February 1, 2010 10:15 AM

Baptist "Human Trafficking" Update: Some Haitian Children Weren't Orphans

By
Neil Katz
Topics
Daily Blotter
(AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
(AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
(AP Photo/Charlie Litchfield)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CBS/AP) As a group of American Baptist charity workers waits to hear if they will be tried on child trafficking charges for attempting to take 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the Associated Press has learned that not all of the children they were transporting were orphans.

Photo: Infant who was amongst group that Baptists wanted to move to Haiti is seen at SOS Children's Villages.

"One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," George Willeit, a spokesman for SOS Children's Villages, said. SOS, an Austrian-based charity working in Haiti, now has custody of the children.

Photo: Detained Americans at police headquarters in the Port-au-Prince airport, Jan. 30, 2010.

Willeit said the children arrived "very hungry, very thirsty." A 2- to 3-month-old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. Workers were searching for their families or close relatives.

Child welfare groups expressed outrage over Friday's attempt to move the kids to a hotel in the Dominic Republic, saying some of the children had parents who survived the Jan. 12 earthquake. Prime Minister Max Bellerive denounced the group's "illegal trafficking of children" in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.

Photo: Baptist group tried to move this boy into Dominic Republic. The pink label on his shirt had his name written on it.

But while the church workers may be viewed as "traffickers" in Haiti, they say they came armed only with good intentions. They were "just trying to do the right thing," said Laura Silsby, a spokeswoman for the Idaho church group. She conceded that amidst the chaos, she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children.

Photo: Five members of the Central Valley Baptist congregation were detained.

The Baptists' "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatized children. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic. The 33 kids ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years.

They were stopped at the border for not having proper paperwork and taken back to Port-au-Prince, where the children were taken to a temporary children's home.

The group's actions are further complicated by a view amongst some Haitian parents that giving a child up for adoption to foreigners may be their best chance for a future.

"My parents died in the earthquake. My husband has gone. Giving up one of my kids would at least give them a chance," Saintanne Petit-Frere, 40, a mother of six living outside in a tent camp near the airport said Sunday. "My only fear is that they would forget me, but that wouldn't affect my decision."

"Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners," said Adonis Helman, 44. "I've been thinking how I will choose which one I may give."

For now, the Haitian government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake. Prime Minister Bellerive's personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

Haiti has long been a hub for sex trafficking as well as the trafficking of children for domestic slavery within the country.

A commission will meet Monday to decide if the church members would go before a judge. They remain in custody, but not in jail.

The arrested Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. They are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America's largest Protestant denomination and has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide.

The Idaho churches had elaborate plans before the earthquake to shelter up to 200 Haitian and Dominican boys and girls in the Magante beach resort, complete with a school and chapel as well as villas and a seaside cafe catering to adoptive U.S. parents.


WHAT DO YOU THINK? Should the Baptist group be viewed as saviors or kidnappers?



Add a Comment
by tkdmom38 February 2, 2010 1:50 PM EST
I think this is an example of people wanting to rush in and do something good without knowing the laws of the country. I think the intentions were good but I also think they were ignorant of many things. You cannot go into a foreign country and expect being an American and ignorant of the law will be your "get out of jail free card." I cannot understand how they thought they were going to get these undocumented kids into another country. I wish them well but I do feel they should be tried in Haiti.
Reply to this comment
by maccount February 2, 2010 12:12 PM EST
It's a very hard thing to give up your child in order for your child to have a chance in having a better life then you did. I hope I'm never in that situation where I have to make that choice - I like to say I would never do such a thing, but until you were in a situation like this (or much, much worst) - you never know how things would work out! Personally, wherever I go, my child comes with me - who's to say if you were to give up your child - where would your child be? Would he/she be happy with the people who's adopting? As he/she grows up, would he/she be emotionally affected by the fact their own parents gave them up if no one explained it to them at one point in their lifes so that they can understand? Would he/she be abused (emotionally / physically) by adopted parents and/or become their slaves? Would they be a burden and might be killed off by one/both of the adopted parents? Yes, you would like to give your child a better life, but bottom line, to whom are you giving them up to? I heard so many stories of children who were adopted and then taken advantaged of - would that give them a better life? Children should be with (if not with their parents) people who would love them, protect them, feed them and be responsible for them - children who get adopted already have gone thru some emotional drama, don't add more on their plates - they should see life as a beautiful blessing from God, not as another day of suffering. I'm not staying there aren't any good people who adopt, I'm just staying be careful who you give up your child to!!!
Reply to this comment
by MikeRazim February 1, 2010 3:37 PM EST
This is an instance where people need to leave this up to the government to handle. They have already began to expedite the adoption process for those starting before the quake and Unicef is working hard to reunite children with their parents. Until this process has had time to take place, no more new adoptions should be taking place to prevent situations like this one. http://www.newsy.com/videos/would-be-parents-face-adoption-battles-in-haiti
Reply to this comment
by Akadn February 1, 2010 2:34 PM EST
This report is shocking, horrifying & saddening on so many levels! As both of a non-Westerner & a Protestant Christian, I believe these people should be tried as human traffickers!

Christianity doesn?t give us license to bend national/international laws to suit our agendas as we wish! Even Jesus instructed us to obey our earthly leaders, & in this case, that includes international and national laws, which explicitly require us not to remove children across borders without obtaining appropriate legal documentation. Justifying an act & attributing responsibility or basis to a Deity is reckless & irresponsible. It was exactly this kind of behaviour which allowed Indigenous Children in Australia to be forcibly removed from their Aboriginal parents & placed in homes of white people : presumably in order to civilise them. The same tactics were used to a lesser extend in Apartheid South Africa where bi-racial children were separated from their African parents in order to assumedly afford them an opportunity to cultivate their ?white half?. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to know what effect (socially, morally and religiously) this had on the individuals involved and their societies at large. It disappoints & embarrasses me as a Christian, that there are some in our community who can still rely upon such a mentality to justify unscriptural behaviour & in essence discredit our entire faith!

Secondly, the long established argument of them having a greater chance at life in America (or any other western country) is just as unfounded as the first assertion. Statistics show that children from cross-border adoptions ? in times of peace ? are not immediately integrated & assimilated into new families due to differing culture, relationships, etc. Sometimes, children fail to warm to their new environment, even when they have had repeated visits from potential adoptive parents. If this is the case in a peacetime, sanctioned adoptive process, how easy will children who lost their parents in a natural disaster that devastated their homeland integrate after being smuggled across the border & forced to meet & live with absolute strangers less than a month after said disaster occurred? It?s a very dangerous way to try & help these children, even if it were not illegal. Simply, because a sincere desire to serve their best interest would be manifest in efforts to stabilise their familiar environment, not abuse their vulnerability in order to move them to a completely different environment.

As for Haitian parents who offer up their children for adoption; there are legislated processes for achieving this. They are able to explain to their children why they are giving them up, the children are able to have a say, there is a monitored process managed through welfare & social services which matches the child involved with selected parents. Who are these people to think they can perform all this within a few days, weeks or months? Should we be giving people who are so easily convinced of breaking the law the task of raising ?God-fearing?, law-abiding citizens, at all? People who really are so desperate to adopt & be parents would never want to hurt their potential child by frightening, traumatising or smuggling them across borders. Those who think like this should NOT be allowed to raise children!

Finally, what message are we sending to drug, animal, people & goods traffickers with this case? What has stopped us from smuggling all the elephants of Africa into Europe because we are overwhelmed with good intentions & despite the habitat being completely different, they are less likely to be poached there? What has stopped us from smuggling all women from Eastern Europe into Canada because there are documented lower rates of sexual exploitation, then? Who draws the line, & if some people are allowed to cross it, who determines who these people are, & whom they should be representing?

These people, in addition to being lawless & ignorant are purely selfish. A lot of money & time that could be used to rehabilitate these children, instil in them a sense of hope & patriotism to rebuild their nation is being wasted on detaining them, establishing facts etc. Why are they trying to remove potential nation-builders from a nation in need of re-building, by destroying the family composition (which, yes, as a result of a natural disaster is challenged); instead of opening schools, hospitals & Churches & where necessary promoting tourism so that these children ? & generations to come ? can make their nation proud? When Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, did we just award ourselves universal license (in the name of Jesus) to relocate the entire region & dubiously remove children from their parents (& governments?) custody? There is a reason that the world has clearly defined & established routes of achieving justice. This is not a case of humanitarian philanthropy, it is plain daylight robbery!
Reply to this comment
by oldarkie February 1, 2010 12:28 PM EST
They should be regarded as kidnappers. In my opinion, the Baptist Church in America is 99% Anglo-Saxon and as a rule regards darkskinned people as subservient. At the most, they were knowlingly dealing in human trafficing of vulnerable children while trying to hide behind their "religion". At the least, they are too ignorant to know disaster protocols and should not have been there in the first place. Either way, their very own God stopped them short.
Reply to this comment
by johnsamwallace July 13, 2010 4:25 PM EDT
Actually, the National Baptist Convention has more African American members than any other denomination in the USA.
by Spudex February 1, 2010 11:13 AM EST
I say check the backgrond of every one of them.
Look back at the terrible things done to children in the name of religion and by religious
groups. You all know who I mean.
Find out why some of the older ones were told they were going on vacation.
"Can you help me find my puppy?"
Reply to this comment
by jeriwho February 3, 2010 12:18 PM EST
I ama Bible Believing Christian, and I am horrified at how quickly the Religious Right is circling the wagons to defend this group of people. Every time she tells it, Laura Silsby's story changes. First she had permission, then she had permission from a Dominican minister, then she had permission from a man in a car who called himself a Haiti police officer and was parked outside the Dominican embassy. First she was going to have the children adopted (as stated on her leaflet). Then she was going to keep the children and live with them. First she was looking for orphans. Then she was recruiting impoverished children to adopt out (or raise). Now it was a boarding school, and the children could return home as often as they liked. Her US business was failing. She was in debt. The house she listed as the HQ of her non-profit was sold two days after she filed. No doubt some of those people on that team had good intentions. I am not sure Laura Silsby did.
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