Restavek

"Timoun se moun" (children are people too).  In Haiti, far too many children are treated as less than people.  CNN's Sanjay Gupta recently travelled to Haiti to learn more about the restavek practice.  His blog is below.  All social problems have solutions, and while the attention of foreigners to this issue is welcome, lasting change must come from within.  One person fighting to bring about this change is Jean Robert Cadet, who was himself a restavek fourty years ago.  He has gone on to found the Jean Robert Cadet Foundation and has devoted his life to ensuring no one else experiences what he did.  Far from a victim, he is a hero and a change agent.

We should be discussing the Restavek situation in Haiti.  It is neither new or a simple issue.  A restavek (comes from the phrase 'to stay with') is a child who is sent from one family to live with another family.  Considering Haiti's history as  the only people to lead a successful slave rebellion for independence, discussing restaveks can be a sensitive issue.  However, I believe that we must.