New York Times: Haitian orphans being snatched up by awful people who will sell them as sex slaves.
But it took the arrest last weekend of 10 Americans caught trying to leave the country with 33 Haitian children to focus international attention on the issue. While there is no evidence that the Americans, who said they were trying to rescue children in the aftermath of the earthquake, intended any harm, the ease with which they drove into the capital and scooped up a busload of children without documents exposed vast gaps in the system’s safeguards.
“This has called the world’s attention because it is the first clear piece of evidence that our fears have come true,” said Patricia Vargas, the regional coordinator for SOS Children’s Villages, which provides services to abandoned children around the world. “Our concern as an organization is how many other cases are out there that we are not aware of.”
At the front lines of the system are the orphanages, which run the gamut from large, well-equipped institutions with international financing to one-room hovels in a slum where a single woman cares for abandoned children as best she can.
Most of the children in them, the authorities said, are not orphans, but children whose parents are unable to provide for them. To desperate parents, the orphanage is a godsend, a temporary solution to help a child survive a particularly tough economic stretch. Many orphanages offer regular family visiting hours and, when their situations improve, parents are allowed to take their children back home.
But instead of protecting Haiti’s most vulnerable population, some orphanages have become tools of exploitation, the authorities fear.
Wall Street Journal: Haitian parents defend missionaries.
But some of the children’s own families and friends here disagree. On Friday, some said they willingly handed over the children, want the Americans freed, and want them to continue with plans to have the children live in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.
The account from Callebasse stands in contrast to the image portrayed by the Haitian government of Ms. Silsby and the other missionaries. On Thursday, a Haitian judge charged the ten U.S. citizens with abduction and conspiracy, charges that could land them in jail for years.
Both papers cover the sordid conditions of Haitian orphanages and indeed, the abuse the children in those institutions are subject to. But the emphasis is clearly different. They report, you decide.
Laura Silsby - sex trafficker or saviour?
The Idaho missionaries had misguided intentions, telling the media that God was leading them to remove these children from Haiti. I don’t doubt they thought their deeds were unselfish, just not well thought out; w/o any paperwork, permission and/or discussion with any recognized organization, I say guilty as charged. God’s will isn’t going to find them a fair trial, if that’s what they are praying for (their lawyer was quoted as tripling his retainer fee before doing any work). This is a lose-lose situation – the children who really should get out now won’t and any legit group trying to take children out from now on will get caught in the cross-hairs.
Greenwich Time has their own expose today. Print only. Fairfield U. grad pulled a Michael Jackson at Jesuit orphan village.
I’m with ya, A.O. Well, we don’t know for sure about the intentions, but I’m willing to cut them some slack there. But if there is supposed to be some minimum standard of intelligence/commonsense before one can oversee alleged orphans, they all flunked!
Wonder how much the State Department is expending on this situation? And, just think of how many starving orphans could be fed in Haiti with the food it takes to sustain 10 adult American missionaries? And poor God has to get his name dragged through the mud, to boot!
Hey Chris, you have gone silent on Frank Rich today with your guy McCain , who you called a hero last week. Shouldn’t the word be hypocrite??? I know Rich inflames conservatives/libertarians, but he is spot on with his comments. Do you want to show the link? You know, McCain says gives the generals whatever they want, i.e. Petreaus….but not this time, since he is running against a radical conservative like J.D. Heyworth…
Come on, admit he had no business being President…
Some of the coverage on the Haiti situation indicates the leader of the missionaries had some issues with her credibility and fake charities in the past. Naive well-meaning folks got their faith exploited by a con-artist maybe?