“Citipointe
has adopted a role in the lives of Rosa and Chita which is not dissimilar to
the role played by foster-parents worldwide and it has done so, it seems to me,
for one very good reason – to give Rosa and Srey Mal opportunities in life,
through education and proper nourishment, that all too many kids in Cambodia
are denied. It is the lack of these opportunities and the poverty that
accompanies this lack that leaves poor children in Cambodia vulnerable to
exploitation.”
So I wrote to Citipointe in October 2008 - 54 months
ago.
“Citipointe
has three times referred to LICADHO as one of the bodies that defines the “safe
environment” into which Rosa and Srey Mal now live. (“Rosa and Chita stay with
us until they are 18 or until she can provide a safe environment for them, as
defined by LICADHO and the Ministry of Social Affairs.” – to quote an 11th.
August email) Could you please provide me with the LICADHO definition of
the “safe environment” you are acting in accordance with and how this is being
implemented in practice by Citipointe? Does the LICADHO “definition” make any
mention at all of severing contact between children and the significant people
in their lives – whether they be family, friends or myself?
Could
you please also provide me with the Ministry of Social Affairs definition of a
“safe environment” that has been referred to in emails to me?”
54 months later I have still not received an answer to
this question – from Citipointe, from LICADHO or from the Ministry of Social
Affairs. Much ore importantly, Chanti and Chhork, the parents of Rosa and
Chita, have not received answers to questions such as this for 54 months. Any
parents who loves their children would know, understand and empathize with the
distress, the not-knowing, that such a silence from Citipointe, LICADHO and the
Ministry of Social Affairs would cause.
More
from October 2008:
“Having
adopted the role of foster parents (or ‘foster carers’ if you’d prefer) it is,
I believe, important for Citipointe to bear in mind the legislation relating to
fostering as it pertains to Queensland – the state in Australia in which
Citipointe church is based.
I
would like to draw your attention to some pertinent sections of this
legislation:
•
In deciding in whose care the child should be placed, the Chief Executive
must
give proper consideration to placing the child, as a first option, with
kin.
•
If a child is removed from the child’s family, it is the aim of authorised
officers
working with the child and the child’s family to safely return the child
to
the family if possible. (Child Protection Act Part 2, 5 (2f i))
•
The child’s need to maintain family and social contacts and their ethnic
and
cultural identity must be taken into account and respected by all
parties
to this Statement of Commitment. (Child Protection Act Part 2,
5
(2f ii))
•
In exercising the powers under the Child Protection Act the Chief Executive
will
ensure that:
(i)
actions taken, while in the best interests of the child, maintain family
relationships
and are supportive of individual rights and ethnic,
religious
and cultural identity or values
(ii)
the views of the child and the child’s family are considered
(iii)
the child and the child’s parents have the opportunity to take part in
making
decisions affecting their lives.
(Child
Protection Act Part 2, 5 (2d))
Does
Citipointe recognize, as it would be legally obliged to in Queensland, that
Rosa and Srey Mal (Chita) have a right
to maintain family relationships? If so, why were Rosa’s and (Chitas’) mother
and grandmother allowed only 2 hours of supervised visit with the girls every
two weeks at the outset and only one supervised visit per month now?
Is
Citipointe supportive of the “ethnic, religious and cultural identity or
values” of Rosa and Chita? If not, why not? If Citpointe is supportive of
the “ethnic, religious and cultural identity or values” of Rosa and Chita in
what way is this support manifested? The Water Festival is a significant
Cambodian event. It is a time when families converge on Phnom Penh to celebrate,
engage in festivities and forge the sense of community which is so fundamental
to Cambodian culture. It is a time when Chanti and her children should be
together - unless, that is, there is strong evidence that their being together
would pose a threat to the well being of Rosa and Chita. I have known these
girls since they were born and have never, not once, seen evidence of neglect
by Chanti or Vanna - other, that is, than the kind of 'neglect' that all street
kids in Phnom Penh suffer from.
It
seems to me, from having visited your website and absorbed its contents, that
as far as religion is concerned Citipointe intends to transform Rosa and Srey
Mal, brought up as Buddhists in a Buddhist culture, into Christians in the
Citipointe mold. If I am correct in this assumption (and please correct me if I
am wrong) what moral right does Citipointe have to forcibly convert these two
young girls to another religion – especially since such a course of action
would be against the law in Australia?
Leaving
aside questions of legality, the forcible conversion of Rosa and Srey Mal
reveals a contempt for Buddhism as a religion and a declaration of the
superiority of Christianity.
When
I met with Leigh Ramsay, Rebecca Brewer and Helen Shields in June this year I
was told that Chanti would have free and regular access to her children whilst
in Citipointe’s care. I was told that one day a week they would be able to visit
their mother at her home…”
It is important to point out here that at the time
Chanti and Vanna signed a ‘contract’ with Citipointe (31st July
2008) which stated that they did not have a home, they did in fact have a home.
The home was very basic but no more so than tens of thousands of Cambodians
live in in Phnom Penh today. I filmed with Chanti in her family’s home up to
and including the day when Rosa went to stay with Citipointe. The declaration,
in the ‘contract’ that Chanti and Vanna
singhed with their thumb prints, a contract they could not read and did not
understand, that they had no home in June 2008 is demonstrably untrue – as
CHANTI’S WORLD will revel.
“After
my meeting with Leigh, Rebecca and Helen, Chanti asked me whether I thought it
was a good idea for Rosa and Srey Mal to be (to use the appropriate western
terminology) fostered by Citipointe. I did not at the time share my
reservations with Chanti about Citipointe’s religious agenda. I figured that
all things considered indoctrination into Citipointe’s particular brand of
Christianity was a small price to be paid if the girls were to be well fed,
receive a decent education and be protected from the various perils that lie in
wait for millions of extremely poor Cambodia children – especially those living
in cities where the danger of sexual and other forms of exploitation are very high.
Not
until some time later did I learn that Citipointe had changed the nature of its
relationship with Chanti by getting her to sign a contract which, amongst other
things, allows her only two hours of supervised access with her children every
two weeks and, more recently, only once a month…”
At this point I had not seen the ‘contract’ that
Chanti had signed and had no reason not to believe that it contained the
conditions that Citipointe had told Chanti it contained.
“
When I asked Brian in Brisbane why this change had taken place he insisted that
Citipointe is obliged to abide by its membership with Chab Dai and its
contractual relationship with LICADHO to restrict Chanti’s and Vanna’s access
to Rosa and Chita to two hours of supervised visit every two week - and now to
two hours every month. This, of course, is no answer at all. It merely shifts
the question of causation from Citipointe to Chab Dai and LICADHO. What right
do either of these NGOs have to be enforcing or encouraging a fostering relationship
between Citipointe and Rosa and Chita which would be illegal in Australia? A
fostering relationship that carries the very real risk of alienating Rosa and
Srey Mal from their mother and grandmother and perhaps also the culture they
were born into?...”
It is worth pointing out here that when Pastor Brian
Mulheran told me the contract with Chanti limited her visiting rights to her
daughters he was lying. The 31st July 2008 contract makes no mention
at all of Chanti’s visiting rights. Whether Pastor Mulheran was lying also when
he attributed the limited vistiing rights to LICADHO and Chab Dai I have never
been able to determine. It seems not, since neither organization has ever
bothered to deny their involvement in this policy.
“In
relation to LICADHO if there is any possibility that I have drawn the wrong
conclusion from emails sent to me by Helen Shields and from words spoken to me
by both Brian and Rebecca on the phone in relation to LICADHO, please clarify
for me just what role, if any, LICADHO plays in the formulation of Citipointe
fostering policy as manifested in its running of the SHE programme. If indeed
LICADHO has induced Chanti to sign a contract with it, a few questions arise.
Given that Chanti neither reads nor writes Khmer, was there an interpreter with
her when she signed the document? Did she fully understand what she was
signing? Did she willingly agree to the draconian conditions placed on her by
the contract in terms of visitation rights? Given Chianti’s poverty, her
powerlessness and her desire to give her kids opportunities in life that she
has never had, did she feel that she had any right at all to question the
document placed before her and requiring her thumb print?
In
relation to Chab Dai the document you sent to me makes this consortium of
Christian NGOs’ policy quite clear. However, what right does Chab Dai have
(either legally or morally) to dictate the terms under which children can
relate to their families, friends and communities? Given that Chab Dai has
money and the families of children in NGO care, by definition, do not, these
families are clearly not in a position to negotiate or even ask questions or
raise doubts. I am, however. I have a long term relationship with Rosa and
Chita and do not recognize Chab Dai's right to dictate on what terms I can
continue my relationship with these girls - unless, that is, Chab Dai can
demonstrate that I am, in some way, a danger to them.
Could
you please provide me with the LICADHO definition of the “safe
environment” you are acting in accordance with and how this is being
implemented in practice by Citipointe? Does the LICADHO “definition” make any
mention at all of severing contact between children and the significant people
in their lives – whether they be family, friends or myself?
Could
you please also provide me with the Ministry of Social Affairs definition of a
“safe environment” that has been referred to in emails to me?
Rosa
and Chita have been fostered to SHE – described on the SHE website as “a secure
haven for trafficked girls or girls at risk of being trafficked who have been
rescued from the sex industry”. However, neither Rosa nor Srey Mal has been
trafficked. Since taking the girls into your care you have added a disclaimer
on your website which reads:
“Each
child’s story is very individual and we work with girls that are at risk in
prevention as well as girls that have been rescued from trafficking.”
However,
the wording of this disclaimer is such that pretty well any poor boy or girl in
Cambodia (numbering in the hundreds of thousands if not millions) could be
taken in by Citipointe on the grounds that their poverty, their parents
inability to feed them adequately, make them eligible for SHE care and hence
eligible to be alienated from their families, their villages, their communities
and their cultures by Citipointe’s declared objective of providing “a safe,
God-centered place to live”.
As
you will be aware, Australia has, over the past few years, undergone a good
deal of soul searching in relation to “The Stolen Generation” – those
Aboriginal children who were removed from their families by various government
agencies and often placed in the care of well-meaning Christians. Australia’s
Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has, this year, made a formal apology on behalf of all
Australians to “the Stolen Generation”.
On
the basis of all the evidence at my disposal it appears to me that Citipointe,
undoubtedly with the best of intentions, may be in the process of ‘stealing’
Chanti’s children - in the sense that Aboriginal children were 'stolen'. If I
am wrong in this assumption (and I certainly hope that I am) please explain to
me where the logic that informs this email fails. If I am wrong then, amongst
other things, I will be able to take Chanti, Vanna, Rosa, Chita and Chanti’s
new baby to the fun fair, roller skating, to the water park, to the markets to
shop and eat – as I have done this past 14 years (in the case of Chanti) and
for the past three years – in the case of Rosa and Chita. I do not need or want
my time spent with this little family to be monitored or supervised by
Citipointe. If Citipointe has any reason to believe that I pose a threat to
these girls please come straight out and say so and indicate on what grounds
you believe Rosa and Chita need to be protected from me.
I
do not acknowledge either Citipointe’s or Chab Dai’s moral right to interfere
with my 14 year relationship with Chanti’s family and will not be signing any
contract of the kind that you have sent me. If indeed it is true that
Citipointe’s policy in relation to the fostering of Rosa and Srey Mal has been
forced on it by LICADHO this raises another whole host of questions.
Citipointe
must, like all NGOs be accountable for its actions and transparent in its modus
operandi. It would certainly seem, unless I have misinterpreted my
communications with Citipointe and the information available on the Citipointe
website, that Citipointe has taken complete and total control of the lives of
Rosa and Chita with the intention of marginalizing the role of their mother and
grandmother in their lives. This would be illegal in Australia. Further, given
that Rosa and Chita have not been ‘rescued’ but have been recruited down by the
river with promises made to their mother which turned out to be false, it
appears that they are being used in a dishonest way to raise money for
Citipointe’s SHE programme. I wonder how many of the children in your care are
actually girls who have been trafficked and how many are simply the daughters
of impoverished families who may well have signed a contract with Citipointe
but who were unaware of the full ramifications of what they were doing?
I
am looking forward to an email in which you inform me that I have leapt, much
to quickly, to the wrong conclusions in this email and for answers to the
questions I have raised here.
best
wishes
James
I
never did get a response to this email in which any of my questions were
answered. This email of mine, sent 54 years ago and ignored by Citipointe, set
the tone of our communications – broken only by the church’s occasional threats
to sue me for defamation for having the temerity to ask the questions I ask and
for accusing the church of stealing Rosa and Chita.
For
54 months now, Citipointe has been in a position in which it could so easily
answer the bulk of my questions by producing the documents, the agreements,
that give the church the legal right to hold Rosa and Chita until they are 18
against the wishes of their parents and regardless of the financial
circumstances of the family. Citipointe church refuses to provide either Chanti
and Chhok or myself with any such legally binding deocuments – raising, of
course, the question as to whether they exist or not in the form that
Citipointe believes gives the church the right to take complete and total
control of children who have a mother, a father, a grandmother, four siblings, two
extended families, a home in Prey Veng and two different forms of income. In
addition, Chyanti’s family has myself – paying school fees, medical expenses
and helping the family become self-sufficient in the way that Citipointe
promised back in 2008. Citipointe has not lived up to one of the promises the
church made to Chanti in 2008 and has no moral right to continue in the role as
‘foster carers’. Whether Citipointe has a legal right to do so is a question
that it is impossible to get an answer to – from Citipointe, from LICADHO, from
Chab Dai or from the Ministry of Social Affairs.
How
many other Chantis and Chhorks, Rosa and Chita’s, are there living in what
amounts to a Christian prison – the NGOs running them accountable to no-one?
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