Haiti: the torture continues. posted by Richard Seymour

Gary Younge reports on the trade in child sex slavery under the colonial masters in Haiti, as they are sent to the Dominican Republic to seek money:

There is a thriving trade in Haitian children in the Dominican Republic, where they are mostly used for domestic service, agricultural work or prostitution. Eight-year-old Jesus Josef was one of them. Numbed by a mixture of trauma and shyness, this small boy with huge eyes cannot recall how he left his three brothers and mother in Haiti and ended up doing domestic work for a Dominican family in Barahona, 120 miles from the capital, Santo Domingo.

Jesus sits quietly as Father Pedro Ruquoy, who runs a refuge near Barahona, tells how he escaped from the family and ran away to a local hospice. When he arrived his neck was twisted from carrying heavy loads on his shoulder and the marks on his slender torso suggested ill-treatment. The Dominican family found out where he was and came to the hospice demanding either his return or 10,000 pesos for the loss. "They used him as a slave," says Mr Ruquoy. "And they tortured him."

...

But even as Haitians are reviled, they are also needed for their cheap labour. The manner in which the children arrive varies. Some are kidnapped but most often their parents not only know, but actually pay "busones" or scouts to ensure their safe passage in the hope that they will have a better life.

"Half of all Haitians struggle to eat even once a day," says Helen Spraos, Christian Aid's Haiti representative. "It doesn't take much to push people over the brink. If the rains fail or someone falls ill, they have to sell what little they have - perhaps a pig or a goat - to buy medicines. Eventually they have to sell their land. Once they reach rock bottom, the one way they can provide for their children is by sending them to live in the cities or in the Dominican Republic. There at least they may be fed and have some prospects for making a living."

The administration of sweat-shop owners and genocidaires has been trying former members of the elected government for alleged political killings, while locking up priests - the same people who have been killing with impugnity since the US-directed coup (which the UN hypocritically describes as anti-gang raids, as pure an example of imperialist racism as I have come across. At the same time, they have overturned murder convictions for those involved in the Raboteau massacre. They hae been trying to the demonstration elections which have been set up to retroactively justify the destruction of democracy.

See also: Democracy Now! The New Haiti: Arrest, Murder, Repression; Democracy Now! Haiti Under Siege; Lenin's Tomb: Haiti is Being Murdered; Democracy Now! The Haiti Coup One Year Later; Global Research - Hait's Nightmare: The Cocaine Coup and the CIA Connection; Amnesty International: Raboteau Massacre.