Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
I am humbled to have this opportunity to speak to you on behalf of the Restavek Freedom Foundation. Our mission is simple. It's to bring an end to the system of “restavek”, which is the French term “to stay with” and is commonly used as the word for child slave in Haiti.
In my opinion, Haiti is one the most beautiful places in the world. It has gorgeous beaches, no different from other Caribbean islands, yet Haiti is one of the most troubled places in the world. You may have images, as I do, of what most of us saw after the 2010 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, such as tent communities and slums like Cité Soleil, a microcosm of all the ills of Haitian society: endemic unemployment, illiteracy, non-existent public services, rampant crime, and armed violence.
Where in all of Haiti one in 10 children may be in restavek, according to a study conducted by the Pan American Development Foundation, in 2009, 44% of the children in Cité Soleil are considered restavek. In the 2013, the Walk Free Foundation’s global slavery index ranked Haiti number two in terms of the highest prevalence of modern-day slavery in the world.
In a country where 80% of its population lives in poverty, it’s not hard to explain how a child enters into restavek. A child born into a rural community may have 8 or 10 siblings. Parents think that their child might have a better chance of being fed and going to school living with another family, so they might send their child away from a rural town like Port-Salut to a less poor family in Port-au-Prince.
But the urban family has problems of their own. The woman of the house struggles with the demands of cooking and cleaning and raising her children with very little support. Without running water and electricity, the daily tasks of washing one’s clothes, going to market, going to the well, and cooking are time-consuming and physically taxing. So an arrangement is made and a child is brought from the rural area into an urban area and put to work, often physically beaten and verbally abused, rarely allowed to attend school, and becomes a child of restavek.
Slavery has been a part of the fabric of Haiti in its history and its culture since it became a French colony in 1697. In 1804, under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, the slaves overthrew the colonists. Plantations were burned, slaves were freed, the colonists were expelled, and a new nation was formed. Haiti is the only country in the world to be formed by a slaves’ rebellion, a source of great national pride; however, as the slaves earned their freedom, they faced many challenges. Struggles for power through coups, occupations, and infighting plagued Haiti.
So, despite its gorgeous landscape and beautiful people, today Haiti’s poverty and lack of infrastructure and services have left many families in need of cheap or free labour. Even though Haiti was founded on the abolition of one kind of slavery, another form persists, restavek.
There have been some efforts to protect children. For example, in 1985, the Government of Haiti passed child labour laws and said children younger than 12 cannot be employed as domestic workers; employers shall provide them with decent accommodations, clothing, a healthy diet, recreational time, and register them in conventional schools. Like Canada, Haiti also signed onto the UN General Assembly's Convention on the Rights of the Child. Haiti ratified it in 1994. Of course, there are some 52 articles covering children’s civil, social, and cultural rights. For example, children have the right not to be separated from their parents, the right to free primary education, and the right to protection from all forms of exploitation and abuse.
I want to tell you about one of the girls in our program named Nadia. She was in our child advocacy program, and in the fall of 2011 we learned that she had returned to her home village from Port-au-Prince. When our child advocates followed up with her, they learned that she had died soon after telling her parents what had happened to her, so our child advocates went to her home village.
In the eight years since we formed Restavek Freedom Foundation, this is one of our most tragic stories. Nadia was not only in restavek, but she was raped while living with her host family. The perpetrator and her host mother tried to force an abortion. She was physically beaten and bled to death. When she began to bleed, they promptly put her on a bus to her home village. She rode an additional two hours on a motorcycle to find her family, and was in their care for one day before she died. When our child advocates found her family, they were devastated, but they never considered reporting the incident. They didn’t know who cared and who could do anything about it.
We worked with the family, with the help of lawyers, to press charges. In a completely unprecedented manner, the perpetrator was actually arrested. We had such hope that the tide might be turning in Haiti, but then the court case got botched and the perpetrator was set free.
We believe that there is so much wrong with this story: the poverty that caused Nadia’s family to give her away; the abuse and rape while she was in restavek; the injustice that this perpetrator went free; and ultimately the untimely loss of a young girl's life. It broke all our hearts, yet, though there are laws in place, no rule of law regarding child labour or rape was enforced in her case.
I understand that Canada has progressive human trafficking legislation that addresses not only prevention, protection, and prosecution, but also partnership. Obviously, non-governmental organizations like ours would love to have the Canadian government partner with us to bring an end to child slavery in Haiti.
As a non-governmental actor working on behalf of children in restavek, we have a front row seat to see the beautiful things that are happening there. Restavek Freedom has over 700 children in our care through our child advocacy program. These are children who are in restavek and who, without our intervention, would not have had the opportunity to go to school, yet 72% of them are passing their national grade level exams.
We see attitudes towards restavek changing in Haiti. In 2001, Time Magazine quoted President Aristide, who expressed support for addressing the restavek issue and said that “this first requires an intense education policy, because it is so ingrained in Haiti that too many people don't even know they are breaking the law.” Today we have several programs that are working towards changing this attitude.
We've been airing a serial radio drama using the Sabido methodology of education entertainment to address restavek child protection and family planning. Thus far, we have a listenership of one million Haitians.
We have been running the Songs for Freedom music competition, engaging youth across the country to write original songs of freedom about restavek and perform them in regional competitions. These regional finalists have been speaking out on radio and television and have become ambassadors for our work. To date, over 20,000 Haitians have attended our regional competitions, and we have our national finals scheduled for August of 2014.
In partnership with the U.S. Department of State, we have hosted a series of Compassion and Courage conferences addressing the restavek issue and child protection with community leaders—largely religious leaders—reaching over 3,000 Haitian leaders.
We would love for the Canadian government to partner with us to continue to shift these attitudes and bring an end to child slavery in Haiti. We would love the Government of Canada to partner with us to encourage Haitian leaders.
Just last week, the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, in collaboration with UNICEF, the ILO, and 29 national and international organizations, including the Restavek Freedom Foundation, launched a new study focused on children in restavek. The minister said that “it was necessary to collect accurate data on the number and situation of child domestic workers, with a view to provide sustainable solutions.” We are thrilled about this opportunity and would love to have support to continue these efforts.
Finally, we’d love the Canadian government to partner with us to pressure Haitian leaders. Being number two in the world in terms of the highest prevalence of modern-day slavery is an unenviable position. We’d specifically like pressure on the Haitian government to adopt comprehensive legislation on human trafficking and to enforce legislation.
According to the U.S. Department of State “Trafficking In Persons Report” from 2013, Haiti used its laws against rape, prostitution, and other offences to pursue investigations against traffickers and those who exploit victims. However, there were no reports that these investigations led to any convictions. Additionally, the Brigade for the Protection of Minors recorded 94 cases of child trafficking and arrested and transferred 15 adults to state prosecutors, but none of these led to the prosecution stage.
We at Restavek Freedom believe that child slavery can be ended in Haiti in our lifetime. Though there is still much work to be done, there are many glimmers of hope, and we hope that we have an opportunity to partner with the Canadian government so that we don't have to tell Nadia's story any longer.
We thank you so much for this opportunity to provide a lens into the lives of the most vulnerable children in Haiti.