Info

Children of Shadows (2001)

Name: Children of Shadows
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2019-03-05T13:20:47+01:00

Documentary | 54 minutes

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Genre: Documentary

Duration: 54 minuten

Country: Haiti / United States

Directed by: Karen Kramer

This movie is not available on US streaming services.

Children of Shadows plot

In desperation, many parents in Haiti give their small children away to more affluent families, where they have to work as unpaid workers. A modern form of slavery, director Karen Kramer calls the fate of these children, who are called restaveks - a contraction of the French rester and avec ('stay with'). Kramer followed a day in their lives: they scrub, cook and run back and forth with pitchers of water, when they should be going to school. They wear rags, sleep on the stone floor and have to settle for leftovers. Most children are much too small for their age. Kramer also listened to employers, who were surprisingly proud of their underage employees, and to parents, many of whom come from rural areas, who were forced to squander their children in the hope of a better life than themselves.