Due to the lack of substantial measures to punish perpetrators and protect the survivors, Haiti is known as a country of origin, transit, and destination where men, women, and mostly children are exposed to forced labor and sex trafficking. As of 2013, approximately 150,000 to 500,000 children are enslaved in households throughout Haiti. Besides having to encounter forced labor, children are exposed to beatings, sexual assaults, and other forms of abuse in the homes they are residing. Slavery has been illegal in Haiti for the longest time. Yet the enslavement of children as domestic servants through the “restavek” system of child trafficking continues to plague the nation. The restavek system is a form of modern-day child slavery in Haiti, affecting 1 in every 15 …show more content…
Fortunately, in June 2014, the government of Haiti enacted a law, which criminalizes trafficking. The law produced a legislation that prohibits trafficking in all forms, with penalties that are commensurate with those for other serious crimes. The law defines the term “trafficking in persons” as “the recruitment, transportation, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or through the use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of authority or by a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation,” (Staff, 2014). The legislation outlaws many forms of trafficking in persons including forced labor, exploitation of prostitution of others, pornography or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced marriage, forced begging, collecting of organs or tissue and adoption for the purpose of