Responding to the Trauma of Child Servitude

Imagine being a child sent away by your family to live with people you have never met. That experience alone could wound you deeply, make you feel regected and unloved.

Now imagine that the family you went to live with treated you like a slave, forcing you to work every waking hour, beating you and humiliating you, keeping you from school even as other children in the household are sent to school, never giving you time to play, rest, or form friendships, forcing you to sleep on the floor, clothing you only in rags, and abusing you physically and sexually.

While not all restavek children face such harsh treatment, this kind of treatment is not at all uncommon.

Even children who manage to escape from situations like this by running away and landing in more welcoming homes carry with them the wounds of severe emotional and psychological trauma.

The only fully effective way of dealing with this kind of trauma is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Most of the work of the Campaign to End Child Servitude is focused on just that--keeping children from being sent into servitude.

Offering Healing: Twenty-four representatives from 13 agencies received training from Dr. Judith Hyde (standing left) with help from Dr. Jean-Yves Plaisir (right) in responding to childhood trauma. The psychological harm restavèk children suffer from parental rejection and abuse from families they serve is not widely understood in Haiti, even among those working to directly assist these children. The Campaign helps organize seminars to build understanding and train care givers.

At the same time, though, we can't ignore those who have been wounded by this experience. The need for psychological support for children and adult survivors of the restavek system is huge, well beyond our ability to respond at this point. But we are doing what we can while training others to do what they can.

Periodically we provide training to leaders in the member organizations of the network we established in Haiti (the Down with Child Servitude Network), helping them understand the psychological consequences of this kind of childhood trauma.

Out of this training we are developing a manual on childhood psychotrauma for those wanting to offer support for victims of child servitude in Haiti. This text, written by Dr. Judith Hyde (of Free the Slaves) with support from Dr. Jean-Yves Plaisir (a board member of Beyond Borders), has been completed and is being edited for printing and distribution.

Dr. Cara Kennedy with a neighbor friend from her community of Dal.

The Campaign is just welcoming a new staff member who is adding depth to our team in Haiti. Dr. Cara Kennedy is just completing a very successful year of language and cultural immersion in a rural Haitian village. While her Ph.D. is in clinical psychology, her emphasis was in community psychology and prevention. This equips her with tools and expertise that are especially useful for the kind of work the Campaign is engaged in. Cara will help shape our efforts to support the development of psychologically supportive communities and evaluate the effectiveness of efforts to prevent children from being sent into servitude.

One of the most healing things we can offer victims of child servitude is the opportunity to take an active role in leading the movement to end the restavek practice. Adult survivors can begin to find more meaning in their lives as they work to keep other children from suffering the same fate.

Beyond Borders is working to develop solidarity groups for adult survivors of child servitude. We have been working with a core group of about twenty adult survivors from different parts of Haiti. Participants in this group meet together and often help us with awareness-raising activities we organize--participating in radio programs, offering testimony before groups and government representatives, speaking out at gatherings.

Adult survivors of child servitude at a recent gathering. These gatherings often provide participants their first chance to share their painful experiences and find acceptance. Read the testimony of one adult survivor who now provides inspiration to her fellow survivors.

We hope now they will begin to gather other survivors in the communities where they now live and help develop a network of support groups for adult survivors.

We are stretched thin now in being able to support this process the way we would like, but if funds permit we want to hire more help for this work along with the other work we are doing to provide psychological support for the victims of child servitude.

We Need Your Help: The work with adult survivors and all of our other work in this Campaign is not expensive. A little money can go a long way in making a difference. Still, it does cost us to mount a national effort like this. So, please consider making a pledge of ongoing monthly support to the Campaign. Your support will allow us to expand our ability to develop the leadership capacities of adult survivors in the movement to end child servitude and offer them some healing from what they have suffered.

Just click on the Donate Now button to the right and select the Campaign to End Child Servitude from among the giving options. There are other ways to get involved and help as well. Contact David Diggs, if you'd like to learn more.

Thank you!