Child Abuse - Haiti Observer Blog

There are a lot of facts to know about children in Haiti. Primary school is attended by just about 20% of the children and after primary grade many of the children don't attend school. Many of the schools barely have canteens or cafeterias.

Estimates On Status Of Haitian Children As Per 1998
As per estimates of 1998, the death rate per 1000 children was 99. Lack of care and medication are the main reasons for 25% to 30% death of children in the provinces. It is through a church that the missionaries support around 60% of the private schools in Haiti. Around 60% of the children hardly get three meals per day. Many of the children have no breakfast or lunch.

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Whether the victim is tricked into owing a debt, forced into servitude, or sent to work as an unpaid domestic, all are forms of slave labor.

Sources in the international community say that enslavement is a threat to anybody by virtue of random circumstances not under their control. In some instances, victims are lured by promises of a better life. Preying upon the destitute and naïve from underdeveloped countries, seeking a way out of their misery, these predators ensnare and coerce their victims into debt bondage.

An illustration of this method of slavery is the plight of illegal crossing over the border from Mexico into the U.S. Lured by rumors of work, they are picked up during the border cross and told there are jobs waiting for them. They ride for days, caged within the vehicle, with no chance to eat or relieve themselves.

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The term used for children with this arrangement is restavek (one who stays).

Haiti suffers the reputation as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Many Haitian families cannot afford the care of their own children, so they send them to live with rich families as unpaid domestics or Restaveks.

Sometimes a restavek will live with a family, who can afford to educate them and give them adequate living conditions. If not, will use the floor as their bed and be subjected to sexual abuse.

Restaveks are domestic slaves, and the majority of them are girls, 80% of them. They perform household chores, not for pay, but in return for shelter, food, clothing, and education, usually of inferior quality. Even under optimal conditions, restaveks have inferior status in the household, even with peers and younger.

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The child slave trade has been growing exponentially during the last decade.

After landing in the streets, 2.8 million juveniles are snatched by pornographers. Nearly 1 million children are forced to prostitute themselves. What is even more horrific is their extreme youth, averaged at age 12.

Within U.S. borders, 200,000 juveniles are at peril for being exploited within the sex trade each year. It is estimated child trafficking in the world market is pulling in $12 billion plus every year, affecting 1.2 million plus children. Women and girls make up 80% of victims, half of them minors. Numbering 300,000-400,000, they are kidnapped, bought, and sold between countries for use in the sex trade business.

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Authorities in West palm Beach County, Florida, reported that Datilus who is from Haiti impregnated a Haitian girl in 2009 who were 9 years old at the time. He received a life sentence last Wednesday which will give him plenty of time to think about his crime.

The "Haitian Joudalist" learned that the impregnated girl already gave birth to the baby. She carried her child full term and delivered the baby after she turned ten. The father of the impregnated child did not know about the pregnancy until he took her for a routine medical check-up.

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A child's grandmother, Sylvenie Thessier who is 71, is likely to go to prison for watching her grand-daughter being set on fire and not taking any action.

According to a report from New York Daily news, back in June 2009, Marie Lauradin sprayed rum over her child and set her on fire during a voodoo ceremony in Queens Village, in an attempt to clear her from evil spirits. The mother was accused of setting her daughter Frantzcia Saintil on fire.

Now, the grand mother, Sylvenie Thessier will be charged as well for negligence as she was present at the time of the incident and did not do anything to protect the child.

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Ten Americans detained in Port-au-Prince on child trafficking charges. Will these people be treated like Haitian prisoners or will they have special preferences. So far, according to these pictures, the detainees affiliated with Baptist churches in Meridian and Twin Falls, Idaho have not been in a four star hotel in Haiti.

Carla Thompson lay on a bed in a scorching jail cell about 8 feet by 5 feet, her ankles bandaged from infected mosquito bites. Sitting on a dirty concrete floor in the cell, another detainee, Corinna Lankford, has a frustrated look on her face.

The detainees, most of whom are arrived in the chaotic days after the Jan. 12 Haiti earthquake. They were detained as they tried to take 33 Haitian children whom the Baptists had said were orphaned into the neighboring Dominican Republic.

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