Restavec

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A restavec (or restavek; from the French reste avec, "one who stays with") refers to a social system in Haiti in which parents unable to care for their children send them to relatives or strangers living in more urban areas where they receive food and housing (and sometimes an education) in exchange for light housework. In reality restavecs often live in grinding poverty, enslaved to their "hosts" and seldom receiving an education. The restavec system is considered a form of slavery.

Jean-Robert Cadet vividly recounted his life as a Restavec in a book of the same name, published in 1998.

[edit] External links

 This Haiti-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.