#639: Re: #622: Man charged with abusing family's young housemaid : Press conference to protest

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

We (the Haitian American Grassroots Coalition of Miami) are holding a press 
conference on Monday in Miami about this subject: the objective is to first 
express our outrage at this anachronistic practice, second encourage other 
similarly situated children to come forward . We are also appealing to 
families who can take the child into their home to come forward.

We know that we will be asked to describe the practice in Haiti and while we 
understand that in most cases the restavek system can be explained in the 
context of poverty and despair we are sensitive to the fact that it may be 
perceived as a justification of this system. We would appreciate some 
feedback about how best to handle this issue with the press.

We will take the opportunity to point out that a lot of children find 
themselves in this situation, because of immigration, undocumented parents 
are deported and Citizen children stay behind. the AIDS epidemic has also 
left many orphan who must now live alomost like restaveks in some cases with 
relatives. This is of course totally anectodal since there has be minimal 
documentation of these cases.

We would ask for any material about the practice in Haiti.

Thank you


>From: Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>
>To: Haiti mailing list <haiti@lists.webster.edu>
>Subject: #622: Man charged with abusing family's young housemaid : 
>Stockdale comments
>Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 08:46:53 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>From:cjstockdale@juno.com
>
>A restavek in Miami...this would be an opportune time for someone to
>point out the practice in Haiti, to the US public, who will (or should)
>be outaged by this girl's treatment.
>
>Deb Stockdale
>
>

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