Helping or Hurting Haitian Children?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2010
Helping or Hurting Haitian Children?
13
Thu, 02-04-2010 - 4:11pm

I know I'm going to draw some fire here.  It's not like I don't understand the desire to help. It's not like I don't recognize the tragedy that has occurred in Haiti. I think it's wonderful that so many have come to this country's aid. However, I think there are some people who can't see the forest for the trees.


Pulling children from their native country, even with the consent of their parents, is wrong on so many levels. Some of these children are not orphans, and their parents are desperate.  But Haiti is not a sinking ship. It has suffered a catastrophe; and in time, it will recover. This is not the time for parents to be throwing their children into 'life rafts' and setting them adrift, hoping they'll be rescued.


It is also not the time for even well-meaning rescuers to take advantage of those desperate people. This is not the time for parents to be thinking "maybe I can get my kids to America" nor is it the time for rescuers to think their actions are simple benevolence.


I'm going to question the logic and sensibilities of some (and certainly not all) people who rush into disasters with the intent of saving the world. Wouldn't the church group who flew to Haiti's time and money and spirit have been just as welcomed had they gone there with the plan to assist in whatever way necessary, rather than try to usher out children who may or may not be orphans?


 


Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- The Dominican consul general Wednesday rejected the claim from an American church leader that she thought her paperwork was in order when she attempted to take 33 Haitian children out of the country, saying he had told her it was not.


"I warned her, I said as soon as you get there without the proper documents, you are going to get into trouble, because they are going to accuse you, because you have the intent to pass the border without the proper papers and they are going to accuse you with kids trafficking," Carlos Castillo said he told the group's leader, Laura Silsby, during a meeting Friday.


Four hours later, Silsby and nine other Americans were turned back from the border. They were arrested and taken to a jail in Port-au-Prince.


"This woman knew what she was trying to do was not legal," Castillo said.


A CNN reporter attempted to get reaction to Castillo's comment from the jailed Americans, but they would not discuss the matter, responding to questions by singing "Amazing Grace" and praying.





 

 
Told earlier that many of the children had living parents, Silsby said, "I did not know that."

She added, "In our hearts, our intention was to help children that had been orphaned or abandoned by their parents."


But the interpreters the group had used said the conversations between Silsby and the parents in the Haitian town of Calebasse made clear to them that Silsby must have been aware of the children's status.


Full coverage of Haiti earthquake aftermath


SOS Children's Villages, an Austrian charity, said that it has determined that at least two-thirds of the children are not orphans.


Authorities on Wednesday questioned a Haitian police officer who works at the Dominican Embassy about whether he provided illegal paperwork to Silsby and the other Americans to facilitate their efforts as alleged by interpreters who had translated for the Americans.


The interpreters told CNN the Americans met at least twice last week with the officer, at the embassy and consulate.


"He told them that he could help, and he was helping them with some paper," said interpreter Steve Adrien. "We did not meet him in a police station, but in the street in a car."


The Americans met again with the man in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, near the Dominican Embassy, the translator said.


Isaac Adrien, Steve's brother and another of the interpreters, said the group came away from the meeting with a document from the embassy that the Americans took with them to the border Friday in their unsuccessful attempt to cross.


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A Haitian lawyer representing the Americans told reporters that the arrests themselves were illegal and that their clients had only been trying to help. They are to appear Thursday before the attorney general.


The group, New Life Children's Refuge, said it was rescuing abandoned children by moving them to the Dominican Republic, where it was building an orphanage.


At least some of the group are members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho.


Several residents of the village of Calebasse, more than an hour from Port-au-Prince, told CNN they voluntarily handed over their children after Silsby told them she would give them a better life.


Pastor Jean Sainvil told CNN he rounded up 20 children from a camp in the Delmas neighborhood of the capital. "I just got the word out that I am going to look for some children to be going with a group of missionaries," he said.


Some of those who responded apparently included parents. "One of them turned five children over," he said. He said no money changed hands.


The group has no experience running an orphanage, has not registered as an international adoption agency and has not filed with the U.S. government as a nonprofit.


Church pastor Clint Henry was unfazed. "I believe that the kind of knowledge that it takes to begin an organization that works that way was in place," he told CNN. "The kind of employees that it takes to successfully run an orphanage, those were going to be hired."


The matter drew attention Wednesday from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


"It was unfortunate that, whatever the motivation, that this group of Americans took matters into their own hands," she said.


The number of Haitian orphans taken to the United States -- those whose approval and paperwork had been in the bureaucratic pipeline at the time of the disaster -- stands at 578, with 44 others processed and awaiting transportation, said U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-28-2009
Thu, 02-04-2010 - 4:15pm

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Not from me you won't! I think what that church group did was criminal. There are rules and laws in place to protect children from predators and these people just ignored it. Makes me wonder if they were really being benevolent.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 02-05-2010 - 10:31am
I'm sure these people had good intentions but they broke the law.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-23-2008
Fri, 02-05-2010 - 12:37pm

The people who claimed they are a church group, were irresponsible when they rounded up the children and had them transported into the Dominican Republic.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2010
Fri, 02-05-2010 - 12:46pm

They did break the law. Even more frightening is that they believed that by doing this deed in God's name they would be exhonerated. Where do they get the idea that God gives some people a blank check to do as they please?


There was a plane and pilot waiting in the Dominican Republic. I don't for one minute believe this group was simply moving children from one orphanage to another. They were planning on bringing these kids to the US. And it doesn't matter whether they planned to sell the children or give

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-28-2009
Fri, 02-05-2010 - 12:47pm

I have a major problem with their mission, especially in light of the blatant disregard for laws in place to safeguard the children:

Their mission was "dedicated to rescuing, loving and caring for orphaned, abandoned and impoverished Haitian and Dominican children, demonstrating God's love and helping each child find healing, hope, joy and new life in Christ." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703357104575045794048725562.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

How many times in history has this particular "mission" been used to take children from their families in order to protect them and save them from themselves? Those people also claimed to be "well-intentioned," yet wreaked havoc on generations of families and destroyed cultures.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-28-2009
Fri, 02-05-2010 - 1:05pm

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Ding, ding, ding! You get the prize.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sat, 02-06-2010 - 1:44pm

Immediately following this story on the news the other night was our local news channel's segment of "Wednesday's Child".


iVillage Member
Registered: 10-11-2005
Sun, 02-07-2010 - 2:02am

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Ding, ding, ding! You get the prize.

I'm sorry these peoples county has been tore all to heck. But we have children right here in the good old US that need homes too, lets get them into homes first before we start bring kids from outside of the county in to adopt.

~~Sam stitches well with others, runs with scissors in her pocket. Cheerful and stupid.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-13-2009
Sun, 02-07-2010 - 8:17am

Could it be that America's throw-away children aren't as fashionable as those saved from a 3rd world country?


Or maybe it's that the children in 3rd world countries don't have the things that foster children in America have?

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sun, 02-07-2010 - 2:43pm

Yes and no.


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