letter to Minister of Social Affairs 23rd. August 2012

Ministry of Social Affairs

# 788 Monivong Blvd

Sangkat

Boeng Trbek

Khan Chomkamon

Phnom Penh                                                                                         23^rd  August 2012

To Minister of Social Affairs

Following on from my earlier letters regarding Yem C’s daughters.

The three enclosed letters to Leigh Ramsay, Senior Pastor at Citipointe church (1^st., 14^th and 21^st August), speak for themselves (along with the other 8 letters I have written to her) of my attempts to work with the church to secure the re-integration of R and SM back into the family of their mother, Yem C, this past month. Leigh Ramsay does not respond to any of my letters.

After four years of broken promises I see no signs at all that Citipointe church has any intention of working towards the re-integration of R and SM.

As I have mentioned before, I am prepared to take on the financial responsibility of caring for R and SM when they are returned to their family home. I will quite happily, if need be, enter into a contract with your Ministry to guarantee that all five children in the family will be well fed, that they go to school and that they have access to medical and dental attention.  I will also help Yem C and her husband with income generation.

If my proposal is agreeable to you in principle I will come to Cambodia to discuss it with you or your representative and to finalize the details.

best wishes

James Ricketson

letter # 11 to Leigh Ramsay 21st August

Leigh Ramsay

Citipointe church

322 Wecker Rd

Carindale QLD 4152                                                                                                                                21st August 2012

Dear Leigh

Another week has passed and you have yet to make even one suggestion as to how best to proceed with the re-integration of R and SM into their family. Re-integration was your goal you told me a month ago, remember? But then re-integration was your stated goal when I first met you in Phnom Penh four years ago. You lied to me (and, more importantly, to C) in 2007 and you are still lying in 2012. If your goal really is re-integration set the ball rolling by formulating a plan, on paper, that C can understand and agree to; a plan that can be presented to the Minister of Social Affairs for his approval.

I have a few questions for you that I hope members of your church might ask you:

1. How much money does ‘She’ raise per annum in donations made by people who believe that they are contributing to the rescuing of girls and young women from the sex trade?

2. How much capital do Citipointe’s ‘poverty tours’ to Cambodia generate for your church?

3. How much does it cost to run the ‘She’ refuge each year?

4 How much financial assistance does Citipointe church provide to the poor families of the girls Citipointe has ‘rescued’? (In the case of R and SM’s family the answer is zero. You do not help them at all – not even when there is a medical emergency or when C’s other children are suffering from malnutrition and have no roof over their heads.)

These questions could be subsumed under one question:

5. Is Citipointe church making a profit out of the running of its ‘She’ refuge?

As with all questions put to you, Leigh, you will not answer these. And of course you are under no obligation to do so. I do hope, however, that some of your donors ask these questions before they make their next donation.

I have three more questions:

6. How many of the girls in the ‘She’ refuge have actually been rescued from the sex trade?

7. How many of the girls, like R and SM, have merely been ‘rescued’ from their poor families?

8. Is it true, as C has been led to believe, that after re-integration, Citipointe will provide no further assistance of any kind to her daughters, R and SM?

best wishes

James Ricketson

letter # 10 to Leigh Ramsay 14th August

James Ricketson

316 Whale Beach Road

Palm Beach 2108

0400959229

jamesricketson@gmail.com

Leigh Ramsay

Citipointe church

322 Wecker Rd

Carindale QLD 4152 14^th August 2012

Dear Leigh

It is now more than three weeks since I first wrote to you regarding the formulation of a re-integration program whereby C’s daughters, R and SM, would be returned to the care of their mother. It is a little under three weeks since you and I spoke in Phnom Penh and you went to great pains to assure me that you wished, as much as I did, that R and SM be re-integrated back into their family. This is my 10th letter to you regarding this matter and yet you have not, to date, suggested how this re-integration might best be achieved or provided a time frame within which you believe it can or should be achieved.

I have no idea just who is visiting the blog on which I am posting this letter but to date the 600 ‘hits’ I have received suggests that there are some people in Cambodia and Australia who are taking an interest in my attempt to secure the re-integration of C’s children whilst you seem to have no real interest in re-integration at all above or at lest are making no moves to make it a reality. It would be very easy for you to prove me wrong in this presumption, Leigh, and I sincerely hope that you do. As a mother you must surely appreciate how painful it is for C to have been waiting for 4 years for re-integration and to get nothing but empty promises from Citipointe. Now is the time for action on your part and not for yet more motherhood statements about how desirable re-integration is.

best wishes

James Ricketson

Letter to Cambodian Minister of Social Affairs # 17

Ministry of Social Affairs

788B Monivong

Phnom Penh                                                                                                3rd August 2012

To Minister of Social Affairs

Further to my letter of 1st. August. I am now back in Australia and unable to have my letters to you translated into Khmer. I trust that it will not cause offence or difficulty for you if I write them in English now and send them via email.

I have, on my blog (http://citipointechurch.blogspot.com.au/) given a fairly comprehensive account of my attempts, over a period of four years, to get Citipointe to abide by the promises the church made to both  Chanty and myself in 2008. I have not been successful. Over the past few weeks, whilst in Cambodia, I have tried very hard to work with Citipointe to formulate a plan for the re-integration of R and SM back into the care of their family. Citipointe has not co-operated in my endeavours at all. The church appears to be determined to retain custody of R and SM until they are 18 years old despite the express wishes of their mother, C and step-father, CH. Citipoint claims that it is retaining custody in accordance with a contractual agreement the church has with the Ministry of Social Affairs. Neither  C nor myself have seen a copy of this document. Despite many requests over a period of four years Citipointe refuses to produce it or to inform  C what her rights are and what she must do to have her daughters returned to her care.

I wish to stress, yet again, that R and SM are not orphans. They are part of a large family. Nor are R and SM victims of sexual abuse or any aspect of the sex trade. They are merely the daughters of poor parents who were tricked, four years ago, into accepting the help of Citipointe church at a time of great need. Since that time Citipointe has refused to return R and SM to their family.

The latest in a long list of reasons given by Citipointe as to why it cannot return R and SM to their family is that the community in which they are now living is not a safe one. Citipointe says that the determination that the community is not safe (despite it being a typical suburban Phnom Penh community) was made by Ministry of Social Affairs social workers. No-one in the community, including  C, has any recollection of these social workers visiting the community. If these social workers did visit the community and find it unsafe could you please provide both  C and myself with the reasons why the social workers found it unsafe and the date on which they conducted their visit?

Citipointe church ‘She’ refuge is based on an assertion that is not true – namely that the girls resident in the refuge have been rescued from the sex trade, from sexual abuse and from trafficking. According to the information that has been given to me there is not one girl at the ‘She’ refuge that meets the definition of the residents described on the ‘She’ website – namely that they have been rescued from some form of the sex trade. Even if there are one or two girls who have been so rescued, the fact is that the girls in the refuge are overwhelmingly the daughters of poor families. I believe it is inappropriate for Citipointe church to be advertising on its website that the girls have been rescued from the sex trade. I think it is also inappropriate that Citipointe runs ‘poverty tours’  to Cambodia, bringing young Christians to your country to interact with these children as if they were animals in a zoo. These children have families, they are members of communities and should not be used by Citipointe to raise revenue for the multi-million dollar church it operates in Brisbane, Australia.

There are several highly committed and experienced NGOs that actually perform the tasks of rescuing girls from the sex trade and reintegrating them into their families and communities. They are to be congratulated for the good work they do. When a girl is rescued from sexual exploitation of any kind the task of re-integrating that girl back into her family and community is complicated not merely by the traumatic experiences she has had but because it may well be that her family or some members of the community have been complicit in her being exposed to sexual abuse. This is sensitive and very difficult work to be conducted by experts in the field. For Citipointe to pretend that it is re-integrating sexually abused back into their families and communities is hypocrisy of the worst kind. Indeed the very word ‘re-integration’ makes little sense at all in relation to the work that Citipointe church does – namely, to take girls from poor families and take care of them until they turn 18 whilst basically ignoring the needs to the remainder of the family.

C is now adamant that she does not wish her daughters to remain in the care of Citipointe church any longer. She has presented your Ministry with a letter signed by herself and her Village Chief requesting that her children be returned to her care. I trust that you will agree to  C’s request. As I have mentioned already, I am prepared to do all that is necessary to help support  C in such a way that the family can stay together and not be separated. I also wish for  C’s children to be free to practice the Buddhist religion of their parents and not be forced by Citipointe to become Christians. If Citipointe rejects the assertion that it is forcibly indoctrinating the girls in the ‘She’ refuge into the Christian faith, ask the girls that live in the refuge how many hours they spend each day receiving bible oriented lessons and how much time each day is spent in being instructed in the Buddhist faith of their parents?

It is my belief that the time has come for Cambodia to close all, or at least most, of the so called ‘orphanages’ in the country. If the NGOs that run these ‘orphanages’ wish to help poor families (a noble task) let them help the families within their communities - not by separating the children from their families and communities and bringing them up in institutions.  As you will be aware, the policies implemented by many NGOs in the running of ‘orphanages’ are not dissimilar to those practiced by the Khmer Rouge in the mistaken belief that breaking up families was a good and ideologically appropriate thing to do. Let the NGOs who wish to help poor families respect the Buddhist religion of these families (most of them) and not try to force them to become Christians.

I trust that you will act as soon as possible of  C’s  request that her daughters be returned to her care.

best wishes

James Ricketson

Final letter to Leigh Ramsay 2012 # 16

Leigh Ramsay

Citipointe church

322 Wecker Rd

Carindale QLD 4152                                                                                    1^st. August 2012

Dear Leigh

This is my ninth letter to you in 10 days. I believe that any independent observer (of which there will be several in days to come) would arrive at the conclusion that I have tried as hard as I could in successive letters to get Citipointe to enter into an agreed upon arrangement with C whereby R and SM are returned to her care within a specific time frame and in accordance with whatever benchmarks have been laid down by the Ministry of Social Affairs. The problem is that C does not know what these benchmarks are and has never been informed of them this past four years – despite many requests from both herself and myself.

It has been (and remains) in the interests of Citipointe to withhold this information from C, in the belief that the church can continue to spin one yarn after another to her to justify its decision not to return her daughters to her care and that she is not smart enough to understand what is going on. Such contemptuous behaviour is the hallmark of the way in which Cityipointe runs it’s ‘She’ refuge. The church advertises this refuge on its website and presents to its Brisbane parishioners, as being engaged in rescuing girls and young women from the sex trade. It is nothing of the sort. It is an institution in which the daughters of poor parents are forcibly indoctrinated into Citipointe’s particular brand of the Christian faith. You then present yourself to the world as some kind of latter day Mother Theresa and ask young Australian Christians to pay money to travel to Cambodia to see the good work you are doing in what can best be described as ‘poverty tourism’. No doubt R and SM, two attractive girls, are paraded in front of your ‘poverty tourists’ as examples of how wonderful the ‘She’ refuge is to have rescued these poor girls from the sex trade. These Christian ‘poverty tourists’, along with Citipointe church parishioners and others who open their wallets to give money to the church, are blissfully unaware that at least two of the girls in the church’s care (R and SM) have been effectively ‘stolen’ from their mother and are being held contrary to her express wishes.

I do hope, Leigh, that this last statement causes you to reach for the telephone and instruct your lawyers (yet again!) to write me a strongly worded letter threatening to sue me. Don’t waste your time. Commence legal proceedings immediately. I would commence legal proceedings against Citipointe myself if I had the financial wherewithal to do so – charging the church, in accordance with Cambodian law, of trafficking. Yes, trafficking, kidnapping. For the 15 months between the time Citipointe  hoodwinked C into accepting the church’s offer to help care for R and SM until the time you finally got a document from the Ministry of Social Affairs, Citipointe had no legal right to be holding the girls against their mother’s wishes and in the absence of any legally binding contract. This was against the law. More importantly, it was immoral and showed a total lack of respect and empathy for the mother, C, who was grieving for the loss of her children and who today continues to grieve. C does not want R and SM to stay one day longer at the ‘She’ refuge and, as I leave for Australia, I have not only left her with enough money to take care of R and SM herself but have promised to send her more from Australia to cover the expenses involved in feeding, clothing and educating R and SM.

On my return to Australia I will see to it, through my blog (which I will update daily) and through providing copies of my most recent correspondence to the media, that Citipointe’s fraudulent claims regarding its ‘She’ refuge are publicly known. I will also be writing another letter to the Minister asking that Citipointe’s activities in Cambodia be investigated and that the church be told that it cannot run what is effectively an orphanage for children of poor families whilst presenting itself to the world as a rescuer of young girls from the sex trade. Such hypocrisy is breathtaking. And I will be writing to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon Bob Carr to ask DFAT to investigate Citipointe’s fraudulent public claims regarding its ‘She’ refuge.

I look forward to hearing from Citipointe’s lawyers and seeing you in court.

best wishes

James Ricketson

letters to Cambodian Minister of Social Affairs # 15

Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and

Youth Rehabilitation

788B Monivong

Phnom Penh                                                                                    31^st   July 2012

To Minister of Social Affairs

I am assisting  C obtain some information from your Ministry regarding her daughters R and SM who are currently living in the Citipointe ‘She’ refuge in Phnom Penh.

C wants her daughters to come and live with her in her family home. She wants to know what she must do to be reunited with her daughters in a way that satisfies the requirements of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation.

I have enclosed a document, signed by C and her husband with their thump prints requesting that the children be returned to their parent’s care.

Citipoint church claims that the girls residing in its ‘She’ refuge are victims of sexual abuse and trafficking. This is not true. The girls in the ‘She’ rescue home are the daughters of poor families. I believe it is wrong for Citipointe to present itself to the Cambodian government as being involved in rescuing from the sex trade when it does not do so.

I have enclosed a copy of a letter that I wrote to Leigh Ramsay of Citipointe church this morning requesting that the church return R and SM to the care of their parents today.

best wishes

James Ricketson

Ministry of Social Affairs

788B Monivong

Phnom Penh                                                                                    1^st August 2012

To Minister of Social Affairs

R and SM, the daughters of  C, have lived at the Citipointe church ‘She’ refuge for four years now. In four years the church has not presented C with one document relating to a plan to enable R and SM to be re-integrated back into their family. In four years Citipointe church has not even commenced the re-integration process. There is no contractual arrangement between  C and Citipointe and  C has made it clear that she wants her daughters returned to her care. If Citipointe church maintains that a re-integration program exists and that it has been provided to  Chanty could you please ask the church when it was provided to her? Could you also ask the church to please provide both C and myself with copies of it. Does the Ministry of Social Affairs have a copy of this plan? If so, could  C and myself be provided with a copy if Citipoine church refuses to do so?

Citipointe says that it has a contractual arrangement with the Ministry of Social Affairs that gives the church the right to take care of R and SM regardless of the mother  Chanty’s wishes. Could you please supply  C and myself (as her advocate) with a copy of this document?

R and SM are not the victims of sexual abuse or of sex trafficking. They are simply the children of a poor mother. The mother,  C, now has a home, its rent paid by myself. Please see receipt for rent paid up until 1^st. Nov 2012. I have also bought a substantial amount of rice for the family and am providing it with $100 a month allowance to help pay bills. In addition to this,  C’s husband, CH, drives a tuk tuk to earn money to support the family. And  C sells books, silk scarves and other items to tourists to help pay the family bills also. When R and SM return to their family it is important that they continue with their schooling. I will pay for their school fees and school uniforms; their medical and dental bills.

Like many thousands of other families in Phnom Penh,  C’s family will remain poor – even with the financial assistance I am able to provide. A family’s poverty should not be a reason for any NGO from a wealthy country like Australia to take control of the family’s children and force them to adopt the religious beliefs of the NGO. The children should remain with their families unless there is some clearly identifiable risk to them.  C, her husband and her mother ,V, love R and SM and wish to take care of them. I have witnessed them over the years since the children were born and can vouch for the fact that  C and CH are good parents and V a good grandmother. V does, at times, suffer from bouts of mental illness but never behaves in a way that would result in the children coming to harm.

Since R and SM are not orphans and they are not the victims of sexual abuse or trafficking why does their welfare fall under the jurisdiction of the ‘Trafficking’ section of your Ministry? There is something very wrong here!

One final point. Citipointe claims that Ministry of Social Affairs social workers have deemed that the home in which  C is currently residing is not safe. I have spent a lot of time in this community and cannot see any evidence that it is not safe. Which aspects of the community did Ministry of Social Affairs social workers find to be unsafe? How long did they spend in the community and on what dates? I would like to check with the community to see if anyone in it has a recollection of the visit of these social workers. Could the Ministry of Social Affairs please provide both myself and  C with a copy of the report they wrote regarding the community and why they believe it to be unsafe?

After 16 years of coming to Cambodia it is my belief, based on what I have seen, that it is time to close all of the so-called orphanages that are run by NGOs. Cambodia has very few genuine orphans. The children that wind up in ‘orphanages’ have families who could care for them. If NGOs wish to help poor families, let them do so within the communities in which the children live.

best wishes

James Ricketson

Citipointe Church in Phnom Penh 2012 # 14

An email from Leigh Ramsay dated 31^st. July

James,

It is now Tuesday 31 July 2012 and we are now back in the office and have found once again a barrage of emails from you.

We would ask you that you would exercise patience in the midst of your personal frustrations so we can move forward amicably.

Recapping our discussions that we had with you on the Riverfront in Phnom Penh on Saturday 28 July 2012, our stand has not changed in that we are committed to the girls and we desire to safely reintegrate them home under MoSAVY’s direction and instruction.

As you said, R’s father and another gentleman offered C a sum of $10,000 for R and from this you have determined C is very protective of her daughter and resists this offer. We appreciate that C’s decision to do this means a lot to you.

You also stated you don’t believe full time reintegration is currently the best idea for the family. Your reasoning for this included the current family situation of lack of money and employment and the family have no ability to pay for the schooling of their children. We understand your frustration and concern as you had mentioned how the family are so poor - that you found them eating dog and that the other children often have red hair from a lack of nutritious food. For all of these reasons we are working diligently to ultimately have this family together in a safe environment with available food and education for all the children.

Another request you had for us was to put together a formulated and documented plan for this family and that the girls need to have unsupervised visits and sleep overs regularly. It’s disappointing you moved forward with your plan of paying three months rent in a community that has been deemed by MoSAVY as unsafe for unsupervised family visits as we had explained to you on Saturday 28 July 2012.

As we had also explained, we are submitted to, and will continue to be governed by MoSAVY’s lead and decisions going forward with this family.

You have requested a contract be drawn up between Citipointe and the family and a part of this would be for C to no longer threaten to kidnap the girls.

We acknowledge receipt of all correspondence sent over this last two weeks of which our communication will continue between MoSAVY, social workers, the family and our Khmer staff.

In order to further understand your frustrations and to assess with MoSAVY the way forward for integration we ask if you could clarify for us what you said to us during our meeting as outlined in the points above. (ie C showing her desire to be protective of R and refusing R’s father and another gentlemen’s offer of $10,000 for R; you don’t believe “full time” integration is currently the best idea for the family; also your desire to use money from your documentary to help support the family).

Best Regards

Leigh Ramsey

My response toLeigh, written the same day

Dear Leigh

To take your points one at a time.

Re patience: This has been going on for four years. C's patience has run out. She has been made so many promises by Citipointe that have not been kept. As my  first half dozen letters to you make clear, I have tried very hard to find a way of working with Citipointe to
formulate a plan for the re-integration of C's children into the family. You have had four years to present C with such a plan and you have failed to do so. Citipointe's lack of action in this respect speaks for itself.

I fail to see the relevance of C's decision, made 9 years ago, not to accept $10,000 from R's father if she would allow R to accompany her father and leave Cambodia.

It is impossible for either myself or C to have any idea what role the Ministry of Social Affairs plays in the decision to allow or not allow R and SM to return to their family since neither the Ministry nor Citipointe has provided her with any documentation at
all in relation to what is expected of her if R and SM are to be returned to her care. I have asked Citipointe for this information many times and you have simply refused to provide it to either C or myself.

As for C's family being very poor, so too are tens of thousands of Cambodian families. I am currently paying rent on the home that C and her family live in, have bought rice for the family and will be providing the family with a monthly income that exceeds that
earnt by most Cambodians. As you know, because I have told you already, this will be $100 a month. In addition to this sum, C and CH will be able to earn money from their tuk tuk and from C's selling of goods to tourists. The combined income from these two
sources will exceed that of most families in Phnom Penh.


In relation to your belief that the community in which C's family is now living is unsafe, could you please provide some documentary evidence of this. You spoke with both CH and C and both told you that the community was a safe one. You saw it for yourself. Did
you see any evidence that it was unsafe. Could you please provide me with whatever report was prepared by the Ministry of Social Affairs in relation to this community. It is, as you have seen, a fairly typical lower-middle class Phnom Penh community.

In relation to your final paragraph I am not sure what it is you want from me that I have not already addressed in my many letters. I am merely an advocate for C and in that role I have sought, as my letters attest, a way of arriving (in conjunction with Citipointe) at
a program for re-integration. Citipoint has come up with nothing but motherhood statements. In the meantime, C has no trust in Citipointe any longer. Every promise made to her by Citipointe has been broken. C has no contractual arrangement with Citipointe and
does not have any idea what the terms are of Citipointe's contractual arrangements are with the Ministry of Social Affairs. And nor do you have any intention of providing her with this information – revealing the contempt you have for C's rights as a mother.

I have attached an English language copy of a letter that I have, this afternoon, dropped off at the Ministry of Social Affairs.

C, who is just outside the internet cafe where I am writing, has reiterated her desire for you to return her daughters to her today. If you do not intend to do so could you please explain what gives you the right to ignore C's request? If your refusal to return R and
SM is because this would breach conditions laid out by the Ministry of Social Affairs, please indicate what those terms are. I have been asking this for four years.

I am copying this to the Director or the Ministry of Social Affairs, Mr Oum Sophannara. If you could please supply Mr Oum Sophannara with a phone number I believe that he wishes to speak with you.



best wishes

Citipointe Church in Phnom Penh 2012 # 13

Leigh Ramsay

Citipointe church

322 Wecker Rd

Carindale QLD 4152                                                                                    31^st  July 2012

Dear Leigh

It is now nine days since my letter of 22^nd July and a week since I proposed, in my letter of 24^th July, a concrete proposal for how R and SM might be re-integrated back into their family. You have been in Phnom Penh for four days and it is three days since we met and you said, many times, that it was your wish, that it was Citipointe’s intention, to work towards the re-integration of R and SM into their family. These words have not been backed up by action, as has been the case this past four years. Citipointe clearly has no intention of returning R and SM to their mother’s care.

Citipointe obtained the custody of R and SM by false pretences, tricking C into placing her thumb print on a ‘contract’ that she could not read and whose contents were not explained to her at the time. Later, Citipointe told C that the ‘contract’ contained certain conditions relating to her visitation rights and that she had given Citipointe the right to keep R and SM until they were 18 years old. Neither of these two assertions was correct. The ‘contract’ contained no terms and conditions at all and was unsigned by any representative of Citipointe church. In terms of Cambodian, Australian and international law the ‘contract’ had no legal standing. Over the following 15 months C repeatedly asked Citipointe to return her daughters to her. Citipointe refused to do so. In short, having obtained custody of R and SM through deception Citipointe was now retaining custody of the girls in a manner that was contrary to Cambodian law. In strictly legal terms, Citipointe was itself guilty of people trafficking. This is all very well documented and, as you know, another long letter of demand from your lawyers will have no impact on me at all. Indeed I would be delighted if Citipointe were to sue me for defamation because the church would then be obliged by the court to answer the very questions it has gone to such lengths not to answer this past four years. And it would lead journalists in Australia to the asking of questions that Citipointe would rather not answer.

It was only after 15 months of holding R and SM contrary to their mother’s express wishes (and Camnbodian law) that Citipointe obtained from the Ministry for Social Affairs permission to care for R and SM. Or so Citipointe claimed at the time and has claimed this past three years. Since that time Citipointe’s actions may have been legal in terms of Cambodian law (and I stress the word ‘may’) but, in my view, immoral in terms of acknowledging the rights of C, their mother. C has also been in the very difficult position of not knowing any of the details of the agreement that Citipointe has entered into with the Ministry for Social Affairs and so is not in a position to know what she must do to have her daughters returned to her care. C’s requests of both Citipointe that she be given a copy of this agreement and know what her rights are have fallen on deaf ears. That C’s rights, as a mother who loves her children, should be abrogated in this way by an Australian NGO constitutes an abuse of C’s human rights. Compare the reality of what is going on with C’s children this past four years and what continues to this day, with what is to be found on the Citipointe website:

“Leigh has a passion to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves – whether it be the young, the old, the disadvantaged or the poor. In 2006 Leigh was challenged to reach out to children in the nation of Cambodia who have been sexually exploited & trafficked. Since that time Leigh has founded the SHE Home which aims to see these girls lives restored & rebuilt.”

This is nonsense. R and SM are not the victims of sexual exploitation or trafficking. They are victims of poverty only. For Citipointe to be passing off the daughters of poor families as victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking is hypocrisy of the worst kind. The problem is not simply that Citipointe’s assertions are untrue. Such false claims, whilst they may be of value in the raising of revenue for Citipointe church (who doesn’t want to help children rescued from the sex industry?) ultimately undermines the work done by NGOs that are genuinely involved in rescuing children from sexual exploitation. How? Because when the spurious claims of NGOs such as Citipointe come to light the public, upon which NGOs are reliant for donations, becomes suspicious of all NGOs and reluctant to give money to NGOs that are truly deserving of the money they need to rescue and rehabilitate victims of sexual abuse.

Over the past four years I have spoken with many people who have either been resident at Citipoonte’s ‘She’ refuge, who have worked there or who have had children staying there. Despite my very direct questioning I have yet to hear of even one girl resident at ‘She’ who is the victim of trafficking or sexual exploitation. I have asked this question many times but I’ll ask it again: How many of the girls who have been or are resident at the ‘She’ refuge have been rescued from sexual exploitation of trafficking? You will not, of course, answer this question as Citipointe has no commitment at all to transparency or accountability. Another question: How many of the girls residing at the ‘She’ refuge have one or more living parents? Or, to phrase the question in another way: Are there any orphans residing in the ‘She’ refuge? Are there any girls who have no family? It is my understanding that every girl residing at the ‘She’ refuge has a family. If this is so (and again I am sure you will not answer the question) all of the girls at the ‘She’ refuge are victims of nothing other than their family’s poverty. In which case, what financial help does Citipointe give to the families in order to keep the families intact? Certainly in the case of C, the answer is ‘nothing’. Citipointe has shown no interest at all in the welfare of C’s family – even when her children have been showing clear signs of malnutrition.

Citipointe’s primary objective, after using these girls to raise revenue for ‘She’, is to win souls for Jesus Christ. Citipointe is more concerned with saving the souls of the girls resident in the ‘She’ refuge than it is with feeding and helping the families that these girls are a part of. This is not a form of Christianity that commands my respect. I will leave it up to readers of my blog to form their own conclusions.

I have spent the morning at the Ministry of Social Affairs talking with the Director, Mr Oum Sophannara and with the ‘Trafficking’ section of the Ministry. I am now in possession of much more information that I have been to date and will now write a letter to the Minister to deliver to his desk personally this afternoon. A copy of this letter will also be provided to the Australian Embassy.

C has asked me, as her advocate, that R and SM be returned to her care today.

best wishes

James Ricketson