This talk, presented by Dr. Fiona de Hoog Ciusbio, Researcher in Modern Slavery & Human Rights at Sheffield Hallam University, provides an overview of the restavèk practice of child slavery in Haiti and reveals the dominant role of women in perpetuating the system.

The wider environment through which women are made vulnerable and, as a result, compelled to traffic and enslave children provides the background for the restavèk system’s continued existence and gives us, as anti-slavery activists, a clear path through which the practice should be perceived and addressed. This talk is supported by a 2-year period of ethnographic fieldwork in Haiti where a feminist methodology was employed, placing respect for culture and human dignity at the heart of the research.