Woman sentenced to 7 years in Haitian slave case

Gen de twa jou de sa, mwen te poste nouvel saa sou fowom nan.
Pèsonn pa reaji malgre se yon gwo pwoblèm pou devlopman sosyal peyi a.

http://forumhaiti.com/haiti-societe-f2/apa-yon-restavek-jwenn-lajistis-lan-florid-e-an-ayiti-menm-t3759.htm

Ebyen jij meriken yo kwè ke se yon bagay serye.
Yo kondane fanm ki te fè restavèk la rantre Ozetazini pou 7 an lan prizon.

Li lè pou leta ayisyen pran pawol saa o serye tou.

Ebyen jij meriken yo kwè ke se yon bagay serye.
Yo kondane fanm ki te fè restavèk la rantre Ozetazini pou 7 an lan prizon.

Li lè pou leta ayisyen pran pawol saa o serye tou.

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Woman sentenced to 7 years in Haitian slave case
By Vanessa Blum

Sun-Sentinel.com
1:44 PM EDT, May 20, 2008

FORT LAUDERDALE


A Fort Lauderdale federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a South Florida woman to seven years and three months in prison for keeping a teenage girl from Haiti in servitude for six years.

Maude Paulin, a former Miami-Dade middle school teacher, was convicted in March along with her mother, Evelyn Theodore of conspiring to enslave the girl, forcing her to work and harboring an illegal immigrant.

Before being sentenced, Paulin apologized to U.S. District Judge Jose Gonzalez Jr. and her family, saying she had good intentions when she brought Simone Celestin from Haiti to live with her family.

"Unfortunately, I can't change what is already done," Paulin said.

Friends, relatives and former students gathered at her sentencing cried as she spoke.

Lead prosecutor Edward Chung called Paulin unremorseful for her actions.

"This was a middle school teacher placed in charge of this community's children," Chung said. "She was the one who committed this crime and she's the one who still to this day believes she's done nothing wrong."

Celestin, 22, sat quietly in the back row of the courtroom. During a five-day trial, Celestin testified that she was brought to the United States from Haiti when she was 14 to be a maid in the Paulins' home in southwest Miami.

Celestin said she was forced to sleep on the floor and work 15 hours a day cleaning the house instead of going to school. She escaped with the help of family friends, she said.

Defense attorneys argued Celestin made up the slavery story to secure legal immigration status as a victim of human trafficking. Paulin's attorney, Richard Dansoh, said the family tried to enroll Celestin in school but failed because she was an illegal immigrant and had no identification.

Gonzalez ordered Paulin to pay $162,765 in restitution that would go to Celestin. The figure was calculated by the U.S. Labor Department as the worth of Celestin's years of unpaid labor.

Paulin's ex-husband, Saintfort Paulin, who was found guilty of harboring an illegal immigrant, is to be sentenced later today. He faces approximately one year in prison.

A sentencing hearing for Theodore, 74, who suffered a stroke after her conviction, has been postponed. Miramar resident Claire Telasco, Paulin's sister, was also charged in the case, but acquitted of all charges by the Broward jury.

Dansoh said he was disappointed by the sentence and would appeal. He had argued for home confinement due to Theodore's health condition.

Though his client made serious mistakes, Dansoh said she intended to give Celestin a better life in the United States.

"The original intent was noble," he said. "Somehow things went awry."

Human rights groups estimate that 300,000 children in Haiti, mostly girls, work as domestic servants in circumstances similar or worse than those described by Celestin. The child workers, often turned over to wealthy families in the hope that they will find a better life, are known as restaveks, a Creole term meaning "to stay with."

Although there is no way to know how many such children find their way to the United States, Celestin's case is not the first uncovered in South Florida. In 2004, a Pembroke Pines woman pleaded guilty to smuggling a 9-year-old Haitian girl into slavery.

Her husband and son fled the country after the girl's story came to light.

Such cases are part of a national effort by the Justice Department to crack down on crimes of human trafficking.

Vanessa Blum can be reached at vbblum@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4605.

Copyright © 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Se pou tout ayisyen ki konnen fanmi ki genyen ti moun nan kondition restavek o Zeta zuni denonse moun sa yo.lè jounal pibliye yon krim konsa se pa moun ki komet krim lan selman ki koupab se tout dyaspora ki tolere vye bagay sa yo ap fet jis isit nan peyi etranje ;sim ta konnen youn moun ap trete ti moun an esklavaj yon kote map fout denonse yo kareman.Fok bagay saa fini ;si toleran an ayiti yo ap kase fey kouvri sa isit la nou pa fet pou nou tolere esklavaj ti moun nan dyaspora.se yon wont pou tout ayisyen lè yap montre vye bagay sa yo nan televisyon.e sa ki pi endiyan se pa moun ki pa edike ki ap fè vye malpwoprete se menm vye elit repiyan ki kontinye ap fè menm salopri jis nan peyi blan.