Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, Gulnara Shahinian: Addendum - Mission to Haiti (A/HRC/12/21/Add.1)
- The Rapporteur concludes that the restavek system is a contemporary form of slavery under article 1(d) of the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, with estimates of 150,000 to 500,000 affected children and roughly one child in ten working as a domestic servant.
- Restavek children, some as young as five, work long unpaid hours at tasks that harm their health and development, and reports of physical, mental and sexual abuse are widespread.
- Two newer trends aggravate exploitation: paid recruiters (koutchye) placing children with strangers, raising trafficking concerns, and demand shifting from wealthy to poor host families that cannot school the children.
- Recommendations include a national commission on children, prevention programs, alignment of legislation with ratified instruments, ratification of the ICESCR and migrant workers convention, and justice reforms.
The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Gulnara Shahinian, conducted an official mission to Haiti from 1 to 10 June 2009 at the Government's invitation to examine the situation of restavek children, who are given by poor, mainly rural families to other households in the expectation of food, shelter and schooling in exchange for domestic labor. Estimates of the number of restavek children ranged from 150,000 to 500,000. Based on the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery and ILO Convention 182, the Rapporteur concludes that the restavek system is a contemporary form of slavery: children work long hours without pay, are frequently malnourished, have little access to education or health care, and are widely exposed to physical, mental and sexual abuse. She documents two newer trends, paid recruiters (koutchye) moving children to strangers and demand shifting toward poor households. The report reviews national institutions and international programs and recommends a national commission on children, prevention programs, legal reform, ratification of key instruments and measures against impunity.
How to cite
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 2009, Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, Gulnara Shahinian: Addendum - Mission to Haiti (A/HRC/12/21/Add.1), https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/report-special-rapporteur-contemporary-forms-slavery-including-its-causes-and