, la tutelle et l'emancipation (art;336)
