Kinship ties to host household heads do not necessarily shield children from restavèk treatment or status. Kinship ties and student board and room arrangements often camouflage treatment that is little different from restavèk servant children. The vast majority of restavèk children surveyed are related to host family household heads. Therefore, family ties serve as a […]
Kin ties are not a barrier to restavèk treatment Read More »
The term restavèk child is defined as an unpaid child servant living and working away from home. The most salient identifying feature is that restavèk children are treated in a manner distinctly different from children born to the household. In principle, parental placement of a restavèk child involves turns over childrearing responsibility to another household
Restavèks For a majority of Haiti’s children, life is marked by hardship as a result of the country’s miserable economic conditions. The life of children called restavèks is worse. Restavèks—extremely poor children who are sent to other homes to work as unpaid domestic servants—are prone to beatings, sexual assaults and other abuses by host families. As restavèk
