Read the following article from the UK's Guardian newspaper.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1575268,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1575268,00.html
- Thread starter Daithi
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Child slavery in Barahona
This is really sad, the government should do much more, Recently I read in the nacional about a 7-year-old Haitian girl found mutilated after being raped, with stab wounds in her vagina, her eyes where taken out also. This was so disturbing.
http://www.elnacional.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=39190
http://www.elnacional.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=39190
Did anyone click on the link at the foot of the article?
Media in the Dominican Republic
Re. the article
Although it is portraying a sad reality, the attempt to link it to the political issues is irrelevant if you consider that this 'custom' of child slavery exists within Haiti (Google 'restavek') and within the DR. Poor families send their children to work for less poor families. They are told the child will be sent to school but this rarely happens. In reality the children are exploited and often abused. The only political aspect of the Haiti-DR cases is that the border authorities allow it to happen.
Media in the Dominican Republic
Re. the article
Although it is portraying a sad reality, the attempt to link it to the political issues is irrelevant if you consider that this 'custom' of child slavery exists within Haiti (Google 'restavek') and within the DR. Poor families send their children to work for less poor families. They are told the child will be sent to school but this rarely happens. In reality the children are exploited and often abused. The only political aspect of the Haiti-DR cases is that the border authorities allow it to happen.
Do any of the people who actually live in the DR know of any child domestic (to provide home chores) Haitian slaves within Dominican houses? I DO NOT!!! It would NOT be socially acceptable in Dominican society. Rather, I know of Dominican children being assigned to family houses to do chores in exchange for room and board. These children may or may not receive an education and may or may not be well treated - though all within the perview of the neighbors.
Young women being coerced into prostitution? Sure, it happens everywhere, including among Eastern Europeans brought to the UK. Teenage boys working illegally at the sugar mills? You bet. How many young asians were killed in the UK last year while hunting for cockles (see story)? Hordes of pre-teen Haitian slaves working as domestic labor in Dominican houses? Hell no!
Young women being coerced into prostitution? Sure, it happens everywhere, including among Eastern Europeans brought to the UK. Teenage boys working illegally at the sugar mills? You bet. How many young asians were killed in the UK last year while hunting for cockles (see story)? Hordes of pre-teen Haitian slaves working as domestic labor in Dominican houses? Hell no!
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Not hordes, it stated thousands
I belive in the article it stated several thousands. The fact that atrocities happen all across the globe doesn't make this particular situation any less relevant. The problem is the complacency of both the DR and Haitian governments. Both sides let it happen....and neither side wants to do anything about it.
A friend of mine who I studied abroad with asked to be removed from her first home stay. The reason being--her host family verbally and physically abused their haitian "servant" girl. She told me they repeatedly called her stupid and useless for no apparent reason. Additionally, whenever she did something they found displeasing--for example, not doing a chore up to their standings, they would swat her with a wooden spoon. And this was a middle class family living in la capital. Perhaps haitian children aren't being forced into slavery--but often times they are forced into or end up in servitude that is not only demeaning but abusive as well. I think rather than playing the blame game, folks need to come together, work together and think of some possible solutions. Rather than denying it's existence, or justifying it's existence by pointing to other forms of immoral behavior in other parts of the world, we've got to admit that it does exist and does happen.
This is not something particular to the Dominican Republic--this is the conqueror and the conquered, the majority and the minority, power vacuum that has transcended time, class, and race........pues, creo que si--y ya. those are my two cents.
Porfio_Rubirosa said:Do any of the people who actually live in the DR know of any child domestic (to provide home chores) Haitian slaves within Dominican houses? I DO NOT!!! It would NOT be socially acceptable in Dominican society. Rather, I know of Dominican children being assigned to family houses to do chores in exchange for room and board. These children may or may not receive an education and may or may not be well treated - though all within the perview of the neighbors.
Young women being coerced into prostitution? Sure, it happens everywhere, including among Eastern Europeans brought to the UK. Teenage boys working illegally at the sugar mills? You bet. How many young asians were killed in the UK last year while hunting for cockles (see story)? Hordes of pre-teen Haitian slaves working as domestic labor in Dominican houses? Hell no!
I belive in the article it stated several thousands. The fact that atrocities happen all across the globe doesn't make this particular situation any less relevant. The problem is the complacency of both the DR and Haitian governments. Both sides let it happen....and neither side wants to do anything about it.
A friend of mine who I studied abroad with asked to be removed from her first home stay. The reason being--her host family verbally and physically abused their haitian "servant" girl. She told me they repeatedly called her stupid and useless for no apparent reason. Additionally, whenever she did something they found displeasing--for example, not doing a chore up to their standings, they would swat her with a wooden spoon. And this was a middle class family living in la capital. Perhaps haitian children aren't being forced into slavery--but often times they are forced into or end up in servitude that is not only demeaning but abusive as well. I think rather than playing the blame game, folks need to come together, work together and think of some possible solutions. Rather than denying it's existence, or justifying it's existence by pointing to other forms of immoral behavior in other parts of the world, we've got to admit that it does exist and does happen.
This is not something particular to the Dominican Republic--this is the conqueror and the conquered, the majority and the minority, power vacuum that has transcended time, class, and race........pues, creo que si--y ya. those are my two cents.
I personally have come across just one case where a middle class family in the capital had a Haitian domestic servant who was not a child, but she was definitely under-age.
From what I know from Haiti, this is an arrangement that is often made between the very poor and the not-so-poor, so this could be the case in the DR as well. The Dominicans I know who have had Dominican girls working in their house under that sort of arrangement were at the very most lower middle class. In both cases they were ensuring that the girls were going to school, and appeared to be treating them well. One girl was about 10 (this was in the campo) and the others were teenagers.
My point is, this might be more common than we think. It could be happening in the types of households that most forum members do not usually have contact with.
From what I know from Haiti, this is an arrangement that is often made between the very poor and the not-so-poor, so this could be the case in the DR as well. The Dominicans I know who have had Dominican girls working in their house under that sort of arrangement were at the very most lower middle class. In both cases they were ensuring that the girls were going to school, and appeared to be treating them well. One girl was about 10 (this was in the campo) and the others were teenagers.
My point is, this might be more common than we think. It could be happening in the types of households that most forum members do not usually have contact with.
Upon returning from Azua, three kilometers past the military checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, I passed a child with the most distressed look on his face, waving his arms frantically for me to stop. As soon as I stopped, the child ran over to my suv, opened the door and jumped into the passenger seat. I noticed that he was Haitian, and what I thought was a twelve-year-old child, actually had the demeanor of a fifteen-year-old. He spoke very intelligible Spanish. His story was that he had been abandoned by his family when they crossed the border in a group, and trying to avoid the checkpoints were forced to disperse... He told me he had nowhere to go, and insisted for me to take him to my home in Santo Domingo. He pleaded that he would work for me, just for room and board. When I drove past Ban?, I stopped at the home of a Haitian family, friends of mine, and asked them to take the boy in, to help him out to find his family. They agreed. I gave them some money to cover expenses. A week later, upon my return trip to Azua from Santo Domingo, I stopped by my Haitian friends and asked them about the boy. They told me that the boy had left as soon as I drove away. Several weeks later, what a surprise! I saw a picture of the boy in a newspaper, standing next to father Ruquoy, the same one of the Guardian article, with a caption declaring that the good father had saved the boy from slavery?