Scott
Sykes
Coordinator,
Corporate Services
Australian
Federal Police
Sydney
office
9th
July 2013
Dear
Scott
Many
thanks for your letter of 4th July. I do appreciate that “the number of offenses referred to the AFP exceeds our capacity to
investigate them.” I do wish, however, that the AFP had, at the very least,
asked Citipointe to provide documented evidence of the church’s legal right to
be holding Rosa and Chita contrary to the express wishes of their parents – Yem
Chanthy and Chhork. I wish also that some effort might have been made to at
least interview Yem Chanthy in relation to her being paid only 25 cents by
Citipointe for a product that the church then sells for $3. This might not, in
the strictest sense, be evidence of slavery (as defined by Section 270.3 of the
Criminal Code 1995), but it is evidence of the kind of economic exploitation
that should not be occurring in 2013.
What
the AFP’s inability to investigate the removal of Chanti and Chhork’s daughters
in July 2008 means, in real terms, is that there is not one organization or
body that either wishes to or is in a position to ask Citipointe church the
obvious and very simple question.
“Please
make public a copy of the agreement or contract Citipointe entered into with
the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008 that gave the church the
legal right to remove Rosa and Chita against the wishes of their parents.”
The Cambodian Ministries of
Social and Foreign Affairs have refused to answer this question when put to
them by myself many times this past five years. Following is a list of those
who have declined to even ask the question:
- Cambodia’s ‘Anti Human Trafficking and Juvenile
Protection Department’
within Ministry of Interior’
- The Australian Embassy
- Australian Minister for Foreign
Affairs
- LICADHO – a leading human
rights organization in Cambodia
- Chab Dai – a Christian
coalition of which Citipointe is a member
- English language newspapers in
Cambodia
- The Australian media
- The Australian Federal Police
As for SISHA - tasked with the
prevention of trafficking and sexual exploitation - this Australian NGO can, as
I understand it, only act in an advisory capacity to the ‘Anti Human
Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department’ and has no jurisdiction to ask
Citipointe to provide copies of the contract or agreement the church claims to
have entered into with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On the recommendation of SISHA I
flew to Cambodia a few months ago at my own expense to participate in an
interview with the ‘Anti Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department’ regarding
the removal of Rosa and Chita from their parents’ care in 2008. During the
course of the two hour interview I was not asked one question relevant to my
oft repeated allegation that Citipointe illegally removed Rosa and Chita from
the care of their parents in mid 2008. My letter of 17th May to Mr
Lao Lin speaks for itself of my frustration that his department has failed to
ask the obvious question of Citipointe church:
http://citipointechurch.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/for-mr-lao-lin-anti-human-trafficking.html
.
With no-one in a position of
power or influence asking the church to demonstrate the legality of its actions
Australian NGOs such as Citipointe are free to do pretty well whatever they
like secure in the knowledge that they will not be held accountable. This, of
course, is not the AFP’s problem but the AFP’s inability to even ask Citipointe
one question points, it seems to me, to a major problem as the very beginning
of the law enforcement chain. With no-one asking this question (and others like
it) the door is wide open for perpetrators of crimes against women and children
to set up shop in Cambodia (and other third world countries) in the absence of
the kind of scrutiny that would prevent them from getting to square one in
their abuse and exploitation of women and children. Catching perpetrators after
the event is all well and good but it seems to me that all that can be done to
prevent the perpetrators from setting up shop should be done.
For as long as this state of
affairs prevails Australian and other NGOs in Cambodia and other 3rd
world countries will be free to remove the children of poor families from the
care of their parents, relatives and communities; to indoctrinate them into the
religious beliefs of the NGO that has ‘rescued’ them; to alienate ‘orphans’
from their own families, religion and culture and to be used by unscrupulous
NGOs to raise money for their activities through donations and sponsorship. And,
if these NGOs so choose, they can employ the families of the ‘orphans’ to make,
for 25 cents, artefacts that they then sell for $3.
The AFP cannot, of course, be all
things to all people but it does seem to me that when it comes to the illegal
removal of children like Rosa and Chita (if Citipointe can provide no documents
relating to the legality of its actions in 2008) that the AFP, SISHA, LICADHO,
Chab Dai, the Australian Embassy, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the
Minister for Foreign Affairs could at the very least, request copies of
agreements or contracts that Citipointe has entered into that give the church
the right to remove and retain custody of Rosa and Chita this past five years –
the daughters of a family that owns its own house in the provinces and whose
father earns an income as a tuk tuk driver.
I have been asking Citipointe for
five years now to produce documented evidence of the legality of its actions.
Not only does the church refuse to answer this or any other question, Citipointe
has also threatened to sue me several times for defamation for asking it and,
last year, issued scarcely veiled threats to have me arrested, jailed and
banned from coming to Cambodia again.
As for your suggestion that I
register my concerns with the Cambodian Ministries of Social and Foreign
Affairs, I have done so many times this past five years to no avail. The
Minister does not acknowledge receipt of my letters, let alone answer any
question relating to the legality of Citipointe church’s actions.
Thank you for the attention you
have paid to my complaint. I trust that in the future there may be a
co-ordinated approach by all of the above-mentioned organizations such that, at
the very least, certain questions are asked of NGOs that arrive in Cambodia to
rescue children from their impoverished parents.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
cc
The Hon Bob Carr, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs
SISHA, LICADHO, Chab Dai
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