Do *you* think the Americans accused in Haiti of trafficking in children were ......

[Stinky The Clown]

........ engaged in some nefarious acts? Broke Haitian law? Were carrying out a scam to raise money by having some orphans to use in teevee commercials? Were really trying to do some good?

I admit to not knowing. I also admit to suspecting the worst of them.

[ddeclue]

1. They were trying to save them poor kids from bein' brought up Catholic by turning them into Baptists

:eyes:

[YOY]

2. Yup. If anyone should be pissed it's CAtholics.

But most Catholics don't even know that Baptists and Evangelicals don't consider them Christians.

If they did the "pro-life religious right" would explode in the US. THat's why I tell every "good Catholic" I meet about the fundies.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Yes. Yes. Don't know. Probably.

I think, largely, that they're grossly misguided and believe that they were sent by their whackjob higher power to do these things.

I believe most of them thought they were doing good, but then so did any number of other criminals, especially religious nuts.

Glad they were caught.

But how often do these types of people get away with it?

:shrug:

[notadmblnd]

4. I too suspect the worst.

[spanone]

5. ???? they didn't have the papers in order...an honest orphan relief organization should know

i can't judge their intent, cause i don't know, but if you have you're shit together, you probably won't end up on teevee or in jail.....


it brings to mind the late comedian sam kinison yelling at the top of his lungs....'YOU'RE IN A FUCKING FOREIGN COUNTRY...THEY HAVE DIFFERENT FUCKING LAWS YOU FUCKING IDIOTS AND YOU'RE DEALING WITH THE MOST

FUCKING PRECIOUS COMMODITY ON THE FUCKING FACE OF THE FUCKING EARTH.......'

[stopbush]

13. I think they were up to no good and I think they were assuming that their being religionists

would act as cover for them if and when they got caught.

It's so easy for these people to play the, "aww, shucks, I'm jes a god-fearin' Christian" card whenever their crimes are found out. Works in politics, works in human trafficing.

[spanone]

21. if they had gotten out, how the hell were they gonna get thru customs?

[stopbush]

23. Easy enough to come up with forged paperwork. Maybe that was going to be produced in the DR.

[spanone]

36. why didn't they forge documents to get them out of the country? i dunno

[Stinky The Clown]

18. Heh ...... that's a great .......

..... Sam Kinison impression! :hi:



You also know that Sam was a Fundamentalist preacher before he started doing comedy, right? And apt citation in this thread.

[spanone]

22. i loved him....i knew he couldn't last long at the rate he was going, but damn he was funny

[me b zola]

6. Those people were up to no good

Where those children would have ended up I don't know, but I feel it wouldn't have been good. The church people from Idaho didn't even know the Haitian Catholic priest who got the children for them. They were never contacted or asked for help to place any children in a home, they simply went to Haiti to go shopping for children.

These people are despicable.

[elehhhhna]

39. they were also shopping beachfront real estate in the DR

hmmm.

[leftstreet]

7. The leaders = grifters, The followers= nutcases

There are MANY impoverished children in their own backyard (Idaho) that could use some help.

[EFerrari]

30. Thank you.

[JI7]

8. i don't think it had anything to do with actually helping the children in Haiti

[The Wielding Truth]

I think they were being short sighted stupid RW Christians. They didn't think about the

fact that other countries have laws. It's the disrespect for other cultures that bugs me. I don't think it was a trafficking thing.

[customerserviceguy]

9. While there's plenty to be investigated here

I'd rather that US authorities do it. For starters, it would be good if the accused had the protection of our Constitutional rights, they won't get that from the Haitian government.

I also suspect that this prosecution by the Haitian government will have a chilling effect on private aid efforts, it's clear that a government that should be overwhelmed with the problems of caring for homeless, hungry and thirsty people seems to put a high priority on prosecuting people whose motives may well have been pure, even if their methods are quite flawed.

Finally, I have trouble believing that even some misguided fundies would spend that much time and money to go to Haiti just to kidnap kids that they could more easily obtain closer to home. Saying that they were taking advantage of this crisis just to collect scalps for Jaysus sounds a little like Hugo Chavez talking about the US military taking advantage of the earthquake to establish a beachhead on the island from which to attack Venezuela.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. While I continue to officially plead ignorance on the matter, I have heard it said that the ........

..... Haitian government knows they have a very serious problem in child trafficking. It was also said this was a shot across the bow of such people.

I want to say I heard thjis on MSNBC, but I am honestly not sure. It may have been on our local allnoozradio, WTOP. For sure, i heard it from a reasonable nooz source.

[Bluerthanblue]

34. I believe you are correct Stinky- child trafficking was a known issue

in Haiti long before the quake and many groups were working to trying to crack down on it. If this group of people were as well intentioned as they claim- they SHOULD have known what they were doing was counterproductive.

I heard a segment on NPR today discussing the issue of how Haitian children have been sold into slavery in the Dominican Republic. The excuse that the leader of the group (Ms. Silsby)gave initially saying that the DR said it was ok for them to bring the children into the DR without any permission/paperwork from the govt. of Haiti makes this whole thing especially suspicious.

Silsby also claimed that their intent wasn't to have the children adopted out, but to have them live in the DR- where her organization was also planning to construct 'villas' for potential adoptive families????

This link shows that the trafficking issue was well known- http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Haiti.htm

Some of the 10 individuals may have been willfully ignorant, but imo this whole scenario just doesn't add up.

:hi:

[Sans Culottes]

14. Haitian sovereignity.

American citizens that commit crimes in foreign lands are subject to foreign law. If they don't want Haitian justice, they should have stolen children in US jurisdiction.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Still, you have to wonder

what resources the Haitian government is going to divert to this, rather than taking care of its' people, and what chilling effect this is going to have on others providing direct aid.

While child-trafficking is a big problem in poor countries, I have to wonder why it's still so high on the Haitian government's list, given all they've had to deal with in the last three weeks.

[spanone]

26. probably because the traffickers swoop in at a time like this to take advantage?

creating a higher alert level

it doesn't make any sense....as i asked earlier, how were they going to get these kids through customs? you can't just land and introduce 33 illegal aliens to the united states who are underage with no documentation,


maybe they are just ignorant folks....dunno

[customerserviceguy]

28. Clearly, they certainly had no idea of what they were getting into

and that will make a lot of other people wonder what they're getting into if they try to get hands-on with Haitian relief.

Simple solution, turn the kids back to their parents, have a military plane drop the church ladies off in the US, and let the Justice Department spend its resources on this.

I know that a lot of people here distrust anything with the word 'Christian' in it, and as an atheist, I can see where they're coming from, but the current situation just diverts resources from needy people, and makes them into martyrs for the fundies we still have stateside.

[Sans Culottes]

29. Judges sit on benches.

They're not of much use digging through rubble.

Maintenance of security and safety for the people includes being protected from having your children kidnapped. I'm glad the Haitian judicial system also sees it that way.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7625721

[Solly Mack]

10. They keep contradicting themselves

They told parents they could see their children whenever they wanted to...but then claim "Their plan was to take Haitian children from Port-au-Prince across the border to the Dominican Republic where a place had been set up to get them adopted, possibly even to the U.S."

"We came here to help the children who had no one else, children that kind of were on the streets or in orphanages that were not in line really for other types of aide," Silsby said.


They claimed they were going for children who were orphans and then they hand out leaflets to parents trying to entice them into giving up their children


http://www.ktvb.com/home/Laura-Silsby-speaks-from-Haitian-jail-cell-83315337.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/02/haiti.border.arrests/


How can I see my child whenever I want to if the child is adopted out and living in America?

How is a child an orphan if you're hitting up the parents to hand over the child?


How can you be a legitimate organization operating in foreign countries and not know the law?


Silsby claims she didn't know she would need paperwork


"Haiti's government requires documentation stating approval for children to exit the country. Silsby acknowledged she had none.


"They really didn't have any paperwork and this is probably a misunderstanding on my part, but I did not really know they would be required," she said"


But is constantly pointing out that they did nothing illegal because the DR said they could do it...you get permission to bring a child in but don't know you need paperwork to get a child out?

Has anyone seen the paperwork from the DR?


I find them very suspect.

[DevonRex]

33. And if they had been successful in smuggling them out, how could a child EVER

find his/her birth parents later in life? No paperwork. Nothing. Too young to remember anything about Haiti except that is where somebody told you they got you. Or maybe not even that. Maybe they would have been told they were from the DR and not Haiti at all.

Those are some sick, lying MFers who kidnapped those children and tried to smuggle them out of teh country. I say Haiti should throw the book at them, treat them like any child trafficker.

[Solly Mack]

35. and a pastor at the church claims they lacked "one of the pieces" of paper

When the Haiti officials said they had NO documentation for having custody of the kids, much less for their adoption or removal from the country

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704491604575035924001393684.html



I hope the Haiti government stands firm.

[DevonRex]

11. Since they broke the law we have reason to think the worst of them.

And since many weren't orphans, we have even more reason to be suspicious of that Baptist group's intentions.

You just don't get parents to give up their kids in the middle of a disaster, by promising good schools, swimming pools, etc. If you do, you deserve everything you get from the authorities. And that's even without the smuggling out of the country part. No reputable adoption agency is run that way. No paperwork, no contracts, no counseling for the parents or advising them of any recourse they might have if they change their minds and if there is some time frame in which to change their minds. It's nothing short of dispicable. They treated the parents and the children as less than human, as beneath any sort of consideration that an American family would receive if they had to make a hard decision about adoption.

Just think if they had been successful. Fifteen years from now one of the kids wants to know about his/her birth family. There is no paperwork here. There is no paperwork there. The child doesn't remember if his/her family is alive or dead from the quake. Doesn't even remember where he/she lived exactly, just that it was Haiti. Somewhere. Has no names of relatives to even begin a search. Might not even remember his/her own original first name.

Those people ought to be tried and convicted of being human traffickers because that's what they are, no matter WHAT their intent was once they smuggled the kids out.

[stopbush]

20. And, they swooped in on these kids at the height of the choas in that country.

Don't tell me they weren't looking to get away with something while law enforcement had their hands full with the aftermath of the earthquake.

[DevonRex]

25. You are absolutely correct. Pretty convenient timing for running off with kids.

It's just a damned good thing they got caught and that the kids will be safe from them now.

[Xithras]

15. I don't think it was nefarious as in harming the kids...

I do think that they were genuinely trying to get the kids to the other orphanage to help them. I don't, however, buy for a second their claim that they thought everything was in order. I think they knew full well that they were breaking the law, and hoped that the disarray in the nation would let them get out without anyone noticing. I think their intentions were to help the kids, but they knew they were breaking the law.

And yes, they should be punished for that. At the minimum, the people in charge of the group should be tried. The people who were simply taking care of the kids should probably be released and ejected from the country, but the leaders who planned and executed this "transfer" shouldn't walk away without punishment.

Aid groups have been working in Haiti for decades helping out with the ophanages there, and all of the evidence seems to suggest that they were legitimately connected to an actual orphanage in Haiti. I think they were actually trying to help *AND* decided to break some very serious laws in the process. It's possible to do both, though one does not forgive the other.

[woo me with science]

32. This makes sense to me. nt

[derby378]

16. As much as I want to withhold judgment...

...it's not looking good for these guys. There are already parents heading to that SOS Children's Home to be reunited with some of those kids who were declared "orphans" by the missionaries.

They're starting to look more and more like vultures coming in for their bite of the carcass. If so, throw the book at them, because that makes them nothing more than kidnappers and human traffickers.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Yes, I consider kidnapping a nefarious act.

[MoonRiver]

24. I don't know.

I HOPE their motives were deluded but innocent. BUT, I also know that many, many perverts are religious fanatics. I think we'll find out eventually what they were up to.

[Nay]

27. At the very least, these people are kidnappers. They also intended to

transport kidnapped minors across national borders under cover of a convenient disaster, so I imagine the penalties will be severe. No one can, or should, believe that they truly intended to help the children -- you don't help by not arranging official papers, or by swiping them from parents and relatives, etc. They were trafficking in humans and deserve the penalty for that. No one is so stupid as to think that children can be so easily and cavalierly taken like that.

[Starry Messenger]

31. Didn't they lie to the children?

Is this the group that told the children they were taking them to summer camp? If so, then they are sick lying puppies. I suspect the worst.

[Jennicut]

37. They manipulated the families and also thought "God's law" ruled over Haitian law.

I think they were haughty, thinking that as white Americans they knew better and no one would stop them. They probably did mean to give the kids a better life but at what cost to these families, plus they were arrogant.

[gratuitous]

38. I don't know what their intentions were

But if they're very, very lucky, the least that will happen to them is they'll be assessed a fine and told to leave Haiti and never return. My impression from seeing them and their Idaho counterparts is that they are well-meaning people, and I don't think they were child trafficking or child snatching (I could be wrong, of course). But they clearly screwed up, trying to take the children out of the country without every t crossed and every i dotted. They could be evil, but my assessment leans toward myopically naive, in that they saw one thing and one thing only, and thought it would miraculously come to pass because that's how their version of God works.

[Raine]

40. I'm suspicious

and I admit it's because of it being a church group, sometimes the worst sort will hide behind religious organizations.

[alarimer]

41. Religious freaks stealing children to raise them as fundy freaks

Mostly though it was trafficking in children, which goes on all over the world by American Christians, thinking they are "saving" these kids but it's just like when they stole Native American children and forced them into boarding schools. It is immoral and unethical at the very least.

There are lots and lots of American kids who need homes.

[carlyhippy]

42. I was watching that on TV at the gym earlier....I am not sure how to view this one

were they working with the UN or Red Cross or Unicef, or were these just people who were down there on their own? I really don't know much about this story, just one side on cnn earlier.

[applegrove]

43. The were drunk on Jesus and ignored the requirement for papers for those kids.

Have kids...need paperwork. That has been stated over and over again on all the networks and TV coverage. The fact that they tried to get around the system makes them wrong. I don't imagine they will get jailtime. But still they made a grave mistake and they should go to trial.