MAY 20, 2013, 8:00 AM
Vlad Sokhin's Photos of Haiti's Child Servants - NYTimes.com
The Ultimate Have-Nots in a Society of Have-Nots
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Twelve-year-old Judeline crouches at the feet of a much younger girl, lifting high a makeup kit so the little girl, Boubou, can apply a colored pencil to her brow. Boubou studies herself intently in the kit?s mirror; Judeline, hidden to her, stares at us with a look that seems both humiliated and beseeching.
Taken by the photographer Vlad Sokhin for a series called ?Restavek: Child Slavery in Haiti,?? it is one of the most haunting images (Slide 4) of a Haitian servant child that I have ever seen.
Judeline?s hair is close-cropped, boyish. Boubou, the 5-year-old daughter of the family for whom Judeline works, is beribboned. Boubou has natural, apparent self-regard; Judeline, her bra strap slipping down her thin arm, has learned to be self-effacing to survive.
It is not easy to photograph people who are invisible in their own society, to shine a light on them and at the same time reveal how unseen they are to those around them.
That is the strength of what Mr. Sokhin does, perhaps partly because he approached the subject with the outrage of a fresh eye. Born in Russia and educated in Lisbon, he now lives in Sydney, Australia, and had never set foot in the Americas, much less in Haiti, until last year.
He visited New York last fall to take part in the Eddie Adams Workshop for photojournalists and in a group exhibition. With a few free weeks between the two events, he said in a phone interview from Australia, ?I thought I?d just go to Haiti and see what?s there.?
While preparing for his trip, Mr. Sokhin, who is drawn to post-disaster and post-conflict societies, happened upon the memoir of a former child servant, Jean-Robert Cadet, who is Haiti?s best-known restavek ?abolitionist.? Mr. Sokhin was struck by his story. He had never heard of the restavek phenomenon, he said, and to discover that, in the 21st century, a nation born of a slave revolt was ?using its own children as slaves was ridiculous to me.??
International advocates for children estimate that there are 250,000 restaveks in Haiti ? children working as unpaid domestic servants after their parents, who cannot afford to raise them, give them away.
The literal translation of ?restavek? is relatively benign: these children, mostly girls, are ?live-ins? or ?stay-withs.?? But the social translation is brutal. To be a restavek is to be the ultimate have-not in a society of have-nots; the word itself is a slur.
In 1990, I wrote a long story on the restaveks for The Miami Herald?s Sunday magazine. This was before any child advocacy organization had taken up their plight, before groups like the Restavek Freedom Foundation were working to defend, protect and educate them. The phenomenon was everywhere ? scruffy, scrawny children rising before dawn to empty chamber pots, bedding down at night on piles of rags, enduring beatings and sexual assault ? but it was rarely discussed.
Still, many Haitians found it shameful. And amid the relative idealism of that period, not long after the despotic ?President for Life? Jean-Claude Duvalier had fled into exile, it seemed possible that the practice would be relegated to the ash bin of history along with other egregious abuses.
How dispiriting, then, to gaze into the eyes of Mr. Sokhin?s subject Judeline and see the present-day reflection of the sad-eyed 12-year-old restavek named Judith whose painful situation I documented so long ago.
While much has been written about restaveks in the decades since, Mr. Sokhin said he found little ?visual evidence? of the phenomenon. In many photographs, restaveks were indistinguishable from other poor children ? they were dressed raggedly, looked malnourished and lugged water in buckets bigger than themselves.
To document their plight freshly, it was crucial to show them in context, inside the homes where they lived and worked.
Working with one of the many Haitian fixers who are vital to foreign journalists seeking to go beneath the surface of that society, Mr. Sokhin found Judeline?s ?family,?? which was willing to give him unlimited access for several days last fall and during his second trip to Haiti in March.
The father is an English teacher, and, according to Mr. Sokhin, he believes he is giving Judeline an opportunity in life after her own family abandoned her ? not only by providing room and board but by paying for education. Relatively speaking, Mr. Sokhin said, the man sees himself as an enlightened ?master?? who would never strike or abuse the young girl who performs his family?s chores.
That Judeline slept on the hard floor of an unfurnished room was portrayed as her personal choice: ?They say she doesn?t like to sleep on a bed,?? Mr. Sokhin said. The family made the same case for her use of the yard as her bathroom.
In addition to the photograph where Judeline is playing personal attendant to little Boubou, Mr. Sokhin caught several other moments in which family members disregarded her while she served them.
In one photograph, she stands frozen holding a tray, her eyes on the father, whose gaze is cloaked by sunglasses but appears to be fixated on the cold beer she is offering him (Slide 6). In another, she is washing the mother?s hair and the mother, reclining and chewing gum, is blowing a big, pink bubble (Slide 2).
Mr. Sokhin said he tried not to include in his series any pictures that Judeline herself might find degrading. ?I have got much worse pictures,? he said, ?but I didn?t want to show her suffering.?
Sometimes he was forced to put down his camera so he would not be participating in mistreatment, he said. In one photograph (Slide 20), a man who refused to have his identity revealed nonetheless slung his arm around the shirtless shoulders of his restavek boy while Mr. Sokhin was shooting. His head is cut off, a lit cigarette dangles from his hand, and the effect is creepy.
Even creepier, Mr. Sokhin said, was what he declined to photograph next: the man put the cigarette in the little boy?s mouth, laughing.
Another time, a woman was unhappy with how a 9-year-old restavek, Enso, was making her bed. Mr. Sokhin took a few pictures as she started to push the boy around (Slide 10), but put his camera down and intervened when she began beating him, he said.
?A few photographers from the States who have seen these pictures, they have approached me and told me it?s very important to cover this,?? Mr. Sokhin said. ?So I?m not sure if this project is actually finished.??
Vlad Sokhin's Photos of Haiti's Child Servants - NYTimes.com
The Ultimate Have-Nots in a Society of Have-Nots
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Twelve-year-old Judeline crouches at the feet of a much younger girl, lifting high a makeup kit so the little girl, Boubou, can apply a colored pencil to her brow. Boubou studies herself intently in the kit?s mirror; Judeline, hidden to her, stares at us with a look that seems both humiliated and beseeching.
Taken by the photographer Vlad Sokhin for a series called ?Restavek: Child Slavery in Haiti,?? it is one of the most haunting images (Slide 4) of a Haitian servant child that I have ever seen.
Judeline?s hair is close-cropped, boyish. Boubou, the 5-year-old daughter of the family for whom Judeline works, is beribboned. Boubou has natural, apparent self-regard; Judeline, her bra strap slipping down her thin arm, has learned to be self-effacing to survive.
It is not easy to photograph people who are invisible in their own society, to shine a light on them and at the same time reveal how unseen they are to those around them.
That is the strength of what Mr. Sokhin does, perhaps partly because he approached the subject with the outrage of a fresh eye. Born in Russia and educated in Lisbon, he now lives in Sydney, Australia, and had never set foot in the Americas, much less in Haiti, until last year.
He visited New York last fall to take part in the Eddie Adams Workshop for photojournalists and in a group exhibition. With a few free weeks between the two events, he said in a phone interview from Australia, ?I thought I?d just go to Haiti and see what?s there.?
While preparing for his trip, Mr. Sokhin, who is drawn to post-disaster and post-conflict societies, happened upon the memoir of a former child servant, Jean-Robert Cadet, who is Haiti?s best-known restavek ?abolitionist.? Mr. Sokhin was struck by his story. He had never heard of the restavek phenomenon, he said, and to discover that, in the 21st century, a nation born of a slave revolt was ?using its own children as slaves was ridiculous to me.??
International advocates for children estimate that there are 250,000 restaveks in Haiti ? children working as unpaid domestic servants after their parents, who cannot afford to raise them, give them away.
The literal translation of ?restavek? is relatively benign: these children, mostly girls, are ?live-ins? or ?stay-withs.?? But the social translation is brutal. To be a restavek is to be the ultimate have-not in a society of have-nots; the word itself is a slur.
In 1990, I wrote a long story on the restaveks for The Miami Herald?s Sunday magazine. This was before any child advocacy organization had taken up their plight, before groups like the Restavek Freedom Foundation were working to defend, protect and educate them. The phenomenon was everywhere ? scruffy, scrawny children rising before dawn to empty chamber pots, bedding down at night on piles of rags, enduring beatings and sexual assault ? but it was rarely discussed.
Still, many Haitians found it shameful. And amid the relative idealism of that period, not long after the despotic ?President for Life? Jean-Claude Duvalier had fled into exile, it seemed possible that the practice would be relegated to the ash bin of history along with other egregious abuses.
How dispiriting, then, to gaze into the eyes of Mr. Sokhin?s subject Judeline and see the present-day reflection of the sad-eyed 12-year-old restavek named Judith whose painful situation I documented so long ago.
While much has been written about restaveks in the decades since, Mr. Sokhin said he found little ?visual evidence? of the phenomenon. In many photographs, restaveks were indistinguishable from other poor children ? they were dressed raggedly, looked malnourished and lugged water in buckets bigger than themselves.
To document their plight freshly, it was crucial to show them in context, inside the homes where they lived and worked.
Working with one of the many Haitian fixers who are vital to foreign journalists seeking to go beneath the surface of that society, Mr. Sokhin found Judeline?s ?family,?? which was willing to give him unlimited access for several days last fall and during his second trip to Haiti in March.
The father is an English teacher, and, according to Mr. Sokhin, he believes he is giving Judeline an opportunity in life after her own family abandoned her ? not only by providing room and board but by paying for education. Relatively speaking, Mr. Sokhin said, the man sees himself as an enlightened ?master?? who would never strike or abuse the young girl who performs his family?s chores.
That Judeline slept on the hard floor of an unfurnished room was portrayed as her personal choice: ?They say she doesn?t like to sleep on a bed,?? Mr. Sokhin said. The family made the same case for her use of the yard as her bathroom.
In addition to the photograph where Judeline is playing personal attendant to little Boubou, Mr. Sokhin caught several other moments in which family members disregarded her while she served them.
In one photograph, she stands frozen holding a tray, her eyes on the father, whose gaze is cloaked by sunglasses but appears to be fixated on the cold beer she is offering him (Slide 6). In another, she is washing the mother?s hair and the mother, reclining and chewing gum, is blowing a big, pink bubble (Slide 2).
Mr. Sokhin said he tried not to include in his series any pictures that Judeline herself might find degrading. ?I have got much worse pictures,? he said, ?but I didn?t want to show her suffering.?
Sometimes he was forced to put down his camera so he would not be participating in mistreatment, he said. In one photograph (Slide 20), a man who refused to have his identity revealed nonetheless slung his arm around the shirtless shoulders of his restavek boy while Mr. Sokhin was shooting. His head is cut off, a lit cigarette dangles from his hand, and the effect is creepy.
Even creepier, Mr. Sokhin said, was what he declined to photograph next: the man put the cigarette in the little boy?s mouth, laughing.
Another time, a woman was unhappy with how a 9-year-old restavek, Enso, was making her bed. Mr. Sokhin took a few pictures as she started to push the boy around (Slide 10), but put his camera down and intervened when she began beating him, he said.
?A few photographers from the States who have seen these pictures, they have approached me and told me it?s very important to cover this,?? Mr. Sokhin said. ?So I?m not sure if this project is actually finished.??
