Restavèk Campaign

Child domestic laborers – known as restavèks in Haitian Creole – are estimated to number 300,000 within Haiti today.  These children, three quarters of whom are girls, are usually sent from rural areas by parents with little possibility to send them to school or to feed all their children properly to live with host families in urban areas with the hopes that they will live a better life.  These children act as live-in domestic servants and rarely are sent to school, receive new clothing, are allowed to play or visit their families; are often verbally, physically or sexually abused, and are nearly always exploited beyond the limits of national and international standards for the rights of children. 

Since 1999, NCHR has undertaken to raise awareness of this problem internationally and in Haiti, and to foster a better collective undertaking to improve the lives of restavèks.

During the first year of activity, NCHR successfully implemented a strategy for making the problem of restavèks in Haiti known to a wide audience and explored further possibilities for NCHR to highlight this problem.  Our active collaboration with international and local Haitian organizations has laid the groundwork for ensuring that the restavèk issue is included on all future agendas relating to child labor conferences and activities.

Beginning by hosting a weeklong speaking tour by former restavèk Jean-Robert Cadet to promote the memoir of his childhood, NCHR devoted it's annual event and spotlight campaign to the restavèk issue in 1999.  So many people were reached by this initiative that the book sold out in a few short weeks and went into a second printing. 

NCHR has also been requested by a number of journalists to provide important information on restavèks in the Haitian socio-economic context.  We have further disseminated information on the restavèk issue to NGOs and at local, national and international conferences in which we have actively participated, such as:

• World Bank Children’s Week – April 2000 – Washington, D.C. on “Child Protection and Child Labor:  The Search for Solutions”
• US Department of Labor – May 2000 – Washington, D.C. on “Advancing the Global Campaign Against Child Labor:  Progress Made and Future Action”, and
• Child Labor Coalition – June 2000 – Washington, D.C. called “Stop Child Labor:  From Exploitation to Education”

NCHR represented the cause of restavèks at the three meetings and its Executive Director, Jocelyn McCalla, was invited to lead a panel on restavèks at the last conference.  Participation in these activities gave us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and interface with more than 100 other organizations, agencies and donors.  It has also given us the opportunity to meet and work directly with the leaders of the global movement and to focus attention on the plight of the restavèks. 

In anticipation of the United Nations Special Session on Children, programmed for September 2001, NCHR has undertaken to produce a report on the situation of restavèk children in Haiti ten years after the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and is essential for providing a solid basis for advocacy on this topic.  This report is scheduled for publication in English, French and Haitian Creole by the end of the summer.

NCHR currently holds the following goals:

• Reinforce and empower existing coalitions of involved global, national and international organizations through increased participation in meetings and conferences to foster a more coordinated approach on the restavèk issue;
• Promote public awareness of the restavèk issue in Haiti and internationally and specifically target Haitian communities and parents about the abuses and neglect of the existing system, with a view to stemming the flow of children from their families and improving the conditions of existing restavèks; and
• Work in closer collaboration with ILO/IPEC, UNICEF and other existing organizations to persuade the government of Haiti to:
  • Issue birth certificates and birth registration forms for every child as a first step toward defending child rights and claiming legitimate entitlements;
  • Enforce protective national legislation for children and honor the international treaties and covenants already signed and ratified; and
  • Provide educational opportunities for all children at the primary school level and support alternative educational and community learning centers for restavèks as an intermediate goal. 

For more information, please contact Merrie Archer.