Our Partnership with Beyond Borders

An estimated 407,000 children are living in domestic slavery in Haiti. These children, usually between six and seventeen years old, are exploited as household servants, and many experience emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. This practice, known as restavèk, is fueled by poverty, inadequate access to education, and prevailing social norms and attitudes. Parents believe that they can send their children to live with other families who will care for them and send them to school. Often, however, their children are forced to do heavy household labor, abused, and not sent to school. 

We partnered with Beyond Borders to liberate children from domestic slavery, reunite them with families, and educate community members and government officials about the harms perpetuated by restavèk.  Survivors are invited to join a Survivor Restavèk Network through which they receive training on child rights and advocate for an end to child slavery.  In this way, survivors are empowered to become teachers, advocates and change-makers.  Through our partnership, 71 children were liberated from slavery.  The first choice for vulnerable children is reunification with their biological families.  When this was not possible, Beyond Borders places children in carefully vetted and trained foster families, either temporarily or longer term.