Airdates: No airdates currently scheduled.

Before the dawn, an army of children rises in Port-au-Prince. Small kids, skinny teenagers, they go to the pumps for water, the market for food. Sandy is one of them. She and her brother Edward, are 'restavecs', from the French words, reste avec, 'to stay with'. They are slave children, taken from their impoverished rural families on a false promise of a better life in the city. There are 330,000 restavecs in Haiti.

Brother and sister are living with a 'tante' in a slum, a woman who beats and whips them. She is not really their aunt – she is their mistress. They cook and clean for sixteen children and adults. 

Sandy and Ed know that Haiti was the world's first free black nation. They feel their captivity is a gross injustice. They dream of escaping and finding their parents. They are not sure where their real family lives - all they remember is that it is somewhere in Jeremy province, far from Port-au-Prince.

Sandy and Ed have met Marlene, a woman who runs a makeshift school for restavecs. She has promised to help them escape to Jeremy. There is no guarantee they will find their parents – or that the parents will want them back. Al Jazeera follows Sandy and Ed's journey home.

LEARN MORE:

View excerpts of other Witness episodes airing on Link TV

Visit Al Jazeera English

More on Witness from Al Jazeera

WATCH ONLINE

See Part 1 here:

See Part 2 here:

About Al Jazeera - Witness

Rageh Omaar presents Witness, a half-hour daily documentary series which features short, specially commissioned or acquired films gathered from independent filmmakers.
 
Each documentary reveals the unknown lives of ordinary people, following their lives, telling their stories and portraying the challenges that confront them. Our witnesses are people in a situation or those who have observed them first hand.
 
The films cover conflict, belief, the past and the future and as well as bringing new stories to light they showcase the talents of a new breed of multi-skilled, frontline journalist. In the studio, Rageh will further explore the issues raised in the films, with expert guests on the subject matter and the filmmakers themselves.