Haiti fears deportations will mean surge of child servants
David Mcfadden, Associated Press
Updated 11:34 am, Monday, June 5, 2017
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Watson Saint Fleur is 12 but he's never attended a day of school. He's toiled in hardship doing household chores and peddling plastic bags of drinking water along city streets noisy with motorbikes and trucks.
He's one of Haiti's "restaveks," a term to describe children whose poor parents hand them over to others in hopes they'll have opportunities to escape a dead-end life or at least get more food. It's a practice deeply ingrained in Haiti, where families frequently have numerous kids despite crushing poverty.
For many, that better life never arrives. Many are exploited as domestic servants in households only slightly better off, working long hours in exchange for food and a spot to sleep on a shack's floor. An untold number endure regular beatings, are deprived of an education and are victims of sexual abuse. And their numbers have been growing sharply as urban slums expand and poverty in the countryside deepens.
Studies indicate the population of child domestic workers rose from some 172,000 in 2002 to roughly 286,000 in 2014 — four years after an earthquake flattened much of Port-au-Prince and outlying areas, killing as many as 300,000 and leaving some 1.5 million people homeless.
More:
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Haiti-fears-deportations-will-mean-surge-of-child-11195524.php
LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141791914
