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Human rights violations against children
What is being done about human trafficking in Haiti
What is the human rights violation against children
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Can you imagine getting attacked in your sleep by rats? Many child slaves in Haiti awake to such horrific conditions. Haitian children are often sent to live with wealthier or less poor relatives in return for food, shelter, education, and a better life in return for tasks performed. But many are forced into domestic slavery or restavek. Restavek is a common practice of Haitian society. Some as young as three are beaten, forced to do anything asked, request nothing, speak only when spoken to and display no emotion. They have nothing to eat for days, work hard, get abused by whippings that leave scars, or are easy prey for kidnappers who seize them for prostitution. The United Nation's Children Fund estimates that 25,000 to 300,000 children, 85% of them girls, are victims of this practice.
Haiti's dirty little secret exists because 80% of Haiti's population is under the poverty line. Which means that they are so poor that they are forced to sell their children. And with the recent earthquake, things are about to get a lot worse. One million children are orphans of this ...
It is a difficult predicament to be in when one is held in captivity. The situation is that much worse if a child finds himself held as a slave. From a young age the child must endure the fact that he is owned and not free to live life on his own terms. A child slave is already denied his freedom and childhood in the sole fact that he is a slave. However, female child slaves had to endure yet another hardship that made life that much more difficult. Young African girls that were enslaved were sexually abused from an early age. Olaudah Equiano, in Interesting Narrative, tells of misfortunes that the female slaves met with at the hands of white men that he witnessed aboard a ship that belonged to his master, he writes: "I have even known them gratify their brutal passion with females not ten years old" (p. 483) Equia...
The Republic of Haiti is in the western part of the island of Hispaniola in the West Indies. It is densely populated and has the lowest per capita income in the western hemisphere (Kemp, 2001). The population of more than seven million is made up of mostly descendents of African slaves brought to the West Indies by French colonists. The horrible conditions in Haiti, such as crushing poverty, unemployment and illiteracy, and high rates of acute and chronic illnesses and child and infant mortality, result in the illegal immigration of many Haitians to the United States, France, and other countries in Western Europe. Most immigrants are adults and teens who leave Haiti in tiny boats, despite the risk of drowning and other hazards. According to Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) 2001 statistics, the number of refugees has declined to several thousand per year since the early 1990’s.
Kolbe, Athena R., and Royce A. Hutson. “Human Rights Abuse and Other Criminal Violations in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti: A Random Survey of Households,” The Lancet 368.9538(2006): 864-73. ProQuest. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.
Haiti as a rich history, filled with many peoples’ blood and countless hopes of freedom. With such a rich history, the country has yet to become financially stable because of their past. From the beginning of the French settlement where slaves were brought over from Africa to harvest crops, to the dictatorship of the Duvalier family. Haiti has yet to see a time when they are not in need of help. After the racial caste systems were set in place, many people would not see a truly independent country. When France finally gave independence to Haiti, they did it for a price. After they paid that price, the US occupied them because of their location and many resources. Every year in Haiti’s history as a nation and before has effects on the world today. These effects are not hidden in fine print, but blatantly found within Haiti and those who have been involved with Haiti.
As soon as they arrive, they are sold into the prostitution industry and sent them to the brothel to do their ‘job’. Many girls, even as young as four are forced to sell their bodies to please men. They are forced to dress revealingly to fulfil the desires of immoral, iniquitous and inhuman men. Their bodies are labelled with a price and treated like a commodity. Every part of them is violated by those men who pay just to own them for 45 minutes and when they refuse, gun would be pointed at their heads. They would be locked up in a room, kicked around vigorously and whipped until they are covered with blood. Therefore, they have no choice but to pull through sexual abuse to pay off their debts bondage to the point where they lose self- worth, the confidence to look in the mirror, and the purpose to live. Shandra Woworuntu, one of the sex trafficking survivor, shared that it was excruciatingly exhausting to last a whole day with only plain rice soup and prickles as their source of energy. The mental and physical struggle that they have to go through is utterly
Several of the problems that Haiti faces today have their genesis in the country’s colonial history. The country was like a toy being fought over by spoiled children. The first of these children arrived in the early sixteenth century in the form of Spanish settlers in search of gold. They enslaved the native Taino population and, poisoned by avarice, nearly eradicated the indigenous work force. Thousands of African slaves were brought in to take their place. Eventually, the Spanish left the island to grab their share of newly discovered treasure in other lands. Tiring of their toy, the Spanish
Haiti is drenched in poverty, corruption, and lack of education. Due to these aspects Haiti is “the least developed country in the western hemisphere”. With only one-third of suitable land...
Majority of human trafficking are worldwide which involves the transportation of victims from Africa, South and Eastern Asia, Central and South America, Russia and other developing countries to developed countries in Asia, the Middle East, North America and central and southeastern countries of the European continent. It is the Asia-Pacific region where a majority of the world’s forced laborers come from followed by Africa. The Asia-Pacific region contributes 56% or 11.7 million victims, while Africa accounts 18% or 3.7 million victims of human trafficking. The meltdown of the global economy in the recent times has given rise to an increase in contemporary slavery. About 26 percent of modern slaves are children below the age of 18 years, out of which girls are the victims of child prostitution and
Haiti is the unequivocally the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, indeed, the country is so poor that its citizen cannot even afford eating foods and Haitian children need to eat dirts to stay alive. [1] Nevertheless, Haiti is the home to the only successful slave rebellion; Toussaint Louverture, last governor of French Saint-Domingue, was born a slave.
Leinwand, Donna, Marisol Bello, and Martha T. Moore. "In Haiti, Children Are the Most Vulnerable - USATODAY.com." In Haiti, Children Are the Most Vulnerable - USATODAY.com. USA TODAY, 25 Jan. 2010. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.
Haiti had over a half million enslaved Africans working on sugar plantations owned by the French. The sugar was hugely profitable, but conditions for enslaved worker were horrendous. Many were cruelly over worked and under fed. Haiti also had a population of both free and enslaved mulattoes. Free mulattoes, however, had few right and were badly treated by the French. In 1791, a slave revolt exploded in northern Haiti. Under the able leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haitians would fight for freedom and pave the way for throwing off French rule.
In order to understand how sex trafficking affects its victims, one must first know the severity of sex trafficking and what it is. The issue of sex trafficking affects 2.5 million people at any given time (Abas et al., 2013). The form of sex slavery affects many women and children across the world. Even though both males and females are sexually trafficked and exploited, there is a deep emphasis on the sexual exploitation of women and children. This is due to gender discrimination (Miller, 2006). This is because women and children are more vulnerable and appeal to the larger populations of brothels and the so-called “clients” since the majority are men. Ecclestone (2013) stated that children as young as age three are trafficked. Sex trafficking has changed over time; “Today, the business of human sex trafficking is much more organized and violent. These women and young girls are sold to traffickers, locked up in rooms or brothels for weeks or months, drugged, terrorized, and raped repeatedly” (Walker-Rodriguez & Hill, 2011). It is found that many of the victims of sex trafficking are abducted, recruited, transported and forced into involuntary “sex work”. These sexual acts include prostitution, exotic dancing, pornography, and sexual escort services (McClain & Garrity, 2011). What happens to these sex trafficking victims is extremely traumatizing.
As mentioned before, women had been undermined in Haiti since the days of slavery. This is not unique to Haiti, as there is an element of universality to it, like many other social issues during slavery. Women had their role on the plantation, in terms of domestic roles, child-rearing roles and probably most unfortunately, sexual roles. Women also played a part in the revolution, which is the part of the story less told, as the leaders were, for the most part, male. After the revolution, men still dominated society and women continued to be marginalized, despite their key roles in society.
“Stolen people, stolen dream” is the brutality faced by numerous, vulnerable, gullible children in the black market around the world even in the admirable United States. Trafficking of children is the modern day slavery, the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. More than ever, it has become a lucrative method that is trending in the underground economy. A pimp can profit up to $150,000 per children from age 4-12 every year, as reported by the UNICEF. Also, according to the International Labor Organization statistics, “There are 20.9 million victim of human trafficking globally, with hundreds of thousands in the United
Slavery has been banned worldwide since 1948 when the UN officially illegalized it everywhere in Article 4 of the Declaration of Human Rights. Nonetheless, a myriad of people continue to be exploited like slaves, and the talibés in Senegal are among those who suffer greatly from this predicament. Talibés refer to male students or disciples of Islam. (“Senegal”) They are children usually under the age of twelve and not uncommon to be as young as four years old, whose parents entrust to marabouts, teachers or religious leaders, who educate them in daaras, residential Muslim schools, about moral values and the Q’uran, or at least they are supposed to. Sadly, this is not how it is in reality. Instead, most of these boys are being exploited and forced to ask for alms in the streets “to provide for the marabout and his family.” (“Senegal: Boys in Many Quranic Schools Suffer Severe Abuse”) The young talibés are so unfairly taken advantage of that they are even assigned a begging quota depending on which city they visit. And if they fail to meet the quota for the allotted span of time, they are chained to be stroke and flogged with a club or an electric cable by their teacher or an assistant. (Wells 39)