Presenter(s): Sydnee Warren—Exploring
Co-Presenter(s): Sara Harvey
Faculty Mentor(s): Matthias Vogel
Session: Prerecorded Poster Presentation
The State Department of the United States of America has in 2019 raised concerns about human and sex trafficking taking place in the Dominican Republic and in Haiti . Our research project examines the many factors contributing to human trafficking in the nation of Haiti, where thousands are affected by human trafficking every year . As a developing country, Haiti struggles to overcome this problem . We seek to expose the main developments and causes for the Haitian sex and labor trafficking market by reviewing and compiling government data, reports issued by international non-governmental organizations, and individual case studies over the past decade . We will show that the Haitian government has not taken sufficient action to hold traffickers accountable or to eradicate the “Restavek” system, a system that has delivered one quarter of Haitian children into domestic servitude and harsh labor . We contend that Haiti continues to be in a human rights struggle of devastating consequences for individual lives . Our project aims to bring to widespread public attention the violations of basic human rights in developing and often ignored countries like Haiti and we hope to shine a spotlight onto human trafficking in Haiti in an effort to try and gain support for the movement to overcome human trafficking .