for Leigh Ramsay - yet another letter to ignore!

Leigh Ramsay

Citipointe church

322 Wecker Rd

Carindale QLD 4152                                                                      3rd Dec 2012

Dear Leigh

Yet another letter for you to ignore, not respond to, pretend has not been written! 

Transparency and accountability are not top priorities for you or Citipointe church are they? The fact that Chanti has given me written permission to act as an advocate on her behalf (a copy of which I handed to you in person) means nothing to you or Citipointe. You have no regard at all for the emotional torment you put Chanti through as each month, each year, passes and she sees her daughters (despite your repeated promises to return them) not growing up with their family but in an institution in which they are indoctrinated into Citipointe church’s version of the Christian faith.

It would seem that you have every intention of doing so until the girls are eighteen years old - as Rebecca Brewer implied would be the case in her emails to me four years ago. All the promises you have made to Chanti since then (well documented in my blog) have been empty; raising in Chanti’s mind and heart the false hope that if she could just meet whatever Citipointe church’s latest criteria are, that she will have her daughters returned to her. Each and every time her hopes have been dashed when Citipointe has shifted the goal posts - the most recent example being earlier this month when the family acquired a tuk tuk with my assistance. It matters not at all to your or your church that Chanti and her family now have an income greater than 80% of Cambodians. Despite the fact that Rosa and Chita do not, in Dec 2013, require assistance from Citipointe, you still retain custody of the girls with no regard for their mother’s wishes.  As far as you are concerned, Citipointe church now ‘owns’ Rosa and Srey Mal and Chanti, by virtue of her being poor and illiterate, has no rights at all to to be a mother to her own daughters. Rosa and Chita should be living with their now and not detained in an institution run by a church that raises money presenting the girls as having been rescued from the sex trade! If you behaved in this way in Australia you would have the police at your front door quick smart! 

It is a very strange interpretation of Jesus Christ’s teachings indeed that makes it possible for you and the church to make Chanti suffer the angst of separation from her daughters. You have had it in your power, this past four years, to help the entire family and not just two members of it. 

I have often, in my correspondence with Citipointe, used the expression ‘stolen’ in relation to Citipointe’s retaining custody of Rosa and Chita against their mother’s wishes for the 15 months prior to the church entering into a secret agreement with the Ministry of Social Affairs. During this time Chanti repeatedly requested that her daughters be returned to her care. During this fifteen months Citipointe refused Chanti’s every request - despite having no legal basis (in Cambodian, Australian or International law) to hold them contrary to her mother’s clearly expressed wishes. 

The word ‘stolen’ is too mild, however, for what Citipointe has done. ‘Kidnapping’ comes closer to describing Citipointe’s actions during those 15 months. You will not sue me for for defamation for making this observation in a public forum because you know full well that I can prove the illegality of your actions in a court of law - the ‘contract’ that you got Chanti to apply her thumb print (a contract she could not read, did not understand and was not explained to her.  It contains none of the terms .and conditions you told Chanti it contained and which, until it was translated, she believed it to contain. The contract was worthless - even in a Cambodian court of law.

The removal of Chanti’s children from her care is, in my view much worse than what took place during the ‘Stolen Generation’ years of Australian history. Back then the Australian community at large adhered to a different set of values and believed, sincerely, that Aboriginal children would be better off growing up in institutions than with their materially poor parents. And there was a community wide belief that Christianity was a superior religion to that practiced by Aboriginal people.  Over the past half century, however, we have seen first hand in Australia the enormous emotional and psychological damage done to both the Aboriginal parents who had their children stolen and to the children themselves as they grew into adulthood traumatized by their experience of being forcibly removed from their families. The guilt we felt, as a nation, for having visited this pain on Aboriginal families resulted in our Prime Minister’s formal apology to the ‘Stolen Generation’ a few years ago. Now, thanks to NGO’s such as Citipointe’s ‘She’ refuge, we have exported this failed social policy to a third world country and, in the process, enabled Citipointe to make money out of presenting young girls like Rosa and Chita as victims of sex trafficking when in truth they are nothing more than the victims of poverty whose mother agreed to allow Citipointe to assist her in the short term. This abuse of the entire family’s human rights is countenanced by Chab Dai - the Christian coalition of NGOs of which Citipointe church is a member - and, it seems,. by the NGO community in Cambodian generally. 

Today the explanations and excuses of bygone decades cannot and do not apply in Australia and the laws regarding the removal of children from their families are strict and not decided by the whim of Christians seeking to win souls for Jesus Christ. The forced conversion of Chanti’s Buddhist daughters to Christianity is yet another human rights abuse perpetrated by Citipointe church - perhaps even more reprehensible than the fact that the ‘SHe’ refuge acts as a cash cow for the chruch.

That Citipointe church should be replicating the dynamic of the Stolen Generation is not only stupid, uncaring and in contravention of Christian values as I understand them but also shows a lack of sensitivity to the idea that poor mothers  in the third world love their children as much as mothers in the first world who never need to worry about how to feed their kids; that the children of poor parents love their mums, dads, brothers and sisters in the same way that we privileged members of the developed world do. To break or damage the bonds of love between children and their parents as Citipointe is in the case of Chanti’s family constitutes emotional abuse that is, in my view, amongst the worst of crimes to be committed against a child - not far behind sexual abuse.

I have ample footage in which it is abundantly clear that Chanti loves Rosa and Chita and that they love her. Yes, there have been times when Chanti has been unable to feed and clothe them adequately (though not now) but, rather than help Chanti take care of her kids (as you promised her and myself four years ago you would do) you have taken her daughters away from her and left her and the rest of the family to fend for themselves. In so doing you disgrace other Christians (NGOs included) who see their role less as winning souls for Jesus Christ (and making money in the process, in the case of Citipointe) but living out the sharing and caring aspects of Christ’s Gospel.

I have asked this question many times and many times you have declined to answer it. I am asking as Chanti’s advocate. Could you please provide both Chanti and myself with a copy of whatever contract Citipointe church has entered into with the The Ministry of Social Affairs regarding the custody of her daughters Rosa and Chita (Srey Mal)? That you should enter into a secret agreement with the Ministry of Social Affairs with no reference to Chanti at all speaks volumes of Citipointe’s contempt for Chanti’s rights as a mother.

best wishes

James Ricketson