A Look at Juvenile Domestic Service in Haiti
- Children in domestic service in Haiti are mostly girls placed by poor rural families in host households.
- These children work from 10 to 15 hours a day and are exposed to insults, beatings and humiliation.
- No official figure on their number has existed since the 1984 estimate of the Institut haïtien de statistiques.
- The legislation on children in service dates from 1961 and the State bodies responsible for it do not apply it.
- Few interventions exist for these children; the Maurice Sixto homes in Carrefour and Léogane are the main example.
The article by Irdèle Lubin, published in the Canadian refugee journal Refuge, describes who the children in domestic service are, where they come from and how they live. It reports that the large majority are girls from poor rural families, that they work 10 to 15 hours a day, and that no official count exists since the 1984 estimate of the Institut haïtien de statistiques.
The author reviews the Haitian legislation on children in service, which dates from 1961, and the institutions that should apply it, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Institut du bien-être social et de recherches. She finds that these protections are not applied and that the Convention on the Rights of the Child is not respected in practice. She also lists the few interventions, among them the Maurice Sixto homes in Carrefour and Léogane.
How to cite
Irdèle Lubin, 2002, A Look at Juvenile Domestic Service in Haiti, accessed via HaitiDocs, https://www.haitidocs.org/doc/lubin-2002-regard-domesticite-juvenile-haiti
- Rights holder
- Irdèle Lubin