American Baptists Held in Haiti Lied About Children Being Orphans

The twists continue in the story of 10 American Baptist missionaries charged with child trafficking in Haiti. Now the Associated Press is reporting that many of the children who had been taken were turned over to the Americans by their own desperate parents, and are not orphans at all.

From where I sit, this is an even more alarming development, because it means that the missionaries lied about the children they were taking. And if you know anything about child trafficking around the world, you know that it is very common for parents to be coerced in to giving away their children with some amorphous promise that the children will be whisked away to a better life.That's exactly what appears to have been promised in this case:

Parents in this quake-wracked Haitian village unable to feed or clothe their children handed the youngsters over to a group of American missionaries who promised to give them a better life.

In a testament to the misery of a nation that was the Western hemisphere's poorest even before a Jan. 12 earthquake, many Callebas parents say they wouldn't know what to do if they had to take the children back.

"I am living in a tent with a friend," said Laurentius Lelly, a 27-year-old computer technician who gave up his two children, ages 4 and 6. "My main concern is that if the kids come back, I'm not going to be able to feed them." Source: US Baptists to appear before Haitian prosecutor, Associated Press

The focus of the American missionaries should have been to help these suffering families stay together. They should have focused on getting these families health care, food, water and shelter. The idea that anyone would convince a desperate parent that the only way to help their child would be to give them up is reprehensible to me.

Standing amid piles of debris that used to be their homes and the makeshift shelters of tin and plastic sheeting that have replaced them, the people of Callebas told how they came to surrender their children.

It all began last week when a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present the Americans' offer.

Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.

Many parents jumped at the offer.

"It's only because the bus was full that more children didn't go," said Melanie Augustin, a 58-year-old who gave her 10-year-old daughter, Jovin, to the Americans.

Adrien said he met the Baptists' leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them. Source: US Baptists to appear before Haitian prosecutor, Associated Press

Aren't most children in Port-au-Prince "homeless" right now? Should they all just be ripped from their families? And how in the world would these dirt-poor parents find the money to "go visit" their children a country any way?

I believe these 10 Americans should be prosecuted and punished for breaking the law.