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300,000 children are living in slavery in Haiti. We are standing up for their freedom.

Visit the Take Action section for more ideas on how you can help end child slavery in Haiti.

Education and Advocacy

The issue of restavek.

It is difficult to wrap your mind around why Haitians are still practicing restavek, a form of modern day child slavery. Utilizing free child labor is culturally acceptable and even seen as a way to help poverty-stricken families.

A restavek in general is a child from the countryside who is given to a family in the city with the expectation that the child will have a better life. Often the "host" parents promise to send her to school in exchange for help around the house. There is a spectrum of treatment, but the children are almost never treated as part of the family and instead are exhausted, isolated, and often abused.

Like in any other part of the world, damaging practices often get passed from one generation to the next, until people begin to challenge those norms.

The good news is...there are many people - in Haiti and around the world - who are standing up for the freedom of ALL children. Read about the Restavek Freedom team and our partners here.

Haiti

The rich historic past of Haiti has eroded over the years.

Today the country that won its independence through a successful slave rebellion, now has a population fighting to survive. In 1925, Haiti was lush, with 60% of its original forest covering the lands and mountainous regions. Since then, the population has cut down all but an estimated 2% of its original forest cover, resulting in massive flooding and the destruction of fertile farmland.