Hopeless,Alone and Invisible

Human trafficking is an issue of global concern. It is an issue that has far reaching significance when you consider how countries are exploiting not just men and women, but children. The exploitation, labor and sexual trafficking of children in Haiti has long been ignored. Labor trafficking in Haiti is referred to as the “restavek system”. There is a cultural belief that children serve an economic purpose, and that purpose obligates children to provide labor for the family. Child labor has a long history in Haiti. In Haiti, ongoing political instability, successive natural disasters, extreme poverty, gang violence and kidnapping have left children vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation, gender-based violence and sex trafficking. The structural conditions of extreme poverty and the cultural restavek system will be examined in this research. Along with exploring how sexual tourism targets children, raising the rates of underground demand and trade in exploited and trafficked children; this research will seek recommendations to address human trafficking in Haiti.

Central Questions

1. What are the critical causes of child sex trafficking in Haiti?

2. How does the restavek system support trafficking?

3. Why is the restavek system seen as modern-day slavery?

4. How are children induced into the restavek system?

5. What if anything is the Haitian government doing to protect Haitian children?

6. What has been the international community’s response to child slavery in Haiti?Introduction

7. The research presented in this paper will attempt to explain and compare the contributing causes of human trafficking in the tiny country of Haiti. Although Haiti had the largest slave revolt in 1804, today it struggles with a form of modern-day slavery known as the restavek system of domestic servitude. The research will explore the ongoing socioeconomic and infrastructural challenges that worsen the exploitation and vulnerability children trafficked and induced into this restavek system, face. This research will also explore how the Haitian cultural practice of kinship rationalizes Haitian families’ participation in the restavek system, and affects the international community’s perception of the restavek system.

8. This research focuses on the interrelationship between the economic and sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and human trafficking of children in Haiti. The cultural practice of domestic servitude is called the restavek system. The word restavek in French Creole means “stay with”. Restaveks are children in Haiti who are given away by their parents as domestic servants, because they are unable to provide for their basic needs. Restaveks are described as modern-day slaves. Restavek children are typically from poor, rural families, who are typically sent to live with other family members or strangers. It is estimated that approximately 300,000 children are victims of domestic slavery. Human trafficking is a matter of global concern. It is an issue that has far reaching significance when you look at how countries are exploiting not just men and women, but children. The exploitation, labor and sexual trafficking of children in Haiti has long been ignored.

9. Labor trafficking in Haiti is referred to as the “restavek system”. There is a cultural belief that children serve an economic purpose, and that purpose obligates children to provide labor for the family. Child labor has a long history in Haiti. In Haiti, ongoing political instability, successive natural disasters, extreme poverty, gang violence and kidnapping have left children vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation, gender-based violence and sex trafficking. The structural conditions of extreme poverty and the cultural restavek system will be examined in this research.

The research conducted here will explore the enslavement and trafficking of the estimated 300,000 children in the restavek system, and proposed government countermeasures, prevention efforts and recommendations for Haiti. These issues will be viewed in context of the current political upheaval in Haiti, following the assassination of Jovenel Moise in 2021.

In light of the current political unrest, tracking any projected increase in the number of restavek children being trafficked into the United States and the Dominican Republic, should prove to be instructive. Most of Haiti’s trafficking involves children being coerced into forced labor and sexual trafficking. Children in licensed and unlicensed orphanages, and street children face the highest risk of exploitation by trafficking and smuggling operations. Theoretical Framework

In this paper the theoretical perspectives of Nadeja K. Marinova and Patrick James help to explain human trafficking. Marinova and James examine the root causes of global human trafficking and efforts to fight trafficking. Although the geographic region of investigation was Europe in post-Cold War, the theory and ideas on human trafficking research offered an analysis which proved useful in comprehending modern day slavery. The research is relevant in examining human trafficking in Haiti and restavek children.

 Trafficking is a transnational crime that encompasses not only women, but also children and men. It includes not only sex trafficking, but also trafficking for the purposes of labor and organ transplants. (Marinova & James, 2012)

It is critically important to explore the trafficking and placement of children outside the home in Haiti. Cultural anthropologists Glenn R. Smucker and Gerald F. Murray sought to identify the causes of child trafficking in Haiti. They examined a little-known Haitian child labor practice, known as restavek (living with): the restavek system draws its numbers from the cross-border migration of Haitian children into the Dominican Republic, which was identified as a key contributing factor to the statistical rise in child trafficking, abuse and exploitation. The Smucker and Murray study’s tracking of the risk of child victimization supports the idea that the restavek system and cross border migration contribute to the rates of trafficking, victimization, and economic and sexual exploitation of children in Haiti. In their study: “The Uses of Children: A Study of Trafficking in Children”, Smucker and Murray identified the following additional factors which increase the vulnerability of restavek children to trafficking and exploitation: prolonged periods of poverty, estrangement  from parents/guardians or caregivers due to abandonment/death/or negligence, proximity to high-intensity markets for child labor such as border towns and urban centers, and the relative affluence of the Dominican Republic, coupled with the nation’s expressed high demand for cheap labor performed by Haitian immigrants. (Smucker & Murray, n.d.) The research conducted in this paper will seek to draw a connection between several sources. The primary scholarly research is informed by the work done by Glenn R. Smucker and Gerald F. Murray. Smucker and Murray used a qualitative research methodology to understand the child human trafficking issues in Haiti.

Smucker & Murray’s work is entitled The Uses of Children: A Study of Trafficking in Haitian Children, the focus is to document evidence of abuse affecting children in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The two authors used a qualitative research methodology to understand the child human trafficking issues in Haiti. These two authors used a variety of methods to collect data as part of the research, which included: case studies, in-depth interviews of restavek children, community observations and field interviews. While conducting this study, Smucker and Murray found evidence of recruitment by cross border smugglers involving child labor in several northern communities in the Dominican Republic. (Smucker & Murray, n.d.)

Conceptual Theoretical Approach

When the U.S. Department of State released its 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report: Haiti was designated as a Tier 2 country on the state department’s watch list. The state department reported that the Haitian government did not make “sufficient efforts” to combat situations of child domestic servitude. “Restavek” is the Creole word for child domestic servitude. In Haiti it has been reported that children are being given away to work because the parents lack resources for survival. I find it disturbing that families are essentially selling their children to meet their basic needs. I will research the exploitation and trafficking of the estimated 300,000 children, believed to be laboring in the restavek system, as well as any existing government prevention efforts and recommendations for Haiti. Considering the current political unrest, I am interested in tracking the growing number of restavek children coming into the United States and the Dominican Republic. Children, induced into forced labor and sex work, make up a large segment of Haitian citizens trafficked each year. These children, from impoverished rural families, licensed and unlicensed orphanages, many of whom, who are unhoused, face the highest risks of victimization by trafficking and smuggling operations.  The findings of the state department’s Trafficking in Persons Report supported this demographic profile, reporting:

A study released in 2018 found significant numbers of children in orphanages are likely victims of trafficking and approximately 50 of the total 750 orphanages in Haiti are either licensed or becoming officially licensed. Female foreign nationals, particularly citizens of the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, are particularly at risk for sex and labor trafficking in Haiti. Traffickers also target children in private and NGO-sponsored residential care centers. (UN 2006)

One notable antitrafficking measure, is The Palermo Protocol. The Palermo Protocol was adopted in 2003 to prevent, suppress and punish human trafficking. It outlined protections for victims’ The legal provisions criminalized human trafficking. (UN 2006)

 Article 3, Paragraph (A) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, defines trafficking in this way:

Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs (UN 2006). 

Marinova and James compare four approaches which characterize the trafficking of women in their research; which, when examined, could shed some light on the trafficking of children. The “migration approach” treats trafficked women strictly as illegal migrants. It views trafficking without incorporating the gender dimension, as a crime involving predominantly women, and without accounting for the human rights aspects of trafficking (Ugarer 1999:231-232). Human trafficking in this view is a threat to state security.

The second approach Marinova and James referenced characterizes human trafficking by comparing "radical feminist” and “prohibitionist" stances on the legality, and ethicality of sex work, and by designating some victims of sex trafficking as "sex workers”, framing human trafficking as a human rights issue and matter of bodily autonomy. Marinova and James recognize sexual exploitation and prostitution as violations of woman’s body and spirit and therefore subjects of feminist concern. (Marinova & James, 2012)

The third approach is the “laborist approach”, which views trafficked women and children as exploited economic actors in need of human rights and labor protections. And the fourth approach is termed “repressive”, because it continues Marinova and James’ dialectical analysis of the "radical feminist” and “prohibitionist" perspectives on the legalization of prostitution, with a focus on the “repressive” or “prohibitionist” arguments against legalization (Marinova & James, 2012). Each approach helps to define trafficking and condemn trafficking, without offering concrete recommendations on how to protect trafficking victims.

Methodology

This paper uses quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches in examining the problem of human trafficking in Haiti. Data from case studies, interviews with restavek children and biographies from multiple sources are used. Since the Haitian government does not currently regulate the restavek market and there are no documented cases of governmental intervention or interference in the restavek trade, there is no data available verifying the exact number of restavek children in Haiti. It is estimated that 300,000 children are part of the restavek system. . It has been documented that not only are children being recruited from impoverished rural families, but also from licensed and unlicensed orphanages, and NGO-sponsored residential centers.

Smucker & Murray conducted their field interviews using a qualitative methodological inquiry approach. The fieldwork done by Smucker & Murray was conducted in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. 

Case Analysis

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Historically, Haitian children have been used to generate income for the family. It is not uncommon for agrarian societies to have children perform agricultural labor. The fieldwork the children are engaged in is labor intensive. To compensate for economic shortfalls stemming from successive environmental crises and the loss of arable land, rural families placed their children with more stable families or strangers who they believed could better provide for them.

Political instability, poverty, corruption and gang violence are all contributing factors to child exploitation and trafficking in Haiti. And struggling rural families, are not the only ones entering into arrangements to place children in the restavek system. Licensed and unlicensed orphanages, and NGO-sponsored residential centers have been documented as suppliers of children for domestic servitude situations/child slavery. Restavek children are children who have been sent by their families to live or stay with families that employ them as domestic servants. In modern-day Haiti these children are victims of domestic slavery. These children are left unprotected by their families, and the government. There are no laws to protect them.  Natural disasters, extreme poverty and many other problems have contributed to the growth and enculturation of the restavek system in Haiti.

 This research focuses on the restavek system because this labor exchange system is oppressive. Through its commodification of child labor, the restavek system thrives on, and produces grave psychological and physical harm to children in Haiti. Foreign powers have historically exploited Haiti. And unfortunately, children are often victimized. These children are unpaid workers and are treated as second-class citizens forced to perform at the pleasure of the host family.

Poverty contributes to the restavek system. Families find themselves unable to feed or provide basic necessities for their families. They send their children to live with a family or stranger they feel can better provide for them. Restavek children frequently do not attend school and are forced to work 10-14 hours a day without compensation. The majority of restaveks are female and are at greater risk of experiencing physical and sexual abuse. (Smucker & Murray, n.d.)

Haiti’s trafficking cases involve children in forced labor and sex trafficking in restavek situations, in which children are often physically abused, receive no payment for services, and have significantly lower school enrollment rates. In 2022, an NGO estimated that of those children in restavek situations, two-thirds are girls, and predominantly victims of sex trafficking, and one-third boys, who are predominantly victims of labor trafficking. In 2021, NGOs estimated that between 150,000 and 300,000 children worked in domestic servitude. 

  Discussion and Implications

Traffickers and Recruitment

Typically, restavek children are trafficked by their own family members, especially children coming from rural families with between five to ten children. Besides family size, there are other factors creating a heightened risk for placement of children outside of the home,  such as: (1) death or illness of a parent; (2) lack of access to education; (3) being orphaned; (4) lack of access to water in areas close to children's homes; (5) having only one parent; (6) being born outside marriage; (7) having access to urban based family members. Females are particularly vulnerable: the majority of restaveks are girls between the ages of six and fourteen. (U.S. DEP'T OF STATE, TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT, 118, 2005)

The United Nations (U.N.) also noted two disturbing new trends which have emerged within the restavek system. The first trend is the emergence of recruiters who earn income by recruiting children from rural families to work for city families. The second is that the demand for restaveks has shifted from wealthy families to poorer families.

Haitian children have even been recruited to work for Haitian families residing in the Dominican Republic who are willing to pay smuggling and travel costs. Recruited children are physically trafficked by career smugglers who earn their livelihood by transporting people across the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Global Tourism

This research would be incomplete without mentioning trafficking and global tourism. According to the reading by Angelique V. Nixon, global tourism accepts certain sexual practices and behaviors as being normal and not something to panic about. Tourists from the United States and Europe come to consume the sunshine and the people. The tourist desires the cultural and sexual availability of all the Caribbean has to offer. Nixon reports that very little commentary on the demand for sexual or domestic labor in the global north has been made. Despite the reported trafficking persons reports sparse attention and media coverage has resulted. Secondly, Nixon reports that there has been a dearth of analysis or discussion regarding the structural issues heightening vulnerability among certain demographics:

Part of this sexual-cultural availability for tourism is made possible through informal economies built through sexual labor; much of this has to do with conditions created in which people may be coerced into sex work, or some may choose to engage in sex work because it generates greater economic benefits (in spite of the dangers or illegality). (Nixon, 2024)

As someone who lives part time in the Dominican Republic, I have witnessed tourists from all parts of the globe frequent resort areas like Punta Cana and Los Corales, in search of cultural souvenirs that they can stuff inside their suitcases. Young Haitian women stroll along the sandy beaches offering massages, hair braiding and the most valuable thing they have to trade – their bodies.

Prostitution in the Dominican Republic is considered a gray area. It is practiced openly in the Dominican Republic. Adult prostitution is legal. There is no law that explicitly prohibits or legalizes prostitution in the Dominican Republic, a country that has developed lavish resorts along its beautiful beaches.

Many of these women risk being deported everyday based on the fact they lack legal documentation to be in the Dominican Republic. Many left Haiti to escape violence, and poverty in their home country. Without passports, or cédulas (working papers) they literally have no way to support themselves aside from engaging in sex work. These women are vulnerable and frequent victims of violence.

Additionally, as the country's popularity as a tourist destination grows, so does its sex tourism, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development’s profile on HIV/AIDS in the Dominican Republic.

Conclusion

Child Domestic Servitude

This historical and cultural practice called the restevek system is often very informal. It is widely practiced in Afro-Caribbean countries. It is not uncommon for families in agarian communities to make arrangements for their children to be sent to other extended family members or even strangers to be cared for. This arrangement is common in rural families who struggle to provide basic necessities for their children. Haitian families grappling with extreme poverty participate in the restevek system to access shelter, food, and the promise of an education to their children. There is no regulation or government monitoring on the restavek system of child domestic servitude.

 The restavek child’s relationship with the host family is akin to that of a slave and master, or that of an indentured servant. A restavek child’s typical workday includes house cleaning, fetching water, going to the market, cooking, doing laundry, and anything else the host family demands of her or him. (Charles-Voltair,French & Bernadel,2023)