AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Girls Working as Domestic Help in Haiti are Virtual Slaves, Says Amnesty International

Organization Launches Campaign to Protect Children in Haiti from Abuse and Exploitation

(New York) -- Tens of thousands of children in Haiti -- most of them girls -- are working as domestic servants in conditions that amount to slavery, Amnesty International said in a briefing Tuesday, ahead of Universal Children’s Day (Friday, Nov. 20). The human rights organization is launching a campaign to press the government of Haiti to protect child workers from abuse and exploitation.

Many Haitian families, too poor to support their children, are forced to send them to work as domestic help. The children -- most of them girls -- end up working long hours cleaning, cooking, fetching water for the household and looking after other children in the family. Only a minority receive any education at all. The vast majority are deprived of basic rights, including the right to adequate health care and food.
"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. The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary slavery has described conditions in which the children live as a "modern form of slavery."

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.
Régina, 15, told Amnesty International that when she was 10, she was sent to work as a domestic servant, but she ran away because she was beaten, and the beatings became unbearable. She spent the next four years at Foyer Maurice Sixto, a shelter for children who have been domestic workers. During that time she was able to go to school. When she turned 14, Régina went back home, where she suffered further abuse.
"Girls in Haiti are trapped in a spiral of poverty and violence," said Ducos. "The eradication of this modern form of slavery is the only way to protect the rights of thousands of children."
Haitian laws do not provide a protective framework for children. Amnesty International is mobilizing activists to push for adoption of a Children's Code to enshrine the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child into Haitian law.
"Ahead of Universal Children's Day, Haiti should step up its commitment to the protection of girl domestic workers and take concrete steps to improve their situation," said Ducos.
Amnesty International is campaigning to insist that the Haitian government, with the support of the international community, reinforce protective measures for girls in domestic service and to begin to take steps to abolish the practice. The organization also wants Haiti to establish safe places for girls with access to health care and other services. In addition, by enlisting internatonal donors, the organization wants Haiti to establish support and resources to help bring children out of domestic service.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

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For more information, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org

Suzanne Trimel
Media Relations Director
Amnesty International USA
5 Penn Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10001
212-633-4150
201-247-5057 (mobile)

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