By Nick Caistor
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Haiti was the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery, when it won its independence in 1804 after a struggle led by Toussaint Louverture. But thousands live a life of near-slave labour because of poverty and social breakdown.

Jeanette is walking up a hill in Petionville, a district in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. She is carrying a huge blue drum full of water on her head. Jeanette is only six, but has to walk 4km (2.4 miles) every day to get the water from the public standpipe.

Jeanette was born in the countryside outside the small town of Hinche in the north of the country. Her parents are among the poorest of the poor in this country where more than half the population of 9m lives on less than 50 US cents (£0.25) a day.

Her father one day told her she was going to stay with (French: rester avec) distant relatives in the Haitian capital. Ever since, Jeanette has become one of the estimated 250,000 children used as near-slave labour in Haiti.

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