Restavec Children Foundation

By Taina Evans

An interview with Jean-Robert Cadet about the Restavec Children Foundation.

A Restavec means a child who "stays with" someone who is not his or her immediate family. In practice in Haiti a Restavec is a slave in all but name. Usually a family who is richer than the birth parents, takes in the child of a poor family with a promise that the child will be given some schooling and opportunities. Instead the child usually becomes a slave deprived of attention and affection, and treated as less than human. Cadet was a Restavec himself, until he escaped from the family who controlled him when his mistress came to New York.

(ILO World of Work. no. 46, March 2003