In modern-day Haiti more than 300 000 children are victims of domestic slavery. In Haitian Creole, such a child is called a “restavek,” from the French “reste avec” meaning “stay with.”

Many parents living in poverty cannot afford to feed their children, so give them away to affluent families, hoping that they will have better living conditions and a proper education.

But, with few exceptions, restavek children become slaves, working in the homes of their “masters” from morning till night. Every day they fetch dozens of liters of water, cook, wash clothes, clean yards and do all the other chores.

They are not allowed to sleep on beds, eat at the table with the family or play with the children. Most restaveks are not allowed to go to school and are exposed to domestic and sexual violence. After the 2010 earthquake, the situation in Haiti deteriorated dramatically.

Many children had lost their homes and parents and a large number of them then became restaveks. Today, even poor families have two or three restaveks, and they sometimes treat them even worse than do the richer families.

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Several NGOs work to put an end to child servitude in Haiti; for example, the Restavek Freedom Foundation which finds families with restaveks and convinces them to let the children attend school, offering to pay for school uniforms and books.

But the help of NGOs alone cannot stop child slavery. Haitians, with a history as victims of slavery, do not hesitate to enslave their own children. In well-to-do families, it is not uncommon for a bride to be given a child-slave as a wedding gift.

Few people in Haiti believe that the situation is likely to change in the near future. Neither the government nor the church, which has a great influence in the country, are rushing to condemn the vicious practice of child slavery. Jean-Robert Cadet, a former restavek and now a well-known opponent of the restavek system, believes that Haiti will not be able to solve its problems until it has stopped exploiting its own children. Unfortunately, very few have heeded his appeal, and today more and more Haitian children are ending up as slaves to their fellow countrymen and women.

Photographer Vlad Sokhin made two trips to Haiti, in 2012 and 2013, to report on the life of restavek children, often together with local NGOs working to put an end to child slavery in the country.

Vlad Sokhin

Vlad Sokhin

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