I sent an email to Helen Sworn, the Cambodian
representative of Chab Dai – a consortium of 40 Christian NGOs to whom
Citipointe has, on a few occasions, attributed its policy in relation to C, R
and SM.
Dear Mr Ricketson
Please be informed that I will not be in
correspondence with you regarding this case.
Citipointe are a member of Chab Dai and are
autonomous in their own right as an organisation.
They are carrying out a good program here in
Cambodia and I am certainly not at liberty or legally able to share information
on cases of children within their care. As a member of Chab Dai, they
believe, as we do in the protection of children and the desire for children to
be cared for by their families in the community as the first option for any
child.
Regardless of your history with the family,
you do not live here in Cambodia and you clearly do not understand the
complexities of the issues we or our members are dealing with on a daily
basis.
Yours sincerely,
Helen Sworn
Director
Some hours after receiving this email from
Helen Sworn, C found her copy of the ‘contract’ she has signed with her thumb
print, leading me to write to Helen Sworn again.
Dear Helen
How disappointing that you should respond to
my email with righteous indignation rather than a cool, calm, careful
appraisal of the facts.
How disappointing also that you should
announce that you do not wish to enter into any kind of correspondence with me;
that you do not intend to answer any questions. Transparency and accountability
are clearly not high on your list of priorities. In the absence of any further
communication from Chab Dai I will work on the assumption that you have
expressed Chab Dai’s official position on this matter.
As the head of Chab Dai in Cambodia you
should not need to be reminded but according to the Chab Dai website the
organization is committed to “reintegrating their client back into a safe
community. The reintegration process includes restoring a client’s relationship
with their family, their community and with the society at large.” (NOTE Three
and a half years later Citipointe has yet to begin the process of
re-integrating R and SM into their family or community.)
In relation to C, R and SM Citipointe is
committed to doing precisely the opposite of what Chab Dai stands for. How else
can you describe Citipointe’s decision to limit C’s access to her children (and
they to her) to 24 hours a supervised access per year?
I will quote again from Citipointe’s 11th.
August email: “R and SM stay with us until they are 18 or until she can provide
a safe environment for them, as defined by LICADHO and the Ministry of Social
Affairs.” Given that neither LICADHO or the Ministry of Social Affairs
has a definition for a ‘safe environment’ this statement is meaningless.
Who will decide when C is able to provide her
daughters with a ‘safe environment’? Citipointe? Chab Dai? And ‘safe’ in
accordance with what criteria? Depending on your definition of ‘safe’ all
street kids in Phnom Penh live, by definition, in unsafe environments. The kids
that sell books to tourists, though they may live in houses with their parents,
live in unsafe environments since they are exposed to the danger of sexual
abuse. Indeed all impoverished kids in Cambodia, it could be argued, live in
‘unsafe’ environments. Without a definition of a ‘safe environment’ how can C
ever know what she needs to do to have her children returned to her? In one,
two or three years time Citipointe can simply assert, regardless of what C may
wish, that she is unable to provide them with a ‘safe environment.’ (NOTE three
and a half years later it is still impossible to obtain from Citipointe or the
Ministry of Social Affairs what constitutes a ‘safe’ environment.)
I wonder if you have seen the contract signed
by C and Citipointe? Are you aware of its contents?
I doubt very much that you have seen this
‘contract’ because if you had you might have tempered your righteous indignation
a little in response to my email. I also doubt very much that you’ve seen it
because there is, in fact, no legally binding contract between C and
Citipointe?
The ‘contract’ amounts to one hand-written
page which bears the thumb prints of C and her mother V but neither SHE nor
Citipointe is a signatory to it. That neither C nor her mother had any idea
what they were ‘signing’ with their thumb prints becomes apparent when they
agree, in the document, that they are ‘homeless’. In fact, at the time of signing
C and mother (along with R, SM and C’s husband) were living in a small
apartment a couple of blocks back from the river. Now C and what remains of her
family live on a small boat moored close to where C has her drinks stand by
day. To describe C and V as ‘homeless’ in this document is quite simply false.
And it would have been known to be false by whoever prepared the document.
(NOTE: It is worth noting, three and a half years down the track, that I have
documentary evidence that C and her children were not homeless at the time C
and her mother, V, placed their thump prints on a document that claims they
were homeless.)
The problems do not end with this particular
falsehood, however. Whilst I have not had the document translated word for word
yet it is clear that there is no reference in it to C’s visitation rights, no
reference to Citipointe keeping R and SM until they are 18, no reference at all
to a ‘safe place’ of any kind. This document is, from a legal point of view,
absolutely worthless. Even a Cambodian court would, I think, find it laughable.
That a multi-million dollar Christian Church in Brisbane, no doubt with lawyers
employed to do its legal work, could get a poor and illiterate Cambodian woman
to ‘sign’ such a document beggars belief!
Does Chab Dai assert that the document itself
and the circumstances surrounding its ‘signing’ are in accord with Chab Dai
policy? A document which accords C no rights at all in relation to her
children? If so, I believe that Chab Dai stands condemned as aiding and
abetting in the destruction of this particular Cambodian family - the
alienation of R and SM from their mother, their family, their religion, their
culture, their society.
Again I ask that you or some representative
of Chab Dai make yourself available for an interview in which the organization
can present its case.
If this ‘contract’ with C is similar to the
agreements Citipointe has entered into with the families of other children in
its care these must all be looked at and re-written in such a way as to
acknowledge the rights of parents not to be alienated from their children. The
question is: Does the international NGO community have sufficient courage in
its convictions to insist that Citipointe enter into proper contracts with
clients or is the international NGOs’ attitude of one of laissez faire – let
each and every NGO make up its own set of rules when they arrive here?
How many other NGOs (perhaps under the Chab
Dai umbrella) are acting with impunity similar to that which Citipointe has
evidenced in action here? Does the international NGO community care? Or is it,
as I have expressed it before, open season for any well-meaning (or less than
well-meaning) NGO who wants to set up shop and start raising money in their
countries of origin for the good work they are doing ‘rescuing’ children who
are sex slaves or who have been trafficked?
Will the international NGO community now ask
of Citipointe how many of the children in its care fit the description of the
SHE refuge’s work to be found on the internet and how many are simply poor kids
who have been conned, like C, into ‘signing’ a document the contents of which
they were unaware? How many of the children being cared for by Citipointe are
actual sexual abuse victims? If NGOs are not accountable, anyone can come to
Cambodia, find some orphans (easy to do if you’ve got a pocket full of money),
insist on your website that they have been rescued from prostitution, the sex
trade and so on and then refuse, on the basis of client confidentiality, to
answer any questions about the kids. Is this what the international NGO
community wants? Or is prepared to condone?
Whilst the majority of NGOs are, I am sure,
respectful of rights of the parents of poor children, respectful of Buddhism as
a religion and of Cambodian culture, there are some which believe that it is
their God-given right (and duty) to transform poor Buddhist children into
Christians in the mold of whatever the NGOs particular brand of Christianity
might happen to be.
I have tried, as I think my early emails
evidence, to find a way to resolve this matter as amicably as possible. Your
email to me makes me realize that this is not possible – at least not as far as
Chab Dai is concerned. Consequently, this dispute is now in the public domain
and I ask, with several witnesses to my question, for a representative of Chab
Dai to make him or herself available for an interview. If your email really
does represent Chab Dai policy worldwide I will get no response at all to this
email. This in itself will reveal, for my audience, a distressing truth about
Chab Dai – that it condones behavior of the kind Citipointe has evidenced here.
best wishes
James Ricketson
I received no response to this email from
Chab Dai – despite copying it to Chab Dai’s head offices in the United Kingdom
and the United States. At the very least Chab Dai is turning a blind eye to the
activities of its member organizations – even if these activities involve, as
is the case with Citipointe, ’stealing’ children.
Meanwhile, Naly Pilorge, head of one of the
biggest and most highly respected Human Rights organizations in Cambodia, was
likewise refusing to meet me with to discuss this clear case of human rights
abuse. Nor did she or any member of LICADHO respond to my invitation to make
themselves available to speak on behalf of LICADHO about the responsibilities
of NGOs in relation to their impoverished clients.
Dear Naly
It is clear that NGOs in Cambodia are free to
make up their own rules, to lie, make up documents which they refer to as
'legal' but which are not and then use these phony documents as justification
to act as they please - without the international NGO community raising any
kind of outcry. In so doing they bring all NGOs into disrepute.
I am shocked, to say the least, to discover
that LICADHO does not wish to go on record, on camera, with its own position on
this form of exploitation. It remains to be seen whether or not LICADHO, now in
possession of plenty of evidence of Citipointe's lying, is prepared to accept
its 'contract' with C or will insist on one which is keeping with the original
promises made to her.
best wishes
James Ricketson
Three days later I had received no response
to this email – despite Ms Pilorge now being in possession of an English translation
of the ‘contract’ C and her mother had signed.
18th. November 2008
Dear Naly
I have just conducted a lengthy interview
with C in Khmer. I had an interpreter. I was so astounded by what I was
hearing that I asked most questions three times just to make sure that I had
not mis-heard or that something had been lost in translation.
If even half of what I heard is true (and I
suspect that most of it is) SHE should be closed down immediately. I will not
inform you of the contents of my interview other than to mention one fact: C
believes that the 'contract' she signed was with LICADHO. This should be of
enormous concern to you.
I believe that LICADHO must, immediately,
speak with C. I believe that no member of Citipointe should be present. I
believe that an independent witness must be present. I believe that the
conversation should be recorded so that there is no doubt, later on, what was
said. I believe that C should be asked, in a non-threatening way, what she
understood to be taking place when she was approached by Citipointe. She must
not feel intimidated in any way or feel that she is going to be punished for
what she tells you.
One line of questioning should have to do
with the parents of the other children being cared for by SHE - with a view to
finding out why there are no orphans at SHE.
It should be relatively easy for LICADHO to
check out the veracity of most of what C tells you. If her facts check out, SHE
and Citipointe are guilty of significant human rights abuses, of fraud and
should be shut down.
I trust that you will act of this with haste
and keep me informed.
best wishes
James
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