... Slavery has been illegal in Haiti longer than in any other nation (Haiti abolished slavery nearly sixty years before the United States). Yet the sending of children to work for other families continued. And as Haiti’s economy collapsed (it is now the poorest nation in the western hemisphere), the system of restavek mushroomed, now affecting as many as one in ten of Haiti’s children, according to the UN. Ideally, the child is enrolled in school by the household he or she is sent to, and treated like one of the family. In practice, this rarely happens: the child’s day is filled with chores, and even the youngest children are expected to fetch heavy buckets of water, hand-wash clothes, carry loads to and from the marketplace, and work in the fields – often working 14 hour days for no pay.
Children in the restavek system suffer a kind of apartheid, reduced to a subjugated and even sub-human status in their household and in society–sleeping on the floor, dressed in rags, eating leftovers, and often beaten.
Three-quarters are girls, and many are viewed by men in the family as convenient objects for sexual exploitation. Girls are often abruptly expelled from the household if they become pregnant ...
https://www.freetheslaves.net/LimyeLavi
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