Case Stokes Haiti’s Fear for Children, and Itself

Case Stokes Haiti’s Fear for Children, and Itself
Copyright by Reuters
By GINGER THOMPSON
Published: February 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/americas/02orphans.html?th&emc=th


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — “God wanted us to come here to help children, we are convinced of that,” Laura Silsby, one of 10 Americans accused of trafficking Haitian children, said Monday through the bars of a jail cell here. “Our hearts were in the right place.”

Whatever their intentions, the Americans who were detained late Friday at the Dominican border with 33 children struck a deep emotional chord in this earthquake-ravaged country.

Even as Haiti’s crippled government asserted itself in the name of defending the nation’s children, officials made it clear that more was at stake. In the wake of the worst natural disaster in Haiti’s history, the authorities have opened the country to a flood of international assistance, some of it coming uncomfortably close to infringing on national sovereignty.

The 10 Americans, the authorities said, had crossed the line.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive angrily denounced them as “kidnappers” who “knew what they were doing was wrong.” Justice Minister Paul Denis said, “We may be weakened, but without laws the Haitian state would cease to exist.”

And the chief of the National Judicial Police, Frantz Thermilus, said: “What surprises me is that these people would never do something like this in their own country. We must make clear they cannot do such things in ours.”

The Americans, most of whom are affiliated with two Baptist churches in Idaho, said they were trying to rescue orphans from the earthquake and take them to an orphanage they were setting up in the Dominican Republic. But that noble intent came under scrutiny on Monday as questions were raised about whether all of the children were indeed orphans.

Ms. Silsby said that a Haitian pastor in Port-au-Prince, Jean Sanbil, of the Sharing Jesus Ministries, had brought her group the children, whose ages range from 2 months to 12 years.

While she acknowledged that she had no documentation to show that the children were orphans, or permission to remove them from the country, she said they had planned to return to the capital to complete the paperwork. She also said that in the midst of Haiti’s crisis, they thought they did not need the documents.

The Haitian authorities said the group planned to offer the children for adoption, but Ms. Silsby denied that.

“We intended to raise those children and be with them their entire lives, if necessary,” she said, standing behind a door of thick metal bars in pedal pushers, sandals and a blouse printed with palm trees. “These kind of children are sold across the border for the price of a chicken. We wanted to give them lives of joy and dignity in God’s love.”

But SOS Children’s Villages, an Austrian organization that runs the orphanage in Port-au-Prince where the children have been temporarily placed, said at least one of the children, an 8-year-old girl, told workers, “I am not an orphan,” according to the group’s Web site. The girl said she thought her mother had arranged a short vacation for her.

Haitian officials said that several of the children had parents, and that, unfortunately, this turn of events was one they had anticipated.

Fearful of the possibility that unscrupulous traffickers would take advantage of Haiti’s sundered justice system to take children from poor families for illegal adoptions, prostitution or slavery, the government had halted all adoptions except those already in motion before the earthquake. Mr. Bellerive’s signature is now required for the departure of any child.

For the government, the arrests provided an opportunity to send a strong message, and the message was outrage. “If people want to help children of Haiti,” said Marie-Laurence Jocelin Lassègue, a government spokeswoman, “this is not the way to do it.

“There can be no questions about taking our children off the streets,” she added. “It is wrong. And those who do so will be judged.”

Although many of the country’s judicial and law enforcement structures, including the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court and numerous police stations, lie in ruins, Haitian officials said they were exploring options for prosecuting the Americans in Haiti. But several officials acknowledged that if there was to be any trial at all, it would probably be in the United States.

Mr. Bellerive said the Americans could face serious charges, although none have been filed yet.

In Washington, the State Department said the American Embassy had been granted unlimited access to the Americans, but where and whether they would be prosecuted was up to Haiti. “It’s their country,” said Philip J. Crowley, a department spokesman. “The judgment is really up to the Haitian government.”

Ms. Silsby’s effort appeared to be a project of a group called New Life Children’s Refuge, which is described on the Web site of Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho, as a “nonprofit Christian ministry dedicated to rescuing, loving and caring for orphaned, abandoned and impoverished Haitian and Dominican children.”

The group was founded by Ms. Silsby, 40, and Charisa Coulter, 24, Ms. Silsby’s live-in nanny, who was also among those jailed in Port-au-Prince. Most of the group who went to Haiti belonged to Eastside Baptist Church or Central Valley Baptist in Meridian, Idaho, while others came from Texas and Kansas, Ms. Silsby said.

A document on the Eastside Baptist Web site laid out the group’s plans for a “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission.”

The itinerary for Jan. 23 said: “Drive bus from Santo Domingo into Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages, then return to the D.R.”

The itinerary said the group planned to take the children to a 45-room hotel the group leased in Cabarete, Dominican Republic, where they would live until a permanent orphanage was constructed in nearby Magante.

Although Ms. Silsby said the group did not intend to offer the children for adoption, the Web site said they would “strive” to “provide opportunities for adoption through partnership with New Life Adoption Foundation,” which subsidizes adoptions “for loving Christian parents who would otherwise not be able to afford to adopt.”

The status of New Life Adoption Foundation was not immediately clear. The group is not registered as an adoption agency in Idaho and does not appear to be registered as a federal nonprofit. The group also did not appear on a list of accredited international adoption agencies on the Web site of the State Department.

Mel Coulter, Ms. Coulter’s father, said of the group, “It was never their intent to establish an adoption agency or anything similar to it.”

“I can’t at all question where they went and what they did because I’m really convinced it was at God’s direction,” he said. “They were acting in faith. That may sound trivial, but they were acting not only in faith but God’s faith.”

But in Haiti, the group may have run into worldly issues they had not anticipated.

Haiti has long been a target for trafficking organizations, Mr. Denis, the justice minister, said, and in the wake of the earthquake authorities had alerted police and judicial officials that criminal organizations might attempt to take advantage of the disaster.

Asked what he thought about the Americans’ claims to be doing God’s work, Mr. Denis shrugged. “What is God’s I leave to God,” he said. “What’s the state’s is ours.”




William Yardley contributed reporting from Seattle, and Joseph Berger from New York.