Case Studies

Restavek
Four Ways a Child Enters Restavek
Restavek How do we identify a child in a restavek situation?
Family Solidarity
Three Types of Restavek Situations
Contributing Factors
A Word from Jean Robert Cadet
Definitions

Restavek
Restavek is a Creole term derived from the French, reste avec which literally means ® to stay with. ¯
If you were a restavek child, you would most likely be:

• One of an estimated 300,000 Haitian children enslaved in child labor.
• From an isolated, rural area of Haiti where there are no schools, no electricity, no running water and few possibilities for the future.
• Living in the city with a family who is not your own –not as a foster child, but as their servant.
• Between the ages of 5 and 15, and missing out on your childhood.
• Three times more likely to be a girl than a boy.
• Up at dawn, before any member of the family you serve, to begin preparing for their day, and in bed well after most other children are asleep.
• Responsible for preparing the household meals, fetching water from the local well, cleaning inside and outside the house, doing laundry and emptying bedpans.
• Getting no pay for any of these activities.
• Unable to see your family or remember where they live.
• Unable to attend school consistently, if at all, depending on your owner’s financial situation and schedule.
• Hungry, as you would probably not get enough to eat or food with enough nutritional value for someone who works hard all day.
• Subjected to physical, emotional or sexual abuse in addition to the various forms of neglect mentioned above.
• Never have all of your rights as a child respected.

Four Ways a Child Enters Restavek

• Very poor parents’ desperation and inability to care for their child’s basic needs will lead them to sending their child into restavek with the hope that the child will at least eat better and receive an education. Of course, this is usually not the case.
• Orphaned children will be sent by an aunt or uncle to ‘stay with’ someone who supposedly has more means to care for them. They fall into restvek.
• Children whose very isolated rural communities do not have primary schools will be sent to the towns and cities to attend school.
• A mother or a father may be ashamed of a child because the child was born in conditions society condemns. Examples include children born out of wedlock, children of rape, and children abandoned by their fathers.

Restavek How do we identify a child in a restavek situation?

• The child is serving a family as a household servant.
  • She could be in the home of her aunt or uncle, godmother or godfather, father and stepmother, or the home of a stranger – if she is there with the primary purpose of doing work for the family, she is in a restavek situation.
  • Most children in restavek are abused and neglected in many ways. However, despite the treatment she receives, IF THE FAMILY IS EXPLOITING HER FOR HER LABOR, SHE IS IN RESTAVÈK. It is true many children in Haiti, particularly in families struggling economically, learn to work at home at very young ages. Sometimes people use this fact to justify resavek. It should be clear whether a child is in a restavek situation by comparing the status of that child with the status of the other children of the family.
• The child is seen as inferior and suffers discrimination.
  • Most often, the child in restavek is not sent to school. If she is sent to school, it is more likely that she would be sent to a free or low-cost afternoon school or a school inferior to the schools other children of the household attend.
  • It may be that the other children of the household do chores as well. If a child is given many more chores and more difficult work than the rest of the children in the household, the child is in a restavek situation.
  • A child in restavek will most often eat alone, and rarely be served in the same way as the other members of the household.
  • A child in restavek situation will most often sleep in worse conditions and for fewer hours than the other children. More often than not, she sleeps on the floor apart from other people in the household.
  • The child in a restavek situation will not receive affection, as a child of the household would.
  • The child in a restavek situation is often spoken to in very demeaning ways.
  • She has to fend for herself in all ways (bathing, combing her hair, etc). No adult of the household will make sure she has time to do these things, yet she will often be criticized for not doing them.
  • The child in a restavek situation is not seen as equal to the rest of the members of the family. In fact, she is not seen as a member of the family at all. An older child in restavek, when asked the question, "Are you at home or are you in the home of someone else,” will most always answer, "I’m not a home. I’m in the home of someone else.”

Family Solidarity
One of the beautiful aspects of Haitian culture is called family solidarity. Many extended families work collaboratively to raise their children together. For example, aunts and uncles, older sisters and brothers, grandparents and godparents can take a child in to their home and play the parent’s role in their absence. This is called family solidarity when the child is treated just as all other children of that family are treated –on every level. For example:

• The child is sent to an equivalent or same school as the other children in the family.
• The child does the same chores as the other children.
• The child eats the same food and is served this food in the same way.
• The child sleeps in similar conditions.
• The child is given similar affection.
• The child is generally respected as a member of the household equal to all the other children in the family.
• The child knows she is loved and belongs.

Restavek is NOT synonymous with family solidarity.
Of course, there are always nuances based on age, gender, and personality –in ANY family. However, it should be clear to the experienced observer whether or not a child is in a home with the purpose of being CARED FOR and ACCEPTED AS A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY, or whether the child is there specifically to WORK FOR the family and viewed as INFERIOR.

Three Types of Restavek Situations
1. Godparent
Termed ‘godparent’ in Haitian Creole, this refers to a friend, neighbor or acquaintance (could be a true godparent, but doesn’t have to be) who helps or shows kindness toward a child, leading to a sense of indebtedness in the parents. It may be that the adult has given the child a gift such as clothing or shoes. Perhaps the child is given a plate of food by a neighbor each day. Whatever form it takes, this leads the child’s parents to have her repay the kindness through work.
These children may become day workers, spending the day at the godparent’s home fetching water and washing dishes, then going home to sleep at night. Too often the child ends up living with the godparent in restavek. Either the parents request to send the child, with a perception that the godparent is better equipped to meet the child’s needs, or, the godparent requests that the child come to live with him/her.
2. Family
It is common in Haiti for children to be taken in by a relative. When this happens, we find one of two situations: family solidarity or family restavek. When the child falls into restavek within her own extended family, it is because she is viewed as inferior. The simple fact that her own parents are not able to care for her needs (or have died and are not present to look out for her best interest) can diminish the child’s value in the eyes of a relative. Though in our definition we do not make reference to mothers using their own children as restavek-like servants within their own home (we consider this child abuse; not restavek), it’s worth mentioning that this does happen. (See Domination Mentality section below.) However, a child can be in a restavek situation with her stepmother, even if her father is in the home.
3. Slavery
Though all forms of restavek are child slavery, this is a term used by some in Haiti to describe one common form of restavek where a complete stranger ‘sends for’ a child laborer. Often intermediaries are paid a fee to find a child worker. It more resembles colonial slavery because of this exchange; therefore, it is called slavery restavek. It also resembles colonial slavery in the intention. In family or godparent restavek situations, the intention is often passed off as one of helping the child. However, when an adult calculatedly pays a trafficker to ring a child to work in her home for no pay, there is no doubt that the child is enslaved.

Contributing Factors

• Attitudes about Children
  Proverbs like, ‘children are animals’ which describes treatment of children, and ‘children are the wealth of a poor man’ which describes reproductive practices, help to describe Haitian attitudes about children which fuel the continuation of the restavek practice.
• Poverty and Desperation
  This is often considered one of the greatest causes driving parents to send children into restavek. Often times a parent is forced to face trading her child’s right to live with her family for the hope that she might be able to go to school or eat a decent meal every day.
• Lack of Family Planning
  Couples with high numbers of children, women who have children with various fathers, men who father children with many mothers or any of these family circumstances put children at greater risk of falling into restavek.
  
  
• Irresponsibility of Fathers
  Countless fathers in Haiti do not play an active role in raising their children, nor do they always provide for all their children. This leaves mothers to fend for themselves, and children are left vulnerable to being sent into servitude.
• Social Conditioning –Wide Acceptance of Restavek
  It is likely that every Haitian among the lower and middle classes grows up being exposed to the restavek practice in some way. If not growing up in restavek herself, a child will be exposed to the practice within her own home or neighborhood, and will be conditioned to perceive the practice as normal. This fuels what Haitians call sitirans, meaning acceptance or over-tolerance, of the practice within Haitian society.
• Attitudes about Gender
  Though improving, in general, girls in Haiti have been considered less in need of education to guarantee their future security. This, coupled with the attitude that household work is girls’ work, explains the higher proportion of girls in restavek.
• Weak Education System
  Numerous rural communities do not have schools nearby, while many families in Haiti cannot access the tuition-based education that is available. Even the lower-cost, government-run schools (which make up only 10% of the schools in the country) require that parents purchase uniforms and expensive books, while only having space for a certain number of students. As mentioned on page one, this lack of access to school at home leads parents to send children to live with other families with hopes that their child will be sent to school.
  
  Although efforts are being made in teacher training, the Haitian education system generally perpetuates a mentality of domination through its purely rote teaching methods and corporal discipline approach, and falls short of building self-awareness and self-esteem among the country’s future adult citizens.
  
  Also a result of Haiti’s weak education system is the estimated 55% illiteracy rate which limits parents’ access to information on parenting and children’s rights, and at the same time reduces their capacity to navigate the education system itself.
• Colonial Slavery, Social Class and Domination
  In Haiti today, one is quick to taste the bitter residue left over from the colonial system of domination through slavery. Haitians are constantly, though unconsciously, ranking themselves and others around them based on skin color, education level, economic means, gender, age, birth history, place of birth, and languages spoken.
  
  Depending on each individual’s evolution in the process of healing this historical wound within himself, one aligns oneself as equal, inferior, or superior to the next person. Treatment of that person is then determined based on this ranking, and domination of the superior over the inferior most often results. This domination manifests in varied ways, ranging from social nuances (being ignored, or spoken to rudely, for example), to acts of violence. At each level, most often the victim of domination goes on to dominate another considered inferior to him.
  
  This system of domination extends to every socio-economic class, and certainly is alive and well within families and households. The restavek system is clearly part of this vicious cycle of domination, where the perceived superior dominates over the perceived inferior. As mentioned earlier, children are often identified as inferior based on the circumstances of their birth. A child born outside of marriage, for example, is considered inferior to those born within. A child born of poor parents is also considered poor, therefore inferior. A child of rape, a child of someone who is disrespected in society, etc. –each child’s social status is determined by the circumstances of his or her birth and family status. Also, a mother of children with different fathers will sometimes favor a child of a father with higher economic means, better education, or lighter skin over the child whose father is very poor or uneducated.
  
  A child of poor or dead parents living with and serving another family is widely considered as normal in Haitian society, for it is believed that this ‘life sentence’ is simply the child’s lot in life, due to her low social ranking. It is often taken as a given that this child (and future adult) will be in service to others for a lifetime.
• Impact on Society
  When considering the elevated numbers (estimated to be at least 300,000 ) of children in servitude, one can estimate that at least one eighth of Haiti’s population has lived in restavek at one point in their lives. Bearing in mind the trauma of the restavek experience and how it so greatly damages a child’s sense of self well into her adult years, one can only speculate the impact this practice has had on Haitian society.

A Word from Jean Robert Cadet
I grew up believing that I was inferior to everyone –that my sole purpose for being was to serve adults, care for their children and perform any task demanded of me. They called me restavek – a "stay with”. I knew it meant that I was not a part of the family I served. My childhood was lived in isolation.

Every January 1st , Haiti’s Independence Day, I heard the words, Libert‚, Egalit‚, Fraternit‚ pour from the radio. These words stayed in my mind. Even though I only vaguely understood them I could sense the power these words contained. I was unaware that African slaves had freed themselves from French colonizers and created the nation of Haiti, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere. I had no idea that my personal misery was an extension of that history.

The reality of children in domestic slavery has not changed since I was a child. Many Haitians continue to blame the ill treatment of children on poverty rather than recognize the power within them to change this system. It is to recognize that liberty and equality do not require money but a change of heart and attitude. One does not need money to treat a child decently or stop the beatings, suffering and isolation that children endure. Ending poverty will not change the heart and mind, but changing the heart and mind could possibly be the beginning of a progressive society.

While working with many restavek children and the people with whom they live, I have come to the conclusion that the restavek system and its enslavement of children is a key element in Haiti’s inability to progress as a nation. It perpetuates an illiterate and desensitized society, where life has little value – a society where poverty is used as an excuse to dehumanize the most vulnerable –its children.

There is a Haitian proverb that says, "Pitit ki pa pa w, se lave yon b•, kite yon b•” which means, "Give a child that is not yours half a bath.” My dream is that as Haiti strives to move toward modernity –the words, Libert‚, Egalit‚, Fraternit‚ will once again resonate among its people; that we will unite together to provide our children, Haiti’s greatest resource, the most basic of human rights and that someday each child will receive a full bath.

Definitions
Slave: A person held against his or her will and controlled physically or psychologically by violence or its threat for the purpose of appropriating their labor.

Human Trafficking: The modern-day slave trade – the process of enslaving a person. It happens when someone is tricked or kidnapped or coerced, and then taken into slavery. If moving a person from one place to another does not result in slavery, then it is not human trafficking. The term ‘human trafficking’ often has a specific legal definition based on the laws of countries or states or the conventions of international organizations, and those official definitions differ slightly from place to place. For example, under US law, anyone under 18 who is in prostitution is considered a trafficking victim.

The Jean R. Cadet Foundation considers restavek to be child slavery, and the moving of children into restavek as human trafficking.