Ashton Kutcher/Demi Moore Foundation Aims To Stop Child Slavery In Haiti

The DNA Foundation -- a not-for-profit organization initiated in January by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher -- has announced plans to end child slavery in Haiti by banning a centuries old practice that allows the buying and selling of children for labor purposes.

There are approximately 300,000 "restavec" children in Haiti -- those who are sent from their own family to live with another, often for economic reasons. Too often, these children are sold for money and forced to do housework and sleep on the floor.

Ashton Kutcher asserted that making this issue known during the reconstruction process is imperative to assuring that these children are released from slavery. "We call on donor governments, foundations and non-governmental organizations to demand that child slavery be banned as they fund the $11.5 billion that the Haitian government has requested," he said. "We will work to educate all of the major donors and members of the United States Congress on this opportunity."

The DNA Foundation is committed to ending child sex slavery around the world and rehabilitating victims of human trafficking.

Comments

[tradeyourcharms]

08:39 AM on 04/18/2010

"The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts". How true this quote is about Demi & Ashton. These two are improving our world. Thanks D & A

[winias]

10:27 AM on 03/30/2010

Ok good, good deed, etc etc but they're still weird.

[BrotherOrchid]

01:31 PM on 03/29/2010

Aston & Demi are good liberal soldiers in this war of idea's and ideals. I salute them.

[iLoveGiraffes]

04:21 AM on 03/29/2010

Why don't these actors stop trying to impose their morality upon other countries. Neo-colonialists.

[BrotherOrchid]

01:28 PM on 03/29/2010

Your comment sounds like a Glen Beck retread. .

I don't think that it will get much mileage. . .

or traction here.


TRY FOX NEWS... . . . THEY AGREE WITH YOU>

[iLoveGiraffes]

05:09 PM on 03/29/2010

I like to engage in discussion with those that disagree with me more than commenting in an echo chamber.

[heariam]

10:32 PM on 03/28/2010

I'm all for what they are doing what i don't understand is why did they have to use such a old picture of them to put up on this article...

[annemtheriault]

10:31 AM on 03/28/2010

Demi and Ashton...thanks again for being such wonderful humanitarians!

Anne Theriualt

[John Ridgway]

11:39 PM on 03/27/2010

There is more slavery now than ever before in human history. Whenever I hear someone talk about the end of slavery, I bristle anymore. Thank God for the ability of celebrities to bring issues into the public consciousness. These are the first two I have seen address slavery directly. Thank you Ashton and Demi from the bottom of my heart. I hope you keep moving in the direction of fighting slavery, you two could really make a difference, and this issue needs a lot more lot.

[LeeJP]

02:01 PM on 03/27/2010

The media citing studies by self-serving charities preaching on the horrors of child slavery in Haiti. They conveniently ignore that there may be more poor Haitian kids being sponsored at $20 to $40 a pop by Christian missions and the global charity businesses making a profit off Haiti's poverty than there are children in Haiti. These NGOs studies get lot of grants off the backs of the Haitians ignore that, not only does this charity money raised -in the name of helping poor kids like the ones who are so poor in Haiti they must be lent out to another poor family for work purposes as restavek - child laborers/indentured servants-The poor kids are used as BAIT to raise funds that mostly doesn't reach them.The bulk of the money raised by NGOS, in the name of “helping the poor Haitian people," mostly, like US/Euro foreign aid to Haiti, stays in the US or in Europe, or is used for salaries for their personnel. For the past 25 years Haiti has seen an influx of at least 10,000 private organizations perform supposedly humanitarian missions in Haiti, yet it remains one of the world’s poorest countries.

What the media should be asking the NGOs is what have they been doing with the money they collect for the poor, and why they are not coordinating with the Haitian government to help fight these problems.

[LeeJP]

01:53 PM on 03/27/2010

Every year the media like clockwork, do a piece on how the disease-ridden Haitian poor in Haiti own child domestic servants known as- restaveks - for stay with; poor rural young kids, mostly small girls, who go stay with another family to work for their keep because their own families can't feed educate and shelter them. They deliberately called this phenomenon - which is present in every poor country as Haiti Child slavery ONLY, it seems, to feed the uninformed American public with its regular dose on the absurdity or how uncivilized these the people are. While throwing shame on Haiti precisely to marginalize, Haiti's great feat as the first country to abolish European chattel slavery. In Indonesia there are about 400,000 child domestic workers in Jakarta alone and 5 million in Indonesia as a whole. In Venezuela 60% of the girls working between 10 and 14 years of age are employed as domestic workers. Country surveys showed that the proportion of child domestic workers under ten years of age was 26 per cent in Venezuela, 24 per cent in Bangladesh, and 16 per cent in Togo.
"To equate the restavek issue to slavery is to trivialize the ownership, Some of the domestic servants are abused and exploited in Haiti, as in the rest of the developing world, is not questioned. But the exploitation is ILLEGAL in Haiti and has been for a long time.

[BellaRee]

11:56 AM on 03/27/2010

in 2003,Haiti passed legislation prohibiting trafficking in persons, & banning the provision of the labor code which formerly sanctioned child domestic labor. The bill followed a law enacted in 2001, which banned all forms of corporal punishment against children. Haiti is taking specific measures to ensure that child servant get educated. Government scholarship funds target restavek children, & they have demanded all families who have child servant living in their homes to send them to school. These advances were dismissed by the U.S. State Department. They ignored the recent legislation, as well as other government measures against trafficking—including stepped up border patrols and the creation of a special Haitian National Police child protection unit in 2003. The reality is most of the child slavery & trafficking are not being done by the Haitians; it’s by some of the shady NGOs or charities that are there. There are 10,000 NGOs &they are much powerful than the government.

[Chantal Laurent]

10:39 PM on 03/26/2010

Move on Ken and Barby, nothing to see here...

[Chantal Laurent]

10:33 PM on 03/26/2010

"Child labor is wrong and should be outlawed in Haiti, but to call child labor as it is practiced in Haiti slavery, is also wrong.

In Haiti, Restavek means "to stay with." It is a long tradition that is practiced for the most part in families. A family in the countryside will send their child to family members in the city. By the way, in Haiti, children are expected to be totally obedient to adults, be they close relatives or not. This is a Haitian tradition. Also, in the countryside, children at a very tender age are given chores to perform -- drawing and bringing water home is considered a child's chore. As in any system, there are abuses of Restavek children. The Restavek system, although it is a voluntary and familial social system, should be closely monitored for abuses. This is a responsibility of the Haitian government and law enforcement. The government must protect children from abusers and punish those criminals who abuse children."

Dr. Gupta, did you give that little girl in Haiti a hug?
http://bit.ly/3ILHUe

[fouchnickens]

06:41 PM on 03/28/2010

My great aunt often took in children as she was unable to bear any -- and none of the children she supported would have considered themselves as child slaves. She made sure they were educated and cared for, and many of them took care of her in the last years of her life as one would care for any family member.

As Haitian society has grown, the restavek system has lost some of its community surveillance, especially in the more recent cases in Miami which were attributed to a restavek situation, but were actually child slavery. The recent earthquake does call into question the informality of the restavek system, but to equate it to child slavery is inaccurate, and will only demonize a tradition which has helped countless Haitian families ensure the health and welfare of its children.

[RichardWalden]

10:30 PM on 03/26/2010

One nice thing about the DNA Foundation is not just the cause--ending child slavery in Haiti-- but the fact that it will hopefully be self-funded. Demi and Ashton certainly make enough money to fund a carefully targetted advocacy effort to compel the Govt of Haiti to outlaw indentured servitude, "restavecs" and all other forms of child slavery.

I support this effort as long as no funds are solicited from Ash's massive Twitter following. Advocacy is cheap; the target--Haiti's Govt and its people--is finite; and, money is not the point. A few committed people initiate change in Washington. It should not take an army of paid staff or media gurus--Ashton is a media guru via Twitter and more. Best of Luck Ash & Demi.