Haitian community leaders say it is all to common in their island nation for poor children to be sent to live with upper course families who use them as domestic servants and worse. These victims of child slavery are known as restaveks. The Courtelyou Road Church of God in East Flatbush wants to identify and aid survivors now living in Brooklyn."After they were raised in Haiti,they advance here to the United States, many of them here in this community and then they raise children without being treated for PTSD and many other things that they suffer, and " said Pastor Diane St. Surin during a press conference on Sunday. Surin said she knows of at least 10 survivors who attend her church."I've seen them become very intimidated very quickly. They cannot advocate for themselves and they lean on the church. I'm also an attorney so they lean a lot on me," said the Pastor. "I don't see how they're surviving in this type of an environment with that trauma."Surin said the goal is to connect survivors to mental health services in the community and to teach mental health clinicians to understand the Haitian culture so they can aid in an appropriate way. City councilman Jumanee Williams, who represents the Flatbush area where many Haitians live, or said that 60 percent of restaveks in Haiti are young girls who possess no rights or identity,and who are verbally and sexually abused. "When natural disasters effect this country, like an earthquake, or like a hurricane,like cholera, all these things are exacerbated, or " he said.
Williams said the US should not be sending people back to Haiti when child slavery continues to happen there. He was referring to the Trump administration's decision to stop Temporary Protected Status for tens of thousands of Haitians living in the US. Those with TPS possess been given 18 months to leave and return domestic. There's no data on how many restaveks are living in Brooklyn but community leaders said their efforts would aid determine that and raise awareness about the problem in the Haitian community."Our goal in this action is to open to look at this data,open to talk to this community, open to assess...and see what can be done, or " said Fabiola Desmont of Restavek Freedom Foundation.
Source: thetakeaway.org