“We need to help parents”
Haitian parents are no different from parents elsewhere – they love their children and want them to grow up at home. Still, each year tens of thousands of impoverished parents send their children away to live with families in distant cities. They do so hoping that their children will be well cared for and sent to school. In reality, many end up in homes where they are exploited, subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and never sent to school. One in eight children in Haiti is trapped in this kind of servitude.
“We need to help parents find the means to keep their children at home, healthy, safe and in school,”
~ Mrs. Derival Parnelle Laurent, Child Rights Activist
Every Child Free and in School
Every child has the right to grow up free, safe, and at home, in communities where they are loved, protected, and educated.
In communities across Lagonav Island, Beyond Borders is investing in the capacity of local and grassroots leaders to end the flow of children in to servitude.
Unschooled children face a higher risk of being sent away, so we’re also working with parents and teachers to guarantee universal, quality primary education for every girl and boy.
What You Can Do
To end child servitude permanently in Haiti, you can make a gift in support of the nationwide movement of trained Child Rights Activists and Adult Survivors – 75,000 women and men strong – who are committed to protecting every child from exploitation and abuse.
Your gift leverages their power to lead and expand this movement by taking on the root causes of child servitude – extreme poverty, social acceptance of the practice, and lack of access to quality schooling.
Child Rights Training
Each year, more than 1,000 women and men graduate from our Child Rights Training. Using a six-month curriculum developed in Haiti called Education is a Conversation, a group of 12-15 neighbors meets weekly. They learn about the rights of children, the dangers of sending children away, and how to raise awareness among family, friends, and neighbors about child servitude. They also learn how to create public accountability to protect children.
Child Protection Brigades
After graduating, newly-minted Child Rights Activists launch volunteer Child Protection Brigades. Together with members of our Adult Survivor Network, brigades work to identify children trapped in servitude, free them, reunite them with their families or place them with Welcoming Families, and enroll them in school. Activists press charges against captors, organize communities to stop child servitude, and pressure the government to enforce anti-servitude laws.
Adult Survivor Network
No one understands the complex realities facing children trapped in servitude more than adult survivors. We’ve convened more than 1,200 survivors nationwide, many of whom were left deeply wounded by their own experience of servitude. Today, these survivors are helping each other heal from their trauma, reclaim their voice, and become leaders in the nationwide movement to stop child servitude.