Conn said people are driven by causes that contain “adventure,
risk management and purpose.” A restavek (from the French rest
aver, “one who stays with”) is a child who is sent by their
parents to work for a host household as a domestic servant
because the parents lack the resources required to support the
child. Restavek may refer to a child staying with a host family,
but usually refers specifically to those who are abused. For
Conn, the opportunity to help the estimated 300,000 children
living in slavery in Haiti, fulfilled the requirements he had
listed. Conn said, “Haiti is a failed state” with no effective
government, no economy and no services available to its people.
This failure has led to a scarcity mentality which has led to a
climate of modern day slavery, even though Haiti is the country
known to have had the first successful slave revolt. Raymond
Conn first discovered the practice of child slavery during a
trip to the country about 10-years ago. Even though Haiti is in
the center of the U.S. Car