The Rigwaz

by Coleen Hedglin

Coleen Hedglin helping two school boys from the village of St. Felix, Haiti with their reading.

I’d lived in Haiti for more than a year, but I’d never heard of a rigwaz. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to notice the item hanging on the wall in the back room of Madame Marcel’s house.

I got to know Madame Marcel ten years ago when I was living in Haiti as a Peace Corps volunteer. She was an enterprising, hard-working woman who continually cared for the poorest in her community despite her own advancing years. She always welcomed me warmly when I came to town from the countryside, often taking me to church with her. As our friendship deepened, she insisted that I stay in her home.

One morning I sat in the doorway of her tiny storage room as she skillfully stirred a huge pot of hot corn porridge. “Madame Marcel, what’s that?” I asked, motioning to the short leather whip hanging a few inches above my head.

“Oh, that’s for Makendi,” she answered without hesitation.

It took me a few seconds to make sense of what she was saying. Makendi was a little boy I’d seen in and around Madame Marcel’s house. I’d always assumed he was one of the neighborhood children she helped out. I had no idea he lived with Madame Marcel—and I never would have dreamed that Makendi was, essentially, my beloved Madame Marcel’s slave child.

Several weeks later I met Laurie Konwinski, a fellow American who worked for Beyond Borders. She explained that hundreds of thousands of Haitian children live apart from their parents in unpaid domestic servitude. These children are known as restavèks, and though their treatment varies, many are sorely abused, neglected, and exploited. Some, like Makendi, are still disciplined with a rigwaz—a stiff, leather whip with embedded pieces of metal or bone used to manage slaves during colonial times.

Suddenly, I could see something once hidden to me. Many of the children I’d met were living in virtual slavery—carrying the water, washing the clothes, preparing the food, and working endlessly and silently for the families they lived with. Like the rigwaz hanging in the back room, these children were kept out of sight as something necessary but shameful.

It’s difficult to understand how good people like Madame Marcel could take part in such a troubling practice. But I’ve learned that all cultures and societies have blind spots. Thankfully, God seems to be calling together a growing movement of Haitian leaders and organizations who are working to open the eyes of their compatriots and bring an end to the restavèk system.

Beyond Borders is working to strengthen this movement through our support of the Campaign to End Child Servitude. This initiative is providing resources and support for Haitian leaders as they strategize and work toward the day when the restavèk practice is long forgotten and a rigwaz can be found only in a museum.