National census projections for 2010 show 21% of the urban population of Haiti composed of children between the ages of 5 and 14. Gender is a dominant feature of restavèk recruitment. Two-thirds of restavèk children are girls.
Restavèk placement and its very high prevalence are deeply marked by poverty, and the movement of children from poor to less poor households. Not surprisingly, the majority of urban restive children were born in rural Haiti; however, households in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan demonstrate a new variant in published findings on restavèk recruitment: the largest single recruitment source is other urban households in the metropolitan area. Therefore, recruitment of restavèk children can no longer be viewed solely as a rural to urban phenomenon. Geographically, Port-au-Prince and St. Marc had a significantly higher proportion of households with restavèk children present –
