By Priscilla Rodriguez

With no water, electricity, roads and a population with 50 to 60 percent of its people being illiterate, Haiti continues to be a very poor and unstable nation. The country is far from freeing itself from poverty.

Everyday in Haiti, extremely poor families hand their children off to families who are better off than they are. Although they hope that these families will take care of, feed and house their children, this is never the end result. Most of these children wind up becoming domestic slaves. These children are known as restavecs, which, translated, means “to stay with.”

Over 300,000 children in Haiti are slaves. Jean-Robert Cadet, NAACP speaker and a former restavec, spoke at the University on Feb. 21 about his experience as a child slave. Cadet has also appeared on “Oprah,” in front of the United Nations, the United States Congress and at various universities to speak and educate those around the world about his past and this child slave system.

Cadet lived as a restavec for 16 years of his life. He did not know his real name and to this day is unsure of his age. Cadet’s parents were of two completely different worlds. His father was rich, white and powerful; while his mother was as he has said “very black,” illiterate and poor. She was his father’s slave.

When his mother died, Cadet was handed over to his father who proved the shame he felt for having had this child. The restavec system was already in existence during the time Cadet was a child. Even with the knowledge of this system, Cadet’s father gave him to another family as a gift.

“I was taboo,” said Cadet. His father’s reputation would have been destroyed if the village knew that Cadet was his son.

But, being given to a family does not mean that the child is seen as part of the family. They are used and abused physically, emotionally and sometimes even sexually.

“The child becomes disposable, like a disposable diaper,” said Cadet. When they are no longer needed or become an inconvenience they are replaced.

As a restavec, Cadet lived under inhumane conditions. He slept on a mat under a kitchen table, using a red dress he had found as a pillow. Restavec children wake up every day to a life of servitude as Cadet did. They cook, clean, fetch water and care for the other children in the family. The restavec child is not allowed to go to school, and, in Haiti, education is freedom. Education is the only way to escape the darkness in the lives of these children.

Cadet was one of the few in his time that was sent to school, but it was to fulfill the family’s own selfish reasons. The family he worked for wanted him to learn to read and write in order to take messages for them.

Cadet eventually escaped this slave life and now dedicates much of his time to helping these restavec children and abolishing the restavec system that continues to exist in Haiti.

These slave children found in Haiti live to perform grueling housework. They barely sleep; rarely, if ever, see their real families. They never get to go to school. The life of a child slave is rough and people like Cadet are seeking ways to end this modern day slavery.

Cadet has created the Restavec Foundation in order to help these slave children. He’s also written a book to inform others about this problem. Information about this slave system and how to help can be found at www.restavecfreedom.org.

(restavecfreedom.org)

Jean-Robert Cadet. (Priscilla Rodriguez)