Leigh
Ramsay
322
Wecker Road
Carindale
QLD
4152
8th.
August 2013
Dear
Leigh
Chanti
greeted me yesterday with the news that Rosa and Chita would be coming home to
live with the family very soon. I asked Chanti how soon. Her brow creased with
a frown and she said “Maybe one month, maybe two month.” Even Chanti’s hope
that she will be reunited with her daughters is tempered these days by her
experience of being lied to so often by yourself.
You
have been making these kinds of promises to Chanti this for five years now,
Leigh. I wonder if, on this occasion, there is any truth in your promise? Or if
it is just another Leigh Ramsay lie to keep hope alive in Chanti and Chhork’s
hearts?
If
indeed Rosa and Chita are to be re-integrated with their family, what role does
Citipointe see itself playing in the girls’ lives from here on in? Will the
church be making any financial commitment at all to helping Rosa and Chita’s
family for the next few years as it struggles to attain (and maintain) self-sufficiency?
In
reality, Rosa and Chita’s family does not need much more in the way of
financial support. It is very close to being self-sufficient. As you know, I
have bought the family a home ($1,000), a tuk tuk ($1,500) and a block of land
adjoining their home (for the growing of vegetables, chickens, ducks and pigs)
for a further $1,400. It has cost me around $4,000 to make Chanti and Chhork’s family
close to self-sufficient. I am sure that my financial assistance will be
required in the future but it will, of necessity, be minimal.
What,
by way of contrast, has Citipointe done to assist Chanti and Chhork’s family
achieve self-sufficiency this past five years? The answer is nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Not only has your church failed to provide any financial
assistance at all (and I mean zero assistance), Citipointe has also exploited
Chanti and the parents of other girls in the SHE refuge by paying her 25 cents
to manufacture an artifact that the church sold online for $3. In addition to
this, Citipointe has been exploiting Rosa and Chita by presenting them to
donors and sponsors as victims of human trafficking when in reality, they are
the victims of kidnapping by your church – a crime committed five years ago
when you got Chanti to place her thumb print on a sham contract and then told
her that she had signed her daughters into the care of Citipointe until they
were 18 years old. A lie, of course. The contract contains no such condition
and, even if it did, is not the kind of legal document upon which your church
can claim to have a legal right to remove the daughters of a poor Cambodian
family against the express wishes of their parents.
Citipointe revealed its true colours earlier this
year when your church refused to provide any medical assistance to Chanti, 8
months pregnant and with pneumonia. Citipointe would not even contribute the
$100 necessary for Chanti to receive treatment for the high fever (caused by
the pneumonia) that threatened both mother and child in the final month of
Chanti’s pregnancy. This callous disregard for Chanti and her soon-to-be born
child’s well-being is indicative of your church’s attitude towards Chanti,
towards Chhork and the family as a whole.
Nothing
in Citipointe’s behavior surprises me at all anymore. Your church is devoid of
the moral and ethical principles that you should, as Christians, carry into
this poor third world country. If you were to behave in Australia as you do
here you would be in court facing charges of deprivation of liberty, kidnapping
or some other similar charges relating to the illegal removal of children from
their poor families. You can behave as you do in Cambodia with impunity because
there is no government body here to prevent your church from doing pretty much
as it pleases. And because organizations such as Chab Dai and LICADHO turn a
blind eye to human rights abuses perpetrated by Christian NGOs.
Given
that Chanti and Chhork are land and home owners, (in Prey Veng), given that
Chhork earns a decent living driving a tuk tuk, the only explanation I can come
up with as to why the Ministry of Social Affairs does not insist that Rosa and
Chita be returned to their family is either incompetence within the Ministry or
corruption. Or perhaps a mixture of both. These girls were never ever victims
of anything other than the illegal removal from the care of their parents by
Citipointe church five years ago.
If
Citipointe is serious about returning Rosa and Chita to their family, provide
Chanti and Chhork with a timetable, in writing, and with an indication as to
what, if anything, the church intends to do to assist the family into the
future. If, as Rebecca Brewer made clear in writing five years ago, Citipointe
intends to keep Rosa and Chita until they are 18, you should, in all fairness
to Chanti and Chhork, tell them this and stop lying about the imminent return
of the girls.
Yet
again I ask you, on behalf of Chanti, to (a) provide documented evidence that
you had the legal right to remove Rosa and Chita from their family’s care five
years ago and (b) copies of documents (contracts and agreements with the
Ministry of Social Affairs) relating to your church’s maintenance of custody of
the girls against the express wishes of their parents.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
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