Household Slavery in Haiti

Wherever poverty, greed, corruption and government inaction coincide, people are traded as commodities - none more so than in Haiti where slavery takes on a quotidian form. Sometimes even modest aspirations -- to provide one's children with an education, for example -- can perpetuate slaving practices. In rural Haitian villages families are known to hand over one or more children to a ''courtier,'' or middleman. Although fear, shame, and regret pours out of the parents, the system in which unpaid child laborers are sent to middle-class homes as ''restaveks'' (Creole for ''rester avec,'' or stay with) is deeply entrenched in Haiti. Many of the children are physically and sexually abused. But with no jobs and no schools in the parents' calculus a question comes into focus: Maybe the middleman's promises of sending their children to school will prove true?

The custom reaches even further. Recently in Miami an ex-teacher was sentenced to 10-years in prison for the force labour of a Haitian minor. A Haitian herself, the case of Maude Paulin, has exposed a hitherto unseen network in human trafficking new to the United States.

PHOTOGRAPHER GIHAN TUBBEH - POVERTY IN PERU

the amazing depictions of poverty in its nooks and crannies, where smiles too exist and people subsist on the bare minimum.

The Ant Plague from Haiti

Dominican authorities are adopting all means to put a halt to a plague of devouring carnivorous ants at the doors of its border with Haiti. A spokesman said “all” instructions would be adopted, including revisions in food commerce.

The ants, whose scientific name is paratrechina longicornis Latreille have invaded 60.000 hectares in three departments of Haiti. The species is known to be ravenous and attacks cattle, game, chickens and any other thing unable to run.

Listin Diario - Santo Domingo:

Ha surgido un proyecto peligroso para los dominicanos, proveniente de la Organización de Estados Americanos que involucra a nuestra Cancillería y a la Junta Central Electoral, con la finalidad de auxiliar a Haití en la cedulación de los haitianos diseminados por todo el país. La vicecanciller Rosario Graciano dio declaraciones al LISTÍN aparecidas el 31 de julio. La noticia de esta cedulación ha tenido mala acogida entre los dominicanos. Una cosa es que por humanidad cedulen a familias enteras que durante años residan aquí, sentimentalmente ligadas a los dominicanos; otra cosa es que cedulen a los haitianos que al violar la frontera deambulan por el país. Entonces tendrían que cedular a millón y medio de ellos que están por todas partes. Este proyecto de la OEA, en caso de que así sea, sería sencillamente inaceptable, auxiliarían a Haití hundiendo a nuestro país. Estamos concientes de que en Haití se está pasando hambre, esto es tristemente trágico; lo que habría que hacer es tratar bajo todos los medios de lograr que la OEA se decidiera a ayudar a Haití en su tierra.

CUT&PASTE POVERTY II

here again the image becomes a little diluted like a detail from an impressionist painting

CUT&PASTE POVERTY

the first trial out. Cut & Paste from various food-amassed images. A small vignette of life in poverty. The image is a bit washed with barely much detail. Which now means a small reviewing, in tones and image res.

jamaican video dating

Attempting to depict POVERTY

in the attempt of choosing the right image that 'objectively' depicts poverty, we fall for the same traps as usual. In the end we reflect, perhaps, more on ourselves than the subject.