Free Forever Haiti’s Child Slaves, the Restaveks

I’ve read that there were as many 10,000 non-governmental charity organizations (NGO) operating in Haiti before the earthquake, providing aid to the population. Yet according to the Pan American Development Foundation there were as many as 250,000 children between the ages of 9 and 14 who were allowed to be exploited there as slaves (restaveks) under the most despicable conditions. Instead of enabling this peculiar institution to continue these organizations should have gotten it stopped.

While the world works to rebuild Haiti, let us “Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring” to forever free the restaveks. “Have not our weary feet come to the place for which our fathers sighed?” Not yet. Not in Haiti.

<IMHO> Fred Jacobsen