From The Independent:
Haiti’s leader says it’s clear to him that the 10 US Baptists who tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the quake-ravaged country “knew what they were doing was wrong”.
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said some of the children have parents who are alive. The government is attempting to locate them. He says a judicial system needs to determine whether the Americans were acting in good faith – as they claim – or are child traffickers.
The Baptists are mostly from Idaho. They have been held since being arrested on Friday trying to enter the Dominican Republic with the children.
Haitian officials yesterday said they are considering sending the group back to the US for prosecution. Haiti’s court system was crippled by the earthquake on 12 January, which destroyed the Justice Ministry building in the capital, Port- au-Prince, and killed many government workers.
Here’s my favorite part:
Since their arrest on Friday near the Dominican border, the Americans have been held inside dingy concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters where ministers give disaster response briefings. They have not yet been charged. A lawyer representing them alleged yesterday that they were being treated poorly and that one of them, a diabetic, fainted and was taken to hospital. Attorney Jorge Puello, in the Dominican Republic, said they were not being given adequate medical care and food.
Not being given adequate medical care or food? Why not? It’s not like there was a major natural disaster in an already poor country or anything. Can’t missionaries kidnap non-orphans anymore without all this red tape?
Comments
12 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.“One nine-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… something like that [when she was taken]“
WTF? How did the baptists find these children in the first place? Are they just grabbing anyone they find on the street?
Lots of children in Orphanages overseas have living parents who can’t provide for them at this time. Some of them end up going back to their homes eventually. Do you remember the scandal around Madonna’s adoption? The boy she picked from an orphanage had a living father.
I’m sure the Baptists not only wanted to get the children adopted, but they wanted to save them from the Scarlet Woman–the Church of Rome. I’m sure they consider the Catholic Church more evil that the Voodoo priests.
Baptists Turkeys ! (their intentions were probably good but no one likes kid stealers!!)
The Media needs to concentrate on the aid response and how it is progressing (or not).
I can’t wait to see what the Scientologists do now.
In the normal adoption process, a child with “unknown” parents will be on hold at least six months before being adopted, while a search goes on for relatives (although they may be placed in foster homes). Even if their parents are dead, children deserve the chance to stay with their extended families if at all possible.
I believe that the UN says international adoptions that have not already been started should be held up for 2 years following a natural disaster to ensure that parents can be found etc.
I would like to adopt a US Baptist, and take them back to my country where they will be properly cared for…
Well, they’ve now been formally charged with kidnapping. The whole thing is creepy to me; maybe Haiti’s conditions (both before and after the quake) are atrocious and poverty-ridden, but I can’t help think these kids may have escaped a fate far worse…
It’s probably unethical to speculate on their different possible outcomes.
It’s kid-looting.
The Baptists are mostly from Idaho. They have been held since being arrested on Friday trying to enter the Dominican Republic with the children.
Sometimes being Robinhoods to the needy and less fortunate need also be done discreetly.