Chanti and Chhork and family. A photo album. The family now owns a one hectare rice paddy.

Dear Leigh

Here are a few photos of the family you broke up five years ago.  It is a very happy family, though the absence of Rosa and Chita weighs on them all at times – particularly Chanti. And particularly Chanti when, yet again, she has been told by Citipointe that Rosa and Chita will be returned to the family soon.

James,Chhork, Kevin, Chanti, Srey Ka, baby Poppy and Vanna

The last time had her heart broken with promises made and unfulfilled was just after I delivered the court papers to the She Rescue Home early this month. Citipointe was supposed to respond to these papers within 7 days. 14 days have elapsed now and you have not responded – other than to assure Chanti that she and Chhork will get Rosa and Chita back ‘soon’. You have been telling them this for five years now!

The three women with Chhork are her sisters. They all live in the same village that Chanti and Chhork live in – along with their husbands and children. All up, there are 7 of Chhork’s siblings living in this village, plus his father. The women all help each other take care of their many children. 

Chhork and three of his sisters who live in the same village

This is the family and community support network that Citipointe could have tapped into five years ago if you had bothered to visit the village. You did not. You told me at the time that you were, prior to accepting Rosa and Chita for short term care at the SHE Rescue Home, going to speak with the family’s Village Chief. You never did. If you had you would have discovered that the Village Chief is Chhork’s father and that there was a great support network for Chanti and Chhork. What was lacking was money. Everyone in the village is poor.

Chanti and the family's one hectare rice paddy

Chanti and Chhork now own one hectare of  rice paddy and will, shortly, add rice-farming to their various income streams. It cost $2,000.

Chanti and Poppy

As you know it was not possible for me, until a year ago, to provide Chanti and her family with anything other than band aid help. In an Australian context I was close to being as poor as they were – though never, of course, without a roof over my head or food to eat.

Chanti, Poppy, Srey Ka and James

This past 12 months it has been possible for me to help out more substantially, here is what I have outlaid:

One block of land with a house                                      $1,500

One block of land (next door) without a house               $1,200

Building materials                                                           $   500

Two tuk tuks (one stolen)                                                $2,800

One rice paddy – one hectare                                          $2,000

One toilet/bathroom                                                         $   800

One generator                                                                  $   300

Rice – 10 bags                                                                 $   400

Medical care and medicines                                                $   400

Total                                                                                $9,900

Chanti, Srey Ka, James, Chhork and Kevin

Let’s call it $10,000 – the sum that I have spent this past year to help Chanti and Chhork become self-sufficient.  Now, let’s compare what I have spent on helping the family become self-sufficient with what Citipoitne has spent. This is not hard to do since Citipointe has not spent one dollar to help this family this past five years.

Srey Ka and the family tuk tuk

Leaving aside the illegality of Citipointe’s removel of the girls and leaving aside the human rights abuses that this has involved, lets look at this scenario from a purely economic point of view.

Poppy and her grandmother, Vanna

It has cost me $10,000 to set the family up to become self-sufficient. How much has it cost Citipointe to keep Rosa and Chita in an institution this past five years? If it has cost more than $10,000 the removal of the girls makes no sense from an economic point of view. So let’s do some sums.

Chhork bathes Kevin

Divide $10,000 by 2 – Rosa and Chita. That’s $5,000 for each of them. From an economic point of view Citipointe’s care of the girls needs to come in at less than $5,000 each, this past five years, for institutional care to be a viable proposition. One does not need to be much of a mathematician to figure out that the figure Citipointe needs to justify its actions economically is les than $1000 per year per girl. Or $20 per week per girl.

Kevin, aged 3

Again, one does not need to be much of a mathematician to know that it has cost Citipointe considerably more that $20 a week to keep each of the girls in an institution. It does not really matter how much more than $20 a week it has cost your church. Anything more than $20 makes no sense economically. It would have been cheaper, five years ago, to have provided for the family in the way that I have provided for them this past year  - if, that is, Citipointe was ever serious about the re-integration of girls with their families; if your church was ever serious about helping the entire family and not just two members of it. 

These sums do not, of course, take into account the fact that you church has been generating income from Rosa and Chita through donations and sponsorships – not one cent of which has gone to the family. You have presented them to the world as victims of human trafficking when the truth is that it is Citipointe church that has stolen the children from their family and their community.

Chhork's father, 3rd from right, at his daughter's (and Chhork's sister's) wedding

I must return to Australia now but will return early in the new year to continue with the battle that Chanti and Chhork have been fighting for five years now to have their daughters returned to their care.