Is Chanti entitled to be provided with copies of contracts Citipointe has entered into with the Cambodian Ministries of Foreign and Social Affairs?

Penny Richards

Ambassador, Cambodia

No 16B National Assembly St

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

4^th March 2013

Dear Ambassador Richards

Further to my letters of 20^th, 22^nd, 26^th and 28^th Feb.

My latest letter to senior Pastor at Citipointe church, Leigh Ramsay (enclosed), speaks for itself. Pastor Ramsay’s refusal to answer any questions at all regarding the legality of it actions back in 2008 in the removal of Chanti’s daughters Rosa and Chita from her care speaks for itself also. A question:

Does the Australian Embassy and, by extension the Department of Foreign Affairs, believe it to be appropriate that the children of poor Cambodian parents can be removed from the care of their parents by an Australian based NGO without the parents being appraised of the reasons for the removal, without being provided with any documents relating to the legality of this removal and with no opportunity to address the contents of these documents in the even that they contain false assertions.

In the case of Chanti and Chhork’s daughters the false assertion (the demonstrably false assertion) is that Rosa and Chita are victims of Human Trafficking.

Does the Australian Embassy have any interest at all in the moral and legal questions surrounding the removal of children from poor families in Cambodia by Australian-based NGOs?

If you do not see it as your role as Ambassador to take an interest in such matters please let me know and I will waste my time no longer in writing to you. If allegations that the two eldest daughters of a poor Cambodian family have been stolen, a series of questions arise. Please excuse my repetition of some of these but I do want to be clear:

- Do you, in your role as Ambassador, (representing, amongst other things, the moral conscience of Australia) believe that the mother of two girls removed from her care by an Australian NGO has a right to be provided with copies of the contracts the NGO has entered into with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Affairs in Cambodia which, the NGO claims, give it the right to hold the mother’s daughters contrary to her express wishes?

- Do you, in your role as Ambassador, believe it to be appropriate for an Australian NGO to refer to these two young girls as victims of Human Trafficking when they are nothing more (or less) than girls whose poverty led their parents to seek temporary help from an Australian NGO?

- Do you, in your role as Ambassador, believe it to be appropriate that these girls’ mother is paid 25 cents per bracelet whilst Citipointe makes 2.75 per bracelet – with none of the profits flowing back to the family of the woman who made them?

- Do you, in your role as Ambassador, believe it to be appropriate  that the Australian NGO makes a profit conducting ‘poverty tours’ in which the supposed victims of Human Trafficking are exploited as tourist attractions – one of which is the opportunity to wash the hair of these ‘victims’?

- Do you, in your role as Ambassador, accept the notion that Cambodia’s Ministry of Social Affairs can simply ‘deem’ that a child is the victim of Human Trafficking and that this child, regardless of the facts, is treated as though she is in fact a victim? Or does DFAT accept that it is acceptable to simply ‘deem’ them to be so?

Imagine if, in Australia, any individual or government body were to remove a child from a family by the simple expedient of ‘deeming’ the child to be a victim of some crime. Imagine if this individual, or government body, having so ‘deemed’ the girl (in this instance) to be victim, refused to disclose any details at all as to why this deeming has occurred. This would be both morally and legally unacceptable in Australia? Why then is it acceptable for Australians to behave this way in Cambodia.

Citipointe has made it quite clear on several occasions now that for me to even ask such questions is, in the church’s opinion, both defamatory and vexatious. Various legal threats have been made by the church over the years but, as with the declarations Citipointe makes about helping familes, the church is all talk, no action.

I would be delighted if Citipointe were to sue me as in so doing this whole sordid business would be exposed to the light of day in a court of law where lies and obfuscation would not be tolerated. It is for the  very reason why Citipointe will not follow through with this latest set of threats. The last thing that Citipointe wants is any kind of scrutiny of what it is doing in Cambodia.

If you do happen to believe that the questions I have asked above are valid it seems to me, unless I am misunderstanding the role of Australia’s Ambassador to Cambodia, that you must ask Citipointe to provide Chanti with copies of any and all legal documents relating to the forced removal of her daughters from her care in 2008. If Ctipointe refuses to supply Chanti with the appropriate legal documents I believe that it is your duty to refer this matter to the Australian Federal Police. I believe that there is a very strong case to be made that that the removal was illegal and that Leigh Ramsay and Rebecca Brewer have a case to answer for having engaged in the false imprisonment of these two girls ((1) willful detention; (2) without consent; and (3) without authority of law) and in contravention of Sections 270.4 to 270.9 of the Criminal Code –subdivision C of which deals with ‘slavery like conditions’. This is not the full extent of the charges that could be laid against them.

I trust that you will acknowledge receipt of this letter and give me some indication of within what time frame I might expect a response to this and my previous letters.

best wishes

James Ricketson