Just when people thought that Haiti had experienced more than its fair share of economic and social nightmares, the U.S. State Department has added to the Caribbean country's woeful picture.
In a global report on human trafficking, coming on the heels of the devastating earthquake of January 12th, which left at 250,000 people dead, 1.2 million homeless, and $6 billion in infrastructural damage in Haiti, the Obama Administration has complained loudly about the plight of children in the French Creole-speaking country.
Stated bluntly, the U.S. State Department charged that at least 225,000 Haitian children were victims of forced domestic servitude or slavery before the onslaught of the deadly earthquake. That estimated figure has skyrocketed since then.
If accurate, the numbers indicate that more children are living in bondage, Washington calls them "restaveks" or slaves, than there are people in several United Nations member-states combined – Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, St. Kitts-Nevis, Liechtenstein and Monaco.
"An estimated 225,000 children were enslaved as restaveks prior to the 2010 earthquake," was the way the State Department put it in its document. "Even more children are vulnerable to exploitation in the earthquake's aftermath."
In the blistering report on Haiti, Washington zeroed in on the country's abysmal record of enslaving children in the 21st century and it highlighted the problem of "forced labor and forced prostitution" as major trafficking nightmares confronting the country. It charged that about 3,000 enslaved Haitian children could be found in the Dominican Republic.
"The majority of trafficking cases are found among the estimated 225,000 restaveks – the term for the practice of child slavery in domestic settings – in Haiti and the approximately 3,000 additional Haitian restaveks living in the Dominican Republic," It stated. "The majority of the children become restaveks when they move to cities to live with extended families in the hopes of going to school.
"Restaveks are treated differently from other non-biological children living in households," it went on. "In addition to involuntary servitude, restaveks are particularly vulnerable to beatings, sexual assaults and other abuses by family members in the homes in which they are residing. Restaveks are often dismissed when they become teenagers. Dismissed and runaway restaveks make up a significant portion of the large population of street children, who frequently are forced to work in prostitution or street crime by violent criminal gangs."
The report was quick to point out that the earthquake made a bad situation worse as seen in the "record number of restaveks" turning up at homeless shelters since the disaster.
They can also be found in "internally displaced persons camps," it says. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Haitian National Police and NGOs are reporting that they have come across many cases of forced labor and prostitution "of children and adults since the earthquake."
A frightening development since the earthquake involved women and girls who were being exploited by "security guardians" in the camps for the homeless who were forced to pay, presumably with their bodies, "in exchange for protection."
As a matter of fact, NGOs have identified 816 restaveks in five camps for the homeless in Port-au-Prince since the earthquake.
But the problem doesn't end there. According to the United Nations, women from the Dominican Republic were in Haitian brothels, frequented by UN peacekeeping soldiers. On top of that Haitian women who leave home voluntarily for such neighboring countries as the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and their Caribbean neighbors, as well as the United States and South American nations, "faced conditions of forced labor."
On the broader issue of human trafficking, the State Department praised NGOs for taking steps to prevent human trafficking, but it criticized some members of the international aid community for disregarding "input" by the Haitian government when they were developing a strategy to deal with trafficking.
For instance, the report cited the case of "influential members of the international aid community" in Haiti who were promoting "family-based foster care for unaccompanied minors," an approach the Administration of President Rene Preval was concerned about, fearing that "it could lead to more children in situations of forced labor – similar to restaveks – because the government lacks the capacity to adequately monitor placements."
Washington's concerns about the role of NGOs didn't stop there.
The State Department complained that NGOs had gone so far as to come up with their own "divergent definition of trafficking," which in the end had "further hindered coordinated anti-trafficking strategies."
To make matters worse, some international organizations were going off on their own often unaware of local efforts already in place to deal with the problem.
The report urged the government to enact legislation criminalizing forced prostitution, including involuntary domestic servitude, while at the same time imposing stiff penalties that "reflect the heinous nurture of this human rights abuse."
Just as important was the need, the Department explained, for access to "quality education for all children" and support services for victims of human trafficking.
It also called on NGOs to work in partnership with the government and Haitian organizations "on anti-trafficking responses" and to formulate a common definition of trafficking which would include "forced child labor such as that experienced by restaveks."
