The brutal life of Haiti's child slaves

[cali]

As soon as dawn breaks in Port-au-Prince the first children appear, staggering under the weight of five-gallon buckets of water.

The water carriers, many as young as 6-years-old, are some of the thousands of children living as virtual child slaves in the country.

Given away to other families by parents too poor to feed and clothe them, they cook, clean and fetch water without any payment.

Under what is known as the restavek system, the children are supposed to get food, shelter and a place at school in return. But for many, the reality is very different.

"Sometimes they beat me with lengths of electrical cable and sometimes they punch me," says 14-year-old restavek Jenette.

"I was grinding a coconut and I wasn't doing it very well so they took a knife and cut me with it," she says.

"My mother is dead and my father doesn't care for me. I would like to run away but I have nowhere to go."

Unicef estimates that there could be as many as 300,000 restavek children in Haiti, thousands living with the constant threat of violence.

"There is physical abuse, psychological abuse and there are cases of rape, and there are children who actually die from the abuses," says Julie Bergeron, Unicef head of child protection in Haiti.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8390000/8390444.stm

[unabelladonna]

1. why haiti?????

how did it become the poorest nation in the western hemisphere" what factors led it to become such a hellhole? other places were exploited, other places had dictators....why haiti?

[dustbunnie]

2. Economic sanctions by France, Britain and Spain didn't help at all.

Then there was the US invasion in the early 1900's. We left a plundering, inept puppet government as we are wont to do, and voila.

That's the Cliff's version.

[unabelladonna]

4. thanks.....

unfortunately haiti didn't have a fidel castro to bring it out of the 18th century. at one point there was a push to make it a tourist magnet but i guess it failed because it has no infrastructure. it's really tragic.

[Odin2005]

3. OMG!

:cry: