There are 27 million
slaves living in the world today--more than at any time in history. Three
hundred thousand of them are impoverished children in Haiti, who "stay
with" families as unpaid and uneducated domestic workers, subject to
physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. This practice, known locally as restavek
("staying with"), is so widespread that one in ten Haitian children
is caught up in this form of slavery.
Jean-Robert Cadet
was a restavek in Haiti from the late 1950s until the early 1970s. He
told the harrowing story of his youth in Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child
to Middle-Class American--a landmark book that exposed ongoing child
slavery in Haiti. Now in My Stone of Hope, Cadet continues his story
from his early attempts to adjust to freedom in American society to his current
life mission of eliminating child slavery through advocacy and education. As he
recounts his own struggles to surmount the psychological wounds of slavery,
Cadet puts a human face on the suffering that hundreds of thousands of Haitians
still endure daily. He also builds a convincing case that child slavery is not
just one among many problems that Haiti faces as the Western Hemisphere's
poorest nation. Rather, he argues that the systematic abuse of so many of its
children is Haiti's fundamental problem, because it creates damaged adults who
seem incapable of governing the country justly or managing its economy
productively.
For everyone concerned about
the fate of Haiti, the welfare of children, and the freedom of people around
the globe, My Stone of Hope sounds an irresistible call to action.
