A Girl’s Escape - NYTimes.com: Marilaine grew up in a remote village where no family planning or public schooling is available, one of 12 children to impoverished parents who later separated. As Marilaine tells the story, one day when she was 10 years old, she walked to her father’s house to ask him to help pay her school fees. Instead, he dispatched her here to the capital to work as a restavek, a Creole term used to describe child laborers, without even telling her mother.
“My father didn’t want to spend money on my school fees,” Marilaine explained.
As is common for restaveks, Marilaine slept on the floor and woke up at 5 each morning to clean the house, fetch water and wash dishes. She says she was beaten daily with electrical cords.