# 69 ACFID Code of Conduct committee refuses to ask GDG to provide copies of MOUs in support of Citipointe's assertion that the church removed Rosa and Chita from their family in accordance with Cambodian law

ACFID Code of Conduct Committee

Australian Council for International Development

12 Napier Close, Deakin ACT 2600                                                 

23^rd May 2014

Dear    Dr Sue-Anne Wallace

Greg Brown

John Gilmore

Bandula Gonsalkorale

Harwood Lockton

Dr Petrus Usmanij

Fadlullah Wilmot

Dr Simon Smith

Michelle Pearce

Julie Mundy

Earlier this month, with my assistance, Chanti and Chhork secured the legal representation of an Australian barrister by the name of Mr Michael Johnson.

Mr Johnson wrote to Citipointe church requesting that Rosa and Chita be returned to their family by 23^rd May. Today. The girls have not been returned. I will forward, separately, the two pages of Mr Johnson’s letter to Citipointe.

In the meantime, distressed by the refusal of the ACFID Code of Conduct Committee to even acknowledge receipt of hers and her husband Chhork’s complaint about the continued detention of Rosa and Chita, Chanti has, with my help, read a translation of the ACFID Code of Conduct. With her newfound knowledge of her rights and with my assistance, Chanti has composed a letter for Mr Geoff Armstrong, Executive Director of the Global Development Group in her bid to get answers to questions that she is entitled, in accordance with the Code, to be provided answers to.

Chanti’s letter is now with a translator and will be ready for her to sign on Monday – at which point we will send it to the Global Development Group.

I imagine that Geoff Armstrong will ignore the letter, regardless of the ACFID Code of Conduct. This has been his response to all letters sent to him this past few months relating to the legality of Citipointe’s removal of Rosa and Chita. Through its funding of the ‘SHE Rescue Home’, and in accordance the ACFID Code of Conduct, GDG is complicit in Rosa and Chita’s continued detention. GDG’s refusal to provide copies of the MOUs to Chanti and Chhork is a breach of the ACFID Code of Conduct but this will be of no concern to Mr Armstrong because your committee does not adhere to the Code itself.

If experience is anything to go by, the ACFID Code of Conduct Committee will, as it has with Chanti and Chhork’s complaint, stand by GDG’s refusal to respond to Chanti and Chhork’s letter. So be it. The legal battle over the custody of Rosa and Chita has a long way to go yet and there will be egg on a lot of faces when justice is eventually achieved.

best wishes

James Ricketson