Amnesty presses Haiti to protect child domestic workers

“Most child domestic workers in Haiti live as virtual slaves,” said Gerardo Ducos, Haiti researcher at Amnesty International. “They work in inhuman conditions, suffering violence and abuse by their hosts, only for a plate of food.” Photo: The New York Tim

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, November 20, 2009 – Amnesty International has launched a campaign to press the government in Haiti to enact measures to protect child domestic workers from abuse, ill-treatment and exploitation.

The human rights organisation wants authorities to enact legislation to protect children working as domestic help in conditions that amount to slavery.

Amnesty alleges that many Haitian families, too poor to support their children, are forced to send them to work as domestic help.

“Most child domestic workers in Haiti live as virtual slaves,” said Gerardo Ducos, Haiti researcher at Amnesty International. “They work in inhuman conditions, suffering violence and abuse by their hosts, only for a plate of food.”

UNICEF estimated that there were as many as 100,000 girl domestic workers in Haiti in 2007.

“Trapped in a situation of total dependence, many girls are compelled to put up with violence and sexual abuse. Some flee the employer or host family and live on the streets where they may have no option but to sell their bodies for sex in order to survive,” Amnesty said.

Ducos said that with Haitian girls trapped in this spiral of poverty and violence, “the eradication of this modern form of slavery is the only way to protect the rights of thousands of children".

“Ahead of Universal Children’s Day (today), Haiti should step up its commitment to the protection of girl domestic workers and take concrete steps to improve their situation,” Ducos said.
Amnesty said Haitian laws do not provide a protective framework for children.

In 2003, the Law for the prohibition and elimination of all kind of abuses, violence and inhuman treatment of children came into force in Haiti. Amnesty said that law removed a chapter of the Labor Code that regulated the work of children in domestic service but failed to ban the practice of children in domestic service.

The Code had prohibited the “employment” of children under 12 as domestic workers and had provided guarantees that those aged over 15 would receive a salary for their work. The Code required foster families, among other things, to request authorization from the Institute of Social Welfare and Research if they wished to employ a child as domestic worker.