Haiti Ranked # 2 on the World Slavery Index

 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2013/1017/Haiti-s-child-slaves-land-country-high-on-new-global-slavery-index-video?cmpid=addthis_twitter#.UmCle_f5POg.twitter

Slavery is something we all learn about in school.  To most of us, Slavery is something that happened a long time ago, something that helped to shape our country, and define our history.  But most of us believe that slavery is not longer an issue, well, at least not without the word Sex in front of it.  But this is simply not true.   It is roughly estimated that there are somewhere between 200 and 300 thousand children currently enslaved in Haiti alone.  They are called Restavek's, which means "to live with" and are often introduced to their awful situations through agreements made by their own parents.  Unfortunately this is a long standing practice in Haiti, and parents who are no longer capable of providing their children with food, clothes and schooling often turn to Uncle's, Aunt's, and friends of the family, who promise to give their children these basic needs in turn for daily chores.  When the child arrives in their new situations they quickly learn that there will be no schooling, and hardly any food or clothing, but an abundance of daily chores, such as hours of washing clothes by hand, hours of fetching water,  and cooking meals for the family, with possibly not food in return. These children are often ignored, treated like animals, and forced to sleep under tables, and work from sun up to well past sun down. (This is near the equator, so the sun shines almost 12 hours a day.)

To learn more about Childhood Slavery in Haiti, you can visit  RestavekFreedom.org, or if you live in the Cincinnati area you could even go visit them in person.  They are very knowledgeable, and are doing great things to help children in dire situations in the Port au Prince area.