Haiti, a tiny nation of ten million people, located two hours flight from the south of Miami.
Historically, this is actually a paradox: Haiti is the country where the first successful slave revolt in world history occurred in the late 18th century, and the country became the first independent nation in Latin America.
The Haitian people are proud of this history: ‘Liberty, equality and fraternity’ were proclaimed as the basis of the new Republic of Haiti. But today there is no trace of this history: corruption, police brutality and poverty dominate the country. There is little room for compassion and humanity. After Mauritania, this Caribbean island has the highest number of slaves in the world. An estimated 300,000 of them are children.
Day after day, poor, large families, especially in rural areas, fall into the trap of supposedly well-meaning ‘intermediaries’ who are nothing more than human traffickers. They convince parents to give away their children, with the promise that, once in a major city with wealthier families, the children will be given the keys to a successful future. The children are promised food, accommodation and an education in return for a little housework. In eight of ten cases, this dream does not come true. Children disappear for years or even a lifetime and experience a living hell.
As domestic slaves they are forced to keep the homes of their new families clean, prepare food that they will never eat, wash a huge amount of clothes they will never wear, and perform all of the manual labour: carrying charcoal, water, building materials, and purchases from the market. If the work is not carried out quickly enough, the children are brutally beaten and punished. Their survival depends on the mood of the family that have enslaved them.
These children find themselves in a hopeless situation. Do they run away, they end up as street children in a totally unprotected space. Both boys as well as girls can be forced onto the street and into prostitution from as early as 5 years old. Few enslaved children or street children find their way back to their biological families because they are usually displaced at such a young age that they do not remember their surname or place of birth.