Email from Pastor Brian Mulheran
Dear James,
Thank you for your patience concerning our
response to you about C and yourself having an access visit with R and S M. I
apologize for the initial denial of this request as it has always been the case
that the girls are permitted to have supervised access visits with their
mother.
Always our first priority, as you could
imagine, is the safety of those in our care and we are required to ensure the
protection of the girls both legally and morally under Cambodian Law, our
agreement with Licadho and our relationship within the Chad Dai Coalition.
I have attached a copy of the Chab Dai
Coalition - Child Protection Policy for Visitors for your information and also
your commitment to uphold which I am sure you have no problem with at all.
My proposal for the visit is as follows:
2. You are
willing to sign and abide by the Chab Dai Coalition - Child Protection Policy
4. The Access
visit will require the accompanying of two of the SHE Rescue Home Team members
5. Any costs
incurred (for example access to a theme parks etc) for the accompanying of the
two Team members on the visit will be met by yourself, and…
We trust that this will be satisfactory to
yourself.
Yours sincerely,
Brian Mulheran
Executive Pastor, Citipointe Church
This email resulted in three telephone
conversations – two with Rebecca Brewer and one with Brian Mulheran. Both
telephone conversations were recorded so that there could be no
misunderstanding later on, as to what had been said. In my conversation with
Rebecca she informed me that C’s supervised visiting rights to her children had
been reduced from two hours every two weeks to two hours per month. The reason
given for this was that C had ‘kidnapped’ her daughter and kept her for six
days. When Citipointe finally gained possession of R (aged six) again, LICADHO
(Rebecca told me) insisted that Chanti’s visitation rights be reduced to once a
month. At this point it is clear that C is allowed only 24 hours per year to
spend with her children.
Dear Brian and Rebecca
Citipointe’s relationship with LICADHO
remains unclear to me however and I would appreciate it if you could clarify
for me just what role LICADHO plays in the formulation of Citipointe’s policy
in relation to caring for R and SM and other girls that Citipointe is ‘fostering’.
I use the word ‘fostering’ very deliberately.
R and SM are not orphans. Their mother and grandmother live just a few streets
away from Citipointe’s SHE residences. Nor are either R or SM victims of people
trafficking or child prostitution. And nor have R and SM been rescued from a
dangerous domestic environment. R and SM’s problems, along with those of their
mother C and grandmother V, can be attributed, for the most part, to
poverty. The same applies, of course, to large numbers of kids living in
poverty in Phnom Penh and elsewhere in Cambodia.
Citipointe has adopted a role in the lives of
these girls which is not dissimilar to the role played by foster-parents
worldwide and it has done so, it seems to me, for one very good reason – to
give R and SM opportunities in life, through education and proper nourishment,
that all too many kids in Cambodia are denied. It is the lack of these
opportunities and the poverty that accompanies this lack that leaves poor
children in Cambodia vulnerable to exploitation.
Having adopted the role of foster
parents (or ‘foster carers’ if you’d prefer) it is, I believe, important for
Citipointe to bear in mind the legislation relating to fostering as it pertains
to Queensland – the state in Australia in which Citipointe church is based.
I would like to draw your attention to some
pertinent sections of this legislation:
• In deciding in whose care the child should
be placed, the Chief Executive
must give proper consideration to placing the
child, as a first option, with
kin.
• If a child is removed from the child’s
family, it is the aim of authorised
officers working with the child and the
child’s family to safely return the child
to the family if possible. (Child Protection
Act Part 2, 5 (2f i))
• The child’s need to maintain family and
social contacts and their ethnic
and cultural identity must be taken into
account and respected by all
parties to this Statement of Commitment.
(Child Protection Act Part 2,
5 (2f ii))
• In exercising the powers under the Child
Protection Act the Chief Executive
will ensure that:
(i) actions taken, while in the best
interests of the child, maintain family
relationships and are supportive of
individual rights and ethnic,
religious and cultural identity or values
(ii) the views of the child and the child’s
family are considered
(iii) the child and the child’s parents have
the opportunity to take part in
making decisions affecting their lives.
(Child Protection Act Part 2, 5 (2d))
Does Citipointe recognize, as it would be
legally obliged to in Queensland, that R and SM have a right to maintain family
relationships? If so, why were Rosa’s and SM’s mother and grandmother allowed
only 2 hours of supervised visit with the girls every two weeks at the outset
and only one supervised visit per month now?
Is Citipointe supportive of the “ethnic,
religious and cultural identity or values” of R and SM? If not, why not? If
Citpointe is supportive of the “ethnic, religious and cultural identity
or values” of R and SM in what way is this support manifested? The Water
Festival is a significant Cambodian event. It is a time when families converge
on Phnom Penh to celebrate, engage in festivities and forge the sense of
community which is so fundamental to Cambodian culture. It is a time when C and
her children should be together - unless, that is, there is strong evidence
that their being together would pose a threat to the well being of R and SM. I
have known these girls since they were born and have never, not once, seen
evidence of neglect by C or V - other, that is, than the kind of 'neglect' that
all street kids in Phnom Penh suffer from.
It seems to me, from having visited your
website and absorbed its contents, that as far as religion is concerned
Citipointe intends to transform R and SM, brought up as Buddhists in a Buddhist
culture, into Christians in the Citipointe mold. If I am correct in this
assumption (and please correct me if I am wrong) what moral right does
Citipointe have to forcibly convert these two young girls to another religion –
especially since such a course of action would be against the law in Australia?
Leaving aside questions of legality, the
forcible conversion of R and SM reveals a contempt for Buddhism as a religion
and a declaration of the superiority of Christianity.
When I met with Leigh Ramsay, Rebecca Brewer
and Helen Shields in June this year I was told that C would have free and
regular access to her children whilst in Citipointe’s care. I was told that one
day a week they would be able to visit their mother at her home. After my
meeting with Leigh, Rebecca and Helen, C asked me whether I thought it was a
good idea for R and SM to be (to use the appropriate western terminology)
fostered by Citipointe. I did not at the time share my reservations with C about
Citipointe’s religious agenda. I figured that all things considered
indoctrination into Citipointe’s particular brand of Christianity was a small
price to be paid if the girls were to be well fed, receive a decent education
and be protected from the various perils that lie in wait for millions of
extremely poor Cambodia children – especially those living in cities where the
danger of sexual and other forms of exploitation are very high.
Not until some time later did I learn that
Citipointe had changed the nature of its relationship with C by getting her to
sign a contract which, amongst other things, allows her only two hours of
supervised access with her children every two weeks and, more recently, only
once a month. When I asked Brian in Brisbane why this change had taken place he
insisted that Citipointe is obliged to abide by its membership with Chab Dai
and its contractual relationship with LICADHO to restrict C’s and V’s access to
R and SM to two hours of supervised visit every two week - and now to two hours
every month. This, of course, is no answer at all. It merely shifts the
question of causation from Citipointe to Chab Dai and LICADHO. What right do
either of these NGOs have to be enforcing or encouraging a fostering
relationship between Citipointe and R and SM which would be illegal in
Australia? A fostering relationship that carries the very real risk of
alienating R and SM from their mother and grandmother and perhaps also the
culture they were born into?
In relation to LICADHO if there is any possibility
that I have drawn the wrong conclusion from emails sent to me by Helen Shields
and from words spoken to me by both Brian and Rebecca on the phone in relation
to LICADHO, please clarify for me just what role, if any, LICADHO plays in the
formulation of Citipointe fostering policy as manifested in its running of the
SHE programme. If indeed LICADHO has induced C to sign a contract with it, a
few questions arise. Given that C neither reads nor writes Khmer, was there an
interpreter with her when she signed the document? Did she fully understand
what she was signing? Did she willingly agree to the draconian conditions
placed on her by the contract in terms of visitation rights? Given C’s poverty,
her powerlessness and her desire to give her kids opportunities in life that
she has never had, did she feel that she had any right at all to question the
document placed before her and requiring her thumb print?
In relation to Chab Dai the document you sent
to me makes this consortium of Christian NGOs’ policy quite clear. However,
what right does Chab Dai have (either legally or morally) to dictate the terms
under which children can relate to their families, friends and communities?
Given that Chab Dai has money and the families of children in NGO care, by
definition, do not, these families are clearly not in a position to negotiate
or even ask questions or raise doubts. I am, however. I have a long term
relationship with R and SM and do not recognize Chab Dai's right to dictate on
what terms I can continue my relationship with these girls - unless, that is,
Chab Dai can demonstrate that I am, in some way, a danger to them.
Could you please provide me with the
LICADHO definition of the “safe environment” you are acting in accordance
with and how this is being implemented in practice by Citipointe? Does the
LICADHO “definition” make any mention at all of severing contact between
children and the significant people in their lives – whether they be family,
friends or myself?
Could you please also provide me with the
Ministry of Social Affairs definition of a “safe environment” that has been
referred to in emails to me?
R and SM have been fostered to SHE –
described on the SHE website as “a secure haven for trafficked girls or girls
at risk of being trafficked who have been rescued from the sex industry”.
However, neither R nor SM has been trafficked. Since taking the girls into your
care you have added a disclaimer on your website which reads:
“Each child’s story is very individual and we
work with girls that are at risk in prevention as well as girls that have been
rescued from trafficking.”
However, the wording of this disclaimer is
such that pretty well any poor boy or girl in Cambodia (numbering in the
hundreds of thousands if not millions) could be taken in by Citipointe on the
grounds that their poverty, their parents inability to feed them adequately,
make them eligible for SHE care and hence eligible to be alienated from their
families, their villages, their communities and their cultures by Citipointe’s
declared objective of providing “a safe, God-centered place to live”.
As you will be aware, Australia has, over the
past few years, undergone a good deal of soul searching in relation to “The
Stolen Generation” – those Aboriginal children who were removed from their
families by various government agencies and often placed in the care of well-meaning
Christians. Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has, this year, made a
formal apology on behalf of all Australians to “the Stolen Generation”.
On the basis of all the evidence at my
disposal it appears to me that Citipointe, undoubtedly with the best of
intentions, may be in the process of ‘stealing’ C’s children - in the sense
that Aboriginal children were 'stolen'. If I am wrong in this assumption (and I
certainly hope that I am) please explain to me where the logic that informs
this email fails. If I am wrong then, amongst other things, I will be able to
take C, V, R, SM and C’s new baby to the fun fair, roller skating, to the water
park, to the markets to shop and eat – as I have done this past 14 years (in
the case of C) and for the past three years – in the case of R and SM. I do not
need or want my time spent with this little family to be monitored or
supervised by Citipointe. If Citipointe has any reason to believe that I pose a
threat to these girls please come straight out and say so and indicate on what
grounds you believe R and S M need to be protected from me.
I do not acknowledge either Citipointe’s or
Chab Dai’s moral right to interfere with my 14 year relationship with Chanti’s
family and will not be signing any contract of the kind that you have sent me.
If indeed it is true that Citipointe’s policy in relation to the fostering of R
and SM has been forced on it by LICADHO this raises another whole host of
questions.
Citipointe must, like all NGOs be accountable
for its actions and transparent in its modus operandi. It would certainly seem,
unless I have misinterpreted my communications with Citipointe and the
information available on the Citipointe website, that Citipointe has taken
complete and total control of the lives of R and SM with the intention of
marginalizing the role of their mother and grandmother in their lives. This
would be illegal in Australia. Further, given that R and SM have not been
‘rescued’ but have been recruited down by the river with promises made to their
mother which turned out to be false, it appears that they are being used in a
dishonest way to raise money for Citipointe’s SHE programme. I wonder how many
of the children in your care are actually girls who have been trafficked and
how many are simply the daughters of impoverished families who may well have
signed a contract with Citipointe but who were unaware of the full
ramifications of what they were doing?
I am looking forward to an email in which you
inform me that I have leapt, much to quickly, to the wrong conclusions in this
email and for answers to the questions I have raised here.
best wishes
James
...to be
continued...
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