Dear Naly and Helen
You have ignored my letter to you of 13th
March:
http://citipointechurch.blogspot.in/2013/03/for-naly-pilorge-licadho-and-helen.html
You have also chosen to ignore my “13 Questions
for Chab Dai and LICADHO” published on 17th March:
The quotes below, from a speech delivered
yesterday by Prime Minister Julian Gillard to the Australian parliament,
resonate with the realities faced by the parents and children of poor families
in Cambodia today:
Today, this Parliament, on behalf of the
Australian people, takes responsibility and apologises for
the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their
babies, which created a
lifelong legacy of pain and suffering.
We acknowledge the profound effects of
these policies and practices on fathers.
And we recognise the hurt these actions
caused to brothers and sisters, grandparents, partners and extended family
members.
We deplore the shameful practices that denied you, the mothers, your fundamental
rights and responsibilities to love and care for your children.
This is in reference to the removal of babies
from their parents care last century! In this century, in March 2013, NGOs such
as Citipointe, through the church’s ‘shameful
practices’, creates a ‘lifelong
legacy of pain and suffering’ for parents such as Chanti and Chhork and
‘adopted’ (stolen) girls such as Rosa and Chita, in March 2013!
You were not legally or socially acknowledged as
their mothers. And you were yourselves deprived of care and support.
Chanti’s rights as a mother have been abrogated
by Citipointe church, with the tacit approval of Chab Dai and LICADHO – through
the silence of both organizations during the past close to five years. To add
insult to injury, Citipointe (again with full knowledge of Chab Dai and
LICADHO) has deprived Chanti of any “care and support.”
To you, the mothers who were betrayed by a system
that gave you no choice and subjected you to manipulation, mistreatment and
malpractice, we apologise.
Chanti was manipulated by Citipointe in mid 2008
into placing her thumb print on a document that she believed constituted an
agreement between herself and LICADHO for her daughters to be provided with temporary
care until hers and Chhork’s financial crisis had passed. Upon having her
daughters stolen from her by Citipointe (with full knowledge of Chab Dai and
LICADHO) she was “betrayed by a system that gave (her) no choice.”
We say sorry to you, the mothers who
were denied knowledge of your rights, which meant you could not provide
informed consent. You were given false assurances. You were forced to endure
the coercion and brutality of practices that were unethical, dishonest and in
many cases illegal.
In being presented with a document that she could
not read and which was explained to her in false terms, Chanti never had the
opportunity to give her “informed consent”. Chanti was given “false assurances”
by Citipointe church and it seems, on the basis of the documents that I have at
my disposal, that the church’s removal of Rosa and Chita was, for a period of
15 months, illegal under Cambodian law.
Naly, Helen, you are both women and perhaps
mothers. Can’t you see that the actions that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is
deploring on behalf of Australians, which took place many decades ago, are
precisely the actions that NGOs such as Citipointe practice today? And Citipointe
is not the only NGO within the Chab Dai coalition that practices this forced ‘adoption’.
In some ways, the forced ‘adoption’ by NGOs working in Cambhodia is worse
because the children adopted are then abandoned by the NGOs when they turn 18
or 19.
We know you have suffered enduring effects from
these practices forced upon you by others. For the loss, the grief, the
disempowerment, the stigmatisation and the guilt, we say sorry.
To each of you who were adopted or removed…and
who were denied the opportunity to grow up with your family and community of
origin and to connect with your culture, we say sorry.
Prime Minister Gillard’s speech goes on in this
manner for much too long to quote here in full but the full text can be found
online. I will end with one last quote:
We resolve, as a nation, to do all in our power
to make sure these practices are never repeated. In facing future challenges,
we will remember the lessons of family separation. Our focus will be on protecting
the fundamental rights of children and on the importance of the child's right
to know and be cared for by his or her parents.
Prime Minister Gillard may well have resolved
that such practices are never repeated in Australia but both Chab Dai and
LICADHO are turning a blind eye to such practices as they occur on a daily
basis in Cambodia.
The time has come for Chab Dai and LICADHO to
state publicly that both organizations deplore the practices Prime Minister
Gillard is referring to. And it is time for the Cambodidan government to close
down those ‘orphanages’ and other such NGOS who engage in such practices.
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