Restavec

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The term Restavec (also spelled 'Restavek'; deriving from the French phrase reste avec, meaning "stay with") refers to a social system in Haiti whereby parents unable to care for their children send them to relatives or strangers living in more urban areas where they receive food and housing (and sometimes an education) in exchange for light housework. In reality Restavecs often live in grinding poverty, enslaved to their 'hosts' and seldom receiving an education. The Restavec system is considered a form of slavery.

Jean-Robert Cadet vividly recounted his life as a Restavec in a book of the same name, published in 1998.

1 History
2 Challenges
3 Examples
4 Restaveks, street children, and HIV
5 Works Cited
6 External links

[edit] History

Haiti has often had obstacles to enforcing its own laws and though abolished in law both in 1793 and 1804, slave conditions and class distinctions have survived through the present day. Seeing coffee and sugar as Haiti’s only economic asset, Toussaint L’Ouverture immediately implemented mandatory labor after leading history's only successful slave revolt and winning Haiti's independence. Law required all inhabitants to be employed as servants, soldiers, or plantation workers. Slaves were renamed cultivateurs and, although their masters were no longer white, their plight was improved marginally at best. L’Ouverture even called for the import of more African laborers to make up for wartime losses. Under Dessalines, L’Ouverture’s successor, conditions only worsened as a reign of terror became the norm from which Haitians have seldom seen respite. “Haiti’s new rulers could have turned Haiti into a model of individual freedom in the New World. Instead they maintained an oppressive labor code on the plantations . . . and the restavek system (child slavery) survived into the twentieth century and beyond” (Girard, 53-54).

Restaveks have numerous roots in Haitian culture and history. During French colonization, the children of slaves were given menial tasks and household chores until they were strong enough for field duty. After the abolition of slavery, household servants stayed on. The nouveaux-riche black army officers that took over the plantations became just as accustomed to these servants as their white predecessors and the system perpetuated. In a parallel root, this system originated as traditional Haitian hospitality. The term restavek derives from French and Creole, literally meaning: “stay with.” Wealthier distant relations would take in one of the children of a struggling family member. In exchange for menial tasks and light household chores, the child would be clothed, fed, educated, and provided for in ways that his or her parents could not. As this practice became more common, however, families with less and less money began taking in restaveks as a status symbol. Haiti is already one of the most impoverished nations in the world and when families that can barely afford to feed, clothe, and educate themselves properly take on a restavek, they are that much less inclined to share what little they have with him or her. Restaveks are then forced to work 10-16 hour days of backbreaking labor, often on only one meal a day. They are clothed with the rags and hand-me-downs of the other children, usually without underwear or shoes. Seldom educated, they sleep on cardboard or rags, suffer constant humiliation and abuse – “Girls are especially vulnerable: They are commonly used for the sexual initiation of teenage boys in the house” (Hoag) and are generally seen as something slightly less than human.

Restaveks today are often not even related to their supposed caretakers. Most come from the poor rural areas under their parents’ belief that they will be given a better life living with another family in a big city like Port-au-Prince with access to schools. Haiti’s lack of infrastructure from phones to roads means little communication: most families just assume that their child is better off and never see him or her again or hear of the atrocities he or she suffers.

[edit] Challenges

One of the biggest challenges in addressing the restavek situation is changing the mentality that allowed it to occur for 200 years and that refers to children as young animals (Hoag). Slavery placed no value on children and that lack of value has carried over into the Haitian culture. Parents can even put their children in jail as a form of discipline (Lord). Having a restavek is technically illegal, but the laws are rarely enforced. Or as the U.S. Department of State put it, “Governmental agencies and programs to promote children’s rights and welfare existed, but the government lacked the capacity and the resources to adequately support or enforce existing mechanisms.”

The restavek system is culturally acceptable; therefore, those that could report abuses rarely do. Most families believe they are doing a good deed by taking in a restavek, especially if they take him or her to the U.S. As a result, many restaveks are not discovered until they have been illegally trafficked into other countries. In one case a twelve-year-old girl was found in Miami, unkempt and complaining of abdominal pain as a result of constant rape since she was 9. She recounted her story of being forced to move to New York and work eighteen hours a day. (Padgett). Haiti’s government has set up a program called SOS Timoun where restaveks can call in to report this illegal activity and seek help, but it is only open during business hours and most restaveks are illiterate and have no access to a phone, making this program ineffectual. Child labor laws have also been passed in recent years, but this has simply resulted in restaveks being released and becoming street children when they reach the ages at which the laws apply. The most progress has been seen in NGOs and private aid agencies such as the Maurice Sixto Home in Port-au-Prince, which feeds and educates restaveks. Awareness alone may be having some impact on the situation as we are now seeing occasional help by adults. In one case a neighbor took a mistreated child to the Maurice Sixto Home and in another case a restavek reported proper treatment by his caretaker, but these appear to be the exceptions, not the norm (Hoag).

The value placed on class hierarchy is not easily broken down in Haiti and perpetuates the restavek system in much the same way as traditional Haitian views of children. Something as simple as having a portable radio or wearing somewhat new-looking American clothing can be a status symbol. “The restavek’s owner climbs a rung in the social strata. The restavek system flourishes in part because of the sharp class divisions in Haiti” (Lord). Conversely, being seen wearing old, dirty clothes or not having shoes incites taunting calls of “restavek, restavek.”

The term "restavek" is considered a dirty word in Haitian culture. Few will actually admit to having a restavek, instead, caretakers may say they are taking care of someone else's child or that they have a child in domesticity, but not a restavek. Switchvert Pty. Ltd. travelled to Haiti in September of 2006 to shoot a documentary on the subject and found that the majority of households in Haiti have at least one extra child and some are treated well and sent to school, but of the experts interviewed, none would say that even half of the children living in domesticity are treated properly. When asking the average Haitian how they defined the term "restavak," interviewres found that there seemed to be three ready-made responses. Some claimed they could not define the term because they did not know any. The second typical response was that a restavek is a child who does not do what he or she is told, who steals or refuses to do what he or she is told and has to be beaten and reprimanded just to do a few simple chores. The third and most common response was that restaveks are like slaves and mistreated, but very few people would admit to knowing of any restaveks. The crew of Switchvert remarked that the responses were very similarly worded to a billboard they saw in Port-Au-Prince, probably placed by an NGO.

[edit] Examples

Jean-Robert Cadet recounts such humiliating experiences as being taunted with the term "restavek" in his autobiography Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American. Cadet, whose experiences certainly are horrific, was able to transcend his situation and gain some education partially through the fact that his skin is a few shades lighter than most lower class Haitians. If not for this superficial advantage, we may not know Cadet’s story. Other times this worked against Cadet as his caretaker, Florence, would beat him when she felt bitter about the fact that she was darker than he. Throughout Haitian history, “skin color defined not only one’s social condition but also one’s ethnic and cultural identity” (San Miguel 35). The smarter students in Cadet’s sporadic schooling were referred to as “petit blancs” by their instructors. Students were tracked into classes and self-fulfilling prophesies by the shade of their skin. Florence would proudly comment when referring to her real son, Dennis, that when it came to paying debts, she is blanc; when it comes to intelligence, Dennis is blanc. It would seem, however, that this distinction is fading in Haitian culture.

Cadet’s father was a rich white coffee trader who got one of his black workers pregnant, a not uncommon situation in Haiti. To cover it up, Cadet was given away as a Restavek. Cadet was not even allowed to acknowledge or see his father out of fear of embarrassment to the father. Upon arrival at his caretakers he was renamed Robert. Cadet was so young that he did not even know his real name until he ran into someone that knew his mother years later. The practice of renaming restaveks, particularly with common names that strip their identity and lump the entire class together as an indistinguishable mass, is quite common and acts as a further hindrance to both authorities and families finding restaveks. Cadet was furthermore threatened with being given the last name Joseph, one of the most common last names in Haiti often given to restaveks. Throughout his childhood Cadet endured long workdays and constant abuse. He was locked in the bathroom monthly and forced to clean Florence’s menstrual rags by hand long before he even knew what the blood was from. He was physically beaten numerous times, even to the point of unconsciousness, and refused medical attention or even the ability to get out of his chores when injured or sick. Cadet often survived on one meal a day and slept on rags on the kitchen floor. He lived in so much fear that he wet his bed much of his life, which is also apparently not unusual for restaveks, and suffered beatings whenever he did. Florence’s family abused him verbally, emotionally, and sexually. When one of Florence’s friend’s sons tried to befriend Cadet, Cadet had his head forced into an excrement-filled toilet for “forgetting his place.” Another restavek named René that lived down the street from him was taken to the police for stealing two dollars to buy food. When René returned he was nearly unrecognizable. “Restaveks, who know most cops in Haiti to be brutal and corrupt, are generally loath to approach police in the U.S. Plus, they fear that turning in their captors to authorities may elicit reprisals” (Padgett). This fear is yet another reason why so many restaveks go unfound by authorities even after being brought to the United States. Cadet met a handful of other restaveks, all with the same plight, a plight few are believed to have escaped as he did.

[edit] Restaveks, street children, and HIV

Most restaveks when they reach adolescence become street children, which leaves them begging and prostitution as possible careers; some may be fortunate enough to become cooks or gardeners. UNICEF’s March 2006 “Child Alert: Haiti” reports that street children in Port-au-Prince are killed at an estimated rate of one per week. There are an estimated 200,000-300,000 restaveks in Haiti today. The large range results from the difficulty in obtaining accurate and reliable information on restaveks. Most owners keep their birth certificates as leverage, do not register or admit to having a restavek, do not enroll them in school, etc. 2006 UNICEF estimates even exceed 300,000 restaveks in Haiti, which amounts to 1 in every 10 children. Three-fourths of those are believed to be girls. Haiti has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the region, of which restaveks are at increasingly high risk due to the abuses and the limited choices they are faced with as street children. Haitian culture also puts little value on birth control, which exacerbates both the HIV/AIDS problem and the increasing number of restaveks as more and more children are born whose parents cannot provide for them. These issues are exacerbated even more so through the lack of equality with which Haitian culture treats women. For example, there are no government sponsored programs for victims of violence and a man is legally permitted to kill his wife or her partner if they are caught in adultery. Wives, however, are given no such provision (U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices). Jean-Robert Cadet describes a socially acceptable practice common among Haitian married men known as placé, in which a man provides a woman with a place to live in exchange for a sexual relationship. A single man with enough money will often be placé with two or three women.

These attitudes towards birth control, women, and children only feed the cultural acceptance that acts as the largest hindrance to improving the restavek situation. Without intervention – through education, action, and the enforcement of Haitian and international laws – restaveks will only continue to increase in number and deteriorate in condition. Haiti’s present will only grow darker, overshadowing her adventurous past.

[edit] Works Cited

Amnesty International. “Children’s Rights, The Future Starts Here.” 1999. Amnesty International. Retrieved May 7, 2006. .

UNICEF. “Child Alert: Haiti.” March 2006. UNICEF. Retrieved May 7, 2006. .

U.S. Department of Labor. “Country Profiles: Haiti.” April 19, 2004. Online. Internet. U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of International Labor Affairs. May 7, 2006. U.S. Department of State. “U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2005 - Haiti - March 2006: 5. Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons.” March 2006. Online. Internet. U.S. Department of State. May 7, 2006. .

Cadet, Jean-Robert. Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1998.

Dash, Michael J. Culture and Customs of Haiti. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Girard, Philippe R. Paradise Lost: Haiti’s Tumultuous Journey from Pearl of the Caribbean to Third World Hot Spot. New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Heurtelou, Maude. “Haiti.” Teen Life in Latin America and the Caribbean. Eds. Cynthia Margarita Tompkins & Kristen Sternberg. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004.

Hoag, Christina. “Where Slaves Revolted, Slavery Thrives.” BusinessWeek Online. Sep. 24, 2001. Editor, Harry Maurer. Online. Internet. May 7, 2006 .

Lord, Ellen. “Rosenita, slave at 6.” Cincinatti Times. June 5, 2000. Online. Internet. May 7, 2006. .

Padgett, Tim. “Of Haitian Bondage.” Time Magazine. May 4, 2001. Online. Internet. May 7, 2006. http://www.racematters.org/ofhaitianbondage.htm.

San Miguel, Pedro L. The Imagined Island: History, Identity, and Utopia in Hispaniola. Trans. Jane Ramírez. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.