If I have been telling the truth in my blog the attached photo of Rosa and Chita
is of two girls 'stolen' from their parents in August 2008 by Citipointe church.
If this is a photo of two girls who are 'victims of Human Trafficking', I have broken
Cambodian law and Pastor Brian Mulheran will be able to pick up the phone
and insist to the relevant person that I be 'forcibly removed', arrested, jailed and
banned from ever coming to Cambodia again. However, not even in Cambodia
can I be jailed without a trial and this would necessitate that Citipointe prove
that Rosa and Chita were victims of Human Trafficking which, as you and the
Ministry of Social Affairs know, they are not.
In the event that Citipointe is told by MOSAVY that the church must return
Rosa and Chita to their family's care, the question will arise:
"What assistance will Citipointe now provide to Rosa and Chita until they
reach the age of 18?"
My letter to the minister of Social Affairs speaks for itself:
http://citipointechurch.
If my letter fails in its objective (and the Minister has not
responded in any way to any of my letters) my next letter will be to
Australia’s Attorney General requesting of the Australian Federal
Police that they conduct an investigation into the illegal removal of
Rosa and Chita from the care of their family in August 2008 – a
‘kidnapping’ (call it what you will) that led to Rosa and Chita being
held captive by Citipointe for the following 15 months contrary to
their parents’ express wishes, as my documentary will reveal. MOSAVY
providing Citipointe with retrospective permission to have kidnapped
Rosa and Chita may be acceptable in Cambodia but I doubt that it will
be in accordance with Australian law.
Other than a few shots of Chanti and her family in their new home in
Prey Veng in a couple of months, I have now finished filming for
CHANTI’S WORLD. What began, 18 years ago, as a record of the life of a
street kid and the world she lives in now (amongst many other thinfgs)
an indictment of Citipointe’s kidnapping/stealing/illegal removal of
Rosa and Chita from their family in August 2008. This ‘stealing’ in
itself has become a metaphor for Cambodia of the way in which any and
everybody with money and power can break the law with impunity – be
they Cambodian or representatives of the international community.
My advocacy on Chanti’s behalf over a period of four years has not
resulted in her being provided with a reason why her daughters were
removed from her care; has not resulted in her being provided with
copies of any legal document relating to the removal of her kids and
has not resulted in her being informed by either yourself or MOSAVY
what she must to get her children back.
Both yourself and Pastor Mulheran will appear in the film to be liars
and frauds and raise questions for the audience as to whether
Citipointe is actually a genuine church or a cult that uses
Christianity to con its parishioners and others into filling its
coffers by pretending to be in the business of rescuing young women
from the sex trade, Human Trafficking – or whatever term you chose to
use. In November 2008 the She Rescue Home had not one girl that had
been rescued from the sex trade. Now it has four. Four out of 24. How
many of these other girls (20 of them) are in the same position that
Rosa and Chita are in? How many other grieving parents wish their
children to be returned to their care but have no-one to advocate on
their behalf and no idea how to go about retrieving their children.
Ideally, organizations such as LICADHO and Chab Dai would fulfill this
function but both seem to be sublimely unconcerned (and have been for
four years) with Citipointe’s human rights abuses of the children in
its care and their families! Again, a metaphor for the role that NGOs
play in Cambodia! Not all, of course, but too many.
No doubt my reference to yourself and Pastor Mulheran as liars and
frauds will result in yet another letter from your lawyers or from
Brian with yet another threat to sue me, have me ‘forcibly removed’,
jailed and banned from ever coming to Cambodia again! Citipointe will
not carry out its recurrent threat to sue because the last thing the
church would ever want is for its activities in Cambodia to be open to
any form of scrutiny. The particular form of fraud perpetrated by
Citipointe necessitates a total lack of transparency or accountability
and a lack of anyone such as myself asking questions. It requires the
presentation of the daughters of poor families such as Chanti and
Chhork’s to Citipointe donors and sponsors as ‘the victims if Human
Trafficking’. It involves paying workers such as Chanti 25 cents for a
product (bracelet) that Citipointe sells for $3 – without passing one
cent of the profits on to the person who made the product. It involves
the presentation of alleged ‘victims of Human Trafficking’ to ‘poverty
tour groups’ whose members pay out $3,000 for the privilege of getting
to wash the girls’ hair! I need not go on. Citipointe’s human rights
abuses are well documented in my blog and will be well documented in
CHANTI’S WORLD. I am no longer surprised by anything that Citipointe
does and am no longer even surprised that LICADHO and Chab Dai turn a
blind eye to the church’s clear breaches of the human rights of
Chanti, of Rosa and of Chita – two girls who are, incidentally, more
than capable of speaking for themselves.
Just as no one from your church has every bothered to sit with Chanti
and her family and get some sense of the loving dynamic that binds the
family together, nor has anyone bothered to find out what goes on in
the minds and hearts of Rosa and Chita. I have. For all your
protestations online, Citipointe church has no real interest in Rosa,
Chita or their family. They are a means to an end – the end being a
mixture of winning souls for Jesus Christ and filling Citipointe’s
bank account. If you take exception to this last comment, make public
how much money it costs to run the She Rescue Home per annum and how
much money Citipointe makes from its ‘poverty tours’ and from
sponsors of girls such as Rosa and Chita. My own mathematics suggests
that Citipointe is making a profit out of the She Rescue Home. You
will not release any figures, of course. And no-one within Cambodia
will ask you to do so – not LICADHO, not Chab Dai. Citipointe is under
no obligation to be accountable to anyone and can break the law and
breach the human rights of girls such as Rosa and Chita and parents
such as Chanti and Chhork with impunity. You are a disgrace to all
decent Christians and to those NGOs that are genuinely committed to
helping poor families stay together. You would be doing Cambodia a
huge favour by simply closing down your She Rescue Home and giving the
girls over to the care of an NGO whose genuine commitment is to see
all these girls living back within their families, their communities,
as soon as possible.
Whilst my filming is pretty much complete now, my advocacy on behalf
of Chanti will continue until Rosa and Chita have been returned to the
care not just of their family but of the extended families that exist
in Prey Veng (two of them) and of which they are an integral part.
best wishes
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