Well in Haiti it is a situation that Haitians call Restavèk and unfortunately to them, it is the norm. it is a part of their culture having a little maid having a little r Restavèk. The unfortunate thins that is to see it happening here in America and it is, people are not being enslaved by the American but they’re being enslaved by their own people. Meaning they’re actually bringing their own culture here to American and by doing so, they will bring a little child or even an adult, here to America. They will sell them for, it depends on the deal that they make with whoever is selling them to them. Let’s say that a family is here, they have children they want to get, they want to work two jobs but they can’t work two jobs because they have kids, and they cannot afford a nanny. So what they’ll do they will go to Haiti and ask someone to sell them, to find a child and sell it to them, have the child come here and basically enslave them in the home just to take care of the household chores and the kids.
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These are the people that stay home that do the household chores. Basically they don’t have a life of their own. Their life revolves around that particular family. They don’t have time to make friends, nor are they allowed to make friends. Daily life is basically doing what they are told to do and, most of the time, they will get beaten if they don’t do it, or it could be worse for them. So it is not just taking care or just watching children, you know. You have to wake up in the morning, be the first one to wake up in the morning and you’re the last one to go to bed and yet, it’s never enough to your master or your capture, unfortunately.
[You had the experience of being in the situation in Haiti and then again here in the United States in Connecticut. Was it worse in Haiti and better here or just the same awful experience in both places?]
It was different experiences but similar. When I was in Haiti I was much younger and I think I would say it was rather harder in Haiti because I was younger. And here, here was hard as well but I think because I was older and not knowing what to expect, especially when I found out what my fate would be. And I basically do the norm what any Restavèk would do. Say to themselves okay, this is life, this is my life, this is what I was born to be, so I’m just going to go ahead and do it and it was very very very difficult. It is a situation that I don’t think any human being should be living in.
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In Haiti I was five. I can remember my typical day would be waking up in the morning as soon as you hear that um, what did they call him? Rooster. As soon as the rooster would sing I was up. I had to run for miles to get water because there were 12 people in the house. There were 10 children that had to bathe and get ready for school and that was my responsibility, to provide water for that. And then whatever breakfast that needed to be made I had to be there to help my aunt to make breakfast for them. So when they all went to school, of course, I had to clean the house, do the dishes and then go back and get more water. And I would go to the plantation to gather whatever needed to be for dinner that night. So I was always going from morning till night. I was always the first one up and the very last one to go back to bed.
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I was no allowed to go to school. I was not allowed to go to school until I was, I had to be about eight or nine years old. Then there was another cousin who came in and got me from my aunt’s house and that is when she actually decided that because I couldn’t even say the alphabet, and I was eight, I didn’t know the alphabet. So she hired tutors to help me catch up throughout the summer and then when school opened and she put me to school.
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I was in that situation until I was about 12, 13, and then that’s when my cousin came to me and asked me how would I like to go to America? Because my siblings were already here in Florida. I was going to be reunited with them, so I was told. I was excited and it was only when I got here and I realized that, erm, it was not what she said it would be.
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One afternoon when my cousin came back from Haiti to find me, um, in her house with my sister and she was outrageous. I guess the sister, her sister who is my cousin, called her and kept on asking her ‘well where is she? I paid the money for her and why isn’t she here? I hear that she’s in Florida having fun’. So I guess my cousin decided okay, she’s gonna come in and ship me out. She came in the morning and by the afternoon I was already on a plane to Connecticut. And that’s when I actually realized that, um, that I was sold. She actually owned me. When she met me at the airport and then, and I was crying because I really didn’t know that there was money exchanging hands. I was crying because I didn’t know that person. For the first time I’m meeting someone and I’m, she told me to shut up, what’s my problem? You know? She just paid all this money and this is what she got.
So that’s when I realized exactly what had happened.
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It is not unique at all. Tons and tons of children, not only in Haiti but it’s happening all over the world, but it is in Haiti. It’s the worst because due to the poverty leve it’s just, has just gotten worse than to get better. it’s just a sickening thing that is happening.
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They call it Restavèk, Restavèk meaning to live with. It’s for parents who are poor or children who are, often in Haiti we don’t have a system where we have a guardian or the next of kin. If something happens in Haiti it is the norm that if you parents are dead, then the normal thing to do is to go live with your aunt or uncle. I mean, they’re really supposed to take care of you as a motherly or fatherly figure, but instead of that they use that against you. They don’t treat you like family, they treat you like an outside. Or even worse than that, they treat you like an animal. But they think it’s okay, they actually make it okay. They’re the ones who came up with the name Restavèk. For them, they look at it that way. Okay, this is a child that I have, she can do all the work in the house where if I had a servant, I would have to pay the servant. So they figured that if they’re feeding you, they give you a little bit of food and perhaps if they give you one clothes per year, one dress per year, that’s more than enough. And they feel that they are doing their part.
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Yes, close relatives, unfortunately. Taking you in, but not treating you as a member of the family, not at all.
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It [the abuse] started right away. As soon as I moved in with them they told me my role. They gave me my chores, my bedroom was the floor, I had one sheet that was it. I was not allowed to eat at the dinner table with everyone else. When everyone else was in the room I wasn’t allowed to be there. I was either outside with the animals or somewhere in a corner or doing something. So if I disobeyed any of that, not only that my aunt or my uncle would whip me, but also my cousins. Even those who are my age, they had the authority to hit me and whip me and I could not defend myself.
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It continues here, unfortunately [in the US]. The little ones in the morning, especially in the morning when I tried to wake them up, they would yell, spit at me, scream, slap me, kick. I couldn’t defend myself because if I did something to them, then it would have been the wrst for me.
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Sometime towards the end of highschool, after I graduated high school. I had a job, I worked at a fast food restaurant and I used to talk to my boss, asking him question you know. At what age do you become an adult in America? And then he told me he said “well once you’re 18 you’re an adult, you’re a grown up” and I was like what do you mean? You don’t need a mother and father to sign for you? Don’t need aunts and uncles? He was like no you don’t need anybody to sign for you, you’re 18 you can leave the house, you can rent your own place, you can do whatever you want. So I looked at it that way. I was working, I was paying rent and I was still taking care of her four children and still doing everything that she should have done.
So one afternoon, erm, I came home at the usual time, I came home from work at the usual time but according to her I was too late, because for the first time she had to cook dinner for her kids, bathe them and help them. She went crazy. Di the exact samr thing that she usually does to me, grabbed my by my ears, twisted and just pulled me and start screaming at me. And in that moment I looked at her and I said this is it, I’m done. I yelled at her and pushed her away and that was it.
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She was shocked, she was shocked. But I was more shocked to see that, to see how she reacted, because I really thought, I was scared. I really thought that she would probably retaliate or try to kill me or something. Instead she became like this little cat who just got scared and started screaming and saying “are you coming to hit me in my house? I’m gonna call the police” and then I looked at her and I say how pitiful, you know? I stayed there all these years and yet she is just, she was really as scared as they come.
Eventually it was getting dark so I decided that, to knock at a neighbour’s door and I explained to her what had happened, and she had a studio so she rent me a room for $80 a week. At the time I was still working at the fast food restaurant and then I decided that I was going to go to school. So I went to Catherine Gibbs but then that didn’t really work out so I decided that I was going to move to Mass [Massachusetts] and that’s when I moved to Mass. I lived with my brother for a while, I went to school.
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When I realized that I needed some type of counselling I got involved with his group called Jewish and Children family services. It was actually my lawyer who helped me get involved with them. It’s called Jewish and Children family services and the service was for free. I didn’t have to pay for anything, they helped me tremendously. It was for the first time that someone actually sat and listened to me and did not make me feel like I deserved everything that had happened, because I used to believe that I deserved everything that happened because that’s what I was told all my years.
Erm on afternoon the doctor that was treating me she said to me “well, you know, I think if we were to have you speaking in a group, you know, I think it would help because maybe you could hear other people’s stories. Even if its not the same thing that happened to oyu, but we could probably help you and you could probably help them in a way.” Then I agreed so then the next day she called me, she said well how about a radio interview? I was king of reluctant but erm, it was with NPR and I did the interview and since then, I got so many wonderful responses and many requests to speak, and actually I think my first public speaking was at the International Women’s Day. So since then, especially when I see the rection that I get, the feedback from people who was not aware of such thing happening, and that’ when I realized that wow, if no one willing knew about that. Even the state where I grew up, they had no idea until I actually cam out. And I realised that then I should continue speaking about it because that will make a difference.
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It’s really really sad to see that there are actually Haitains who are not aware of this Restavèk. It is those who are born here in America, and if their parents don’t talk to them about it, or if their parents didn’t have all this Restavèk who live with them, they really don’t know anything about it unfortunately.
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I think word of mouth is very very powerful, definitely. With what you're doing here, this is like the greatest thing because if one speak, someone will listen. Someone will hear. And by doing so eventually the word of mouth will go around and it will make a difference because someone will hear. In my time when I was with my cousin, I did not know anything, I didn’t know it was wrong to have a Restavèk, I didn’t and in my belief, in my heart, I knew it was wrong to live like that, but because it was the norm for us it was okay. But it was because I never had, or I never heard anyone speaking about it saying to me “do you know that it’s wrong for, you know, for people to have Restavèk, you know, for people to treat you that way. And do you know that there is help out there?” The unfortunate thing is that, is a matter of fear, and most people who stay in that situation are afraid. They capturer hinders them with fear and with that, if we let them know that there is help. If, you know, they even if they threat that they’re going to call immigration, instead they’re the one that’s going to be in trouble, not you. You know? That the immigration law holds a special provision for human who’s been trafficked against their own will from that country, and I just think that will make a difference.
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I hope and pray that the United Nations would step in worldwide. I think would they help if they really wanted to stop, that they can make it stop in Haiti. I believe that its among, is is within the Haitian. This is a behaviour that that Haitian have to realise, that they have in Haiti that has to change. They really have to put themselves sin a human form, because sometimes I don’t believe that some of them are even human, in order for it to stop.
Yes, speaking about it, raising awareness. Now that they know that it is happening. Now they are, more research that is being done in Haiti and the Haitians are away of it, that it is being done. The Haitians are aware that, I mean even, they were’ aware that they were being taped, but they heard the story, they see the story for themselves. Hoping that things would change, things would get better. But instead, it has gotten worse. I hope and pray that God somewhere, somehow, will open the door and will do a miracle to them to change, but until they themselves realize that this is a problem that is the same as slavery that they fought for hundreds of years ago, that they actually drove the French away and yet they are enslaving themselves. They have to realize that among themselves in order for it to stop.
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Yes I am [writing my own book]. I hope that would be out soon but I don’t know when. And you know, I’m hoping to continue to do this, to speak out for as long as I can and hopefully one day that thinks will change.
Thank you.
Narrative as told to University of Central Florida’s Global Perspectives
