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U.S. missionary leader Laura Silsby was released by Haiti authorities on Monday, after a judge convicted her of violating Haiti's illegal travel law for attempting to take 33 children out of Haiti following the January 12 earthquake. Silsby was sentenced to time served despite the prosecutor's request that she be given six months in jail. She's been detained in Haiti since January 28 and was the last of 10 Idaho-based missionaries charged with child trafficking to leave. Silsby made only a brief comment while heading toward a plane to take her back to the United States.
"I'm praising God," Silsby told The Associated Press as she waited for a flight out of Haiti. She declined to answer further questions before clearing immigration and heading through a gate to catch a plane to Florida.Source: Laura Silsby convicted in Haiti but free to go, Idaho Press-Tribune News
Silsby's conviction and release marks the end of a disturbing sequence of events that began even before anyone had a full picture of the earthquake's devastation.
At the crux of the conviction against Silsby was the fact that she had been in Haiti before the quake hit, trying to round up children to take to an "orphanage." And after the quake, Silsby, along with nine others she organized in Idaho to go to Haiti with her, convinced desperate parents that their kids would be taken to an established orphanage in the Dominican Republic and that they would be able to see their kids at any time.
Meanwhile, Silsby was telling authorities that all of the children were orphans, although each of the 33 children she attempted to take out of the country had at least one parent to care for them.
Haitian authorities asserted that Silsby was told that she needed certain documents for any children to be removed from the country. Add to all of this the fact that there never was any orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and I'd say Laura Silsby got off pretty easy.
Haiti prosecutor Sonel Jean-Francois argued that U.S. missionary Laura Silsby deserved a six-month prison sentence not only because she broke laws she knew about, but also because Silsby's actions embodied a kind of arrogant double standard. Silsby presumed that taking Haitian away from their parents was a better solution than working to provide services that would make keeping those families together the better option.
As prosecutor Jean-Francois put it, "If the United States had an earthquake, that would not give you the right to take children."
Still, it's likely to be many years before we know the full extent of child exploitation in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
As the rainy season descends, hopeless Haitian parents are abandoning their children in record numbers, and reports of sexual abuse in the tent cities ubiquitous. Perhaps the best most of us can do is to keep an eye on how aid to Haiti is spent and to keep Haiti in our prayers.
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By: MS PEGGY on 5/18/2010 9:24AM
Its refreshing to read about a judge with common sense. He convicted the woman and then released her instead of jailing her and feeding and housing her when there are thousands of Haitians in dire need of the basic necessities of life. I love this country but out justice system is baffling at times and too slow to be truly effective.
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