Penny Richards
Ambassador, Cambodia
No 16B National Assembly
St
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
20th Feb 2013
Dear Ambassador Richards
Please find enclosed copies of five letters that I
have written this past two weeks to Senior Pastor Leigh Ramsay, whose Brisbane
based church, Citipointe, operates The She Rescue Home in Phnom Penh – a refuge
ostensibly committed to the rescue and rehabilitation of girls that have been
rescued from the sex trade.
Citipointe has ‘stolen’ the two eldest daughters of
a poor family (Rosa and Chita) that I have been associated with for 18 years
and has refused, over a period of close to five years now, to return them to
the care of the family.
I use the word ‘stolen’ in the same sense that we
use it in Australia in relation to the generations of Aboriginal children who
were removed from the care of their impoverished parents (impoverished in a
material sense) in Australia – a misguided form of social engineering that
caused immense heartbreak for children and parents alike and for which
Australia made a formal apology in 2007.
‘Kidnapped’ is actually a more appropriate word to
describe the actions of Citipointe when, in 2008 and 2009, the church retained
custody of Rosa and Chita for 15 months against the express wishes of the girls’
parents - Chanti and Chhork. Despite many
requests by the parents that the girls to returned to the care of the family
and in contravention of Cambodia’s ant-trafficking laws, Citipointe retained
illegal custody of the girls.
Kidnapping is, I know, an extreme charge to be
leveling at an Australian church. It is one that I do not make lightly and one backed
up by verifiable facts, however. It is also a crime that Citipointe could quite
easily prove itself innocent of by releasing a copy of any document it has in
its possession that provided the church with legal justification for refusing
to return Rosa and Chita to their parents over a period of fifteen months in
2008 and 2009. Citipointe church refuses
to release a copy of any such document to either Chanti or myself, as Chanti’s legally
appointed ‘advocate’. This is unsurprising given that no such legal document
exists.
Only after 15 months did Citipointe obtain
permission, from the Ministry of Social Affairs, to retain custody of Rosa and
Chita. Citipointe has refused to provide Chanti with a copy of the agreement
reached between Citipointe and the Ministry and has ignored my many requests,
acting as an advocate on Chanti’s behalf, that she be provided with a copy of
the agreement or contract or whatever it is that Citipointe is using to provide
it with justification for holding Rosa and Chita against their parents’ wishes.
The Ministry has likewise refused to provide Chanti with a copy of this agreement
or contract, leaving Chanti with no idea when, or even if, her daughters will
be returned to her. This causes her enormous distress and has done for the past
close to five years. The Ministry did, however, write the following in a letter
to me 15 months after the removal or Rosa and Chita:
2) For the SHE resuce project, according to
the agreement made with the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth
Rehabilitation, the organization has projected to help victims of human
trafficking and sex trade as well as families which fall so deep in poverty.
After questioning directly, the ministry believes that Rosa must have been in
any of the above categories.
That the Ministry ‘believes’
(as opposed to knows) that Rosa must have been in any of the above categories’
does not suggest much in the way of thoroughly of research or the asking of
questions. Certainly, the Ministry never spoke with Chanti or her husband
Chhork. At the time of the Ministry’s letter Chhork was running a boat on the
Bassac River for tourists and Chanti had a stall by the river selling sacks to
tourists.
The girls, Rosa and Chita, now aged 11 and 10
respectively, have never been involved in any aspect of the sex trade - a fact acknowledged by Citipointe
church and the Ministry of Social Affairs. The only reason why Rosa and Chita
were placed in temporary care by their mother in the She Rescue Home in mid
2008 was that the family was very poor and in the midst of a financial crisis –
‘fall so deep in poverty’. This crisis passed within a few months but
Citipointe refused to return the girls. In so doing the church abrogated
promises made to Chanti and myself.
In Feb 2013 the family is no longer poor. Indeed, by
Cambodian standards it is comfortably well off.
It now owns a house in Prey Veng province (acquired last week) and rents
a small house in Phnom Penh. The father, Chhork, works as a tuk tuk driver to
support the family - his income supplanted
by Chanti and her mother, both of whom
make and sell bracelets to tourists. Chanti also sells scarves and books to
tourists. The two other school-age children (James and Srey Ka) attend school
every school day. In short, a fairly typical Cambodian family. And yet
Citipointe church still not only refuses to return Rosa and Chita to their
family but refuses to provide any explanation or reason for not doing so. Leigh
Ramsay does not respond in any way to my letters.
A close-to complete record of how Citipointe came to
take custody of Rosa and Chita can be found on my blog at:
http://citipointechurch.blogspot.com/
It seems from the church’s actions that Citipointe now considers
Rosa and Chita to be church property. It does not acknowledge that the parents
have any rights at all and has demonstrated a total lack of regard for the
welfare of the rest of the family. This has been well documented this past four
years in the documentary record I have kept of Chanti’s life over the past 18
years and the book I am writing – both of which are entitled CHANTI’S WORLD.
Worst of all the human rights abuses visited upon the family by
Citipointe is that Rosa and Chita are
prime tourist attractions for visitors to the She Rescue Home – a point to
which I will return shortly.
Leaving aside the legality of
Citipointe’s position regarding Rosa and Chita, let’s look briefly at how
Citipointe church is described by Wikipedia:
The She Rescue Home is in Cambodia and a place
where trafficked and prostituted girls can find a safe haven to live their
lives. In a She Rescue Home they receive counselling, medical attention,
education and vocational training. It was started by Citipointe and Leigh
Ramsey in 2006.
Two salient points are
worth making here:
- The majority of girls resident in the She Rescue Home have not been
trafficked and have never worked as prostitutes. They are the daughters of poor parents who
have ‘fallen so far in poverty.’
- It cost, on average, eight times as much
money to support a child in an ‘orphanage’ (or similarly run refuge) as it does
to support the child within his over her own family.
Given that only 27% of
the ‘orphans’ in Cambodian ‘orphanages have no parents at, it follows that 73%
have at least one parent. This raises the question: Why don’t the operators of
these ‘orphanages’ support eight of the kids in their care within their own
families and communities for the same cost as keeping them in an institution/ This,
perhaps, something for AusAID to think about the next time it provides
financial support to Australian-run ‘orphanages’ in Cambodia.
Rosa and Chita have never, at any point in their
young lives, (aged 6 and 5 when kidnapped by Citipointe) been involved in any
aspect of the sex trade. They are simply the daughters of poor parents who were
offered short term help from Citipointe, were lied to, duped into signing a
worthless contact, told then that they had given up their daughters until they
were 18 and lost custody of Rosa and Chita.
And what does
Citipointe’s own website say about the She Rescue Home:
Girls we receive have been
trafficked, raped, prostituted, or are at risk of these things.
Rosa and Chita have never been
trafficked, raped or prostituted. Nor have they ever been placed at any greater
risk of these things happening to them than any poor girl child in
Cambodia. Given that one third of
Cambodian children live below the poverty line, one sixth of Cambodia’s female
child population is eligible to be institutionalized in accordance with
Citipointe’s flexible use of the word ‘risk’. In short, hundreds of thousands
of girls. And, the laws of supply and demand being what they are, there are
plenty of poor Cambodian parents who wish to provide their children with
nutritious food and schooling who could well fall into the trap that Chanti
fell into when she agreed to accept short term help from Citipointe.
As is well established from studies,
the children of poor families are much better off living with their families,
whilst children brought up in institutions are more likely to suffer from damaged or severed family connections and be prone to
homelessness, exploitation, trafficking, drug abuse and behavioral problems – the very same problems that arose as
a result of Australia’s misguided attempts to ‘rescue’ Aboriginal children from
their materially poor parents.
In the case of Citipointe the church
is also indoctrinating Rosa and Chita into the church’s own Christian belief system
(against the law in Cambodia) and alienating the girls from their culture and
religion by refusing to allow them to participate in any religious festivals or
cultural events with their Buddhist family. The wedding of Rosa and Chita’s
aunt this last weekend (which Citipointe refused to allow Rosa and Chita to
attend) is yet another example of the church’s deliberate attempts to alienate
the girls from their family and culture.
On the question of sponsorship,
Citipointe tells potential sponsors:
You have the opportunity to sponsor
either a girl who is currently residing in the SHE Home, or girls who have been
safely reintegrated back into their communities.
Are Rosa and Chita currently being
sponsored – despite being neither victims of the sex trade of from a family
that has fallen so low in Poverty? Not only has Citipointe made no effort in close
to five years to move towards reintegration of Rosa and Chita into their family
(see extensive blog correspondence on this question this past year), nor has
the church made any financial contribution at all to the family’s well-being –
as exemplified the week before last when Chanti, 8 months pregnant and with
pneumonia, received no assistance at all from the church.
What happens to the sponsorship money
donated to Citipointe to help care for “girls who have been safely reintegrated
back into their communities,”? How much money does the She Rescue Home take in
each year in donations made by sponsors and how much does it cost to run the
She Rescue Home? Is the church in fact making a profit out of the refuge
whilst, at the same time abrogating the human rights of both the girls resident
in it and materially poor parents such as Chanti and Chhork?
I believe that these are quite
legitimate questions for yourself, as Australia’s representative in Cambodia,
to ask Citipointe church. Australia does, after all, provide Cambodia with many
millions of dollars to help combat the very forms of human rights abuse I
allege are being perpetrated by Citipointe church. I do not expect you to take
my word for this but do trust that you, or the relevant persons within the
Embassy will look at the facts – the most pertinent of which is the existence
or non-existence of a legal document giving Citipointe the right to hold Rosa
and Chita against the wishes of their parents for 15 months back in 2008 and
2009. The most important people in all
this but the ones who never get consulted are Chanti and Chhork. It would be
appropriate that someone from the Embassy speak with both parents without
either Citipointe or myself present. Chanti has all the voluminous correspondence
– signed with her own thumb prints and those of her Village Chief to verify the
accuracy of what I write here.
Citipointe church’s website has the following
to say about the tours it conducts in Cambodia:
Looking for somewhere a little different to celebrate the end of
your school days? Keen to explore the world and experience new cultures? Spend
ten unforgettable days in Cambodia doing just this. Cruise around Phnom Penh in
tuktuks, try local delicacies (tarantulas...eew!), and squeeze into tiny river
boats, all while impacting the lives of those around you. See tangible
differences as you spread the message of hope and love to the people of
Cambodia. Experience and be involved with the work that the SHE Rescue Home and
other organisations are doing to stop the cycle of poverty and sex trafficking
in Cambodia.
Does Citipointe really believe that
the children lined up in a row to have their hair washed in unison by well
meaning volunteers (see photo on website) is an experience of value to them?
Much has been written about the damaging effects of Orphan Tourism or, as I
prefer to call it ‘Poverty Tourism’ and you will no doubt be familiar with the
literature.
But
lets just say for argument’s sake that there are some girls in the She Rescue
Home who have been rescued from the sex trade. They must, by definition, be
young (less than 18) and traumatized by their experiences. What kind of
Christians would invite anyone prepared to pay money to go on a tour to come
and wash the hair of a rape victim! Does
the rape victim, the victim of trafficking or exploitation within the sex trade
have any choice but to have her hair washed by cashed-up ‘poverty tourists’?
Are they supposed to be grateful for having been lined up and had their hair
washed in unison? Such cultural insensitivity smacks of 19th C colonialism
and should play no role in Australia’s assisting Cambodian families out of
poverty.
Another
question that I trust you will ask of Leigh Ramsay: Are Citipointe’s ‘poverty
tourists’ qualified to work with traumatized girls from another country or are
tour group places open to anyone who is prepared to fork out the money? And how
much do the Citipointe ‘poverty tourists’ pay for the experience of washing
girls’ hair and generally hanging out with sex abuse victims for a few days? Were
you to behave in this way back in Australia, had you not already been arrested
for kidnapping, you would have child welfare and victims of sexual abuse
advocate groups down on your head like a ton of bricks. Citipointe can get away
with it in Cambodian, however, because here pretty well anyone with money can do
whatever they like with impunity and are under little or no obligation to obey
the laws of the land.
I trust that someone within the Embassy, someone
within the Department of Foreign Affairs will take the trouble to read through
all the correspondence and acquaint themselves with the indisputable facts of
what has taken place over the past close to five years in relation to the
removal of these children from their family, the fifteen months in which Rosa
and Chita were essentially kidnap victims and the subsequent years during which
the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs has turned a blind eye to fraudulent claims made by
Citipointe in relation to its activities in Cambodia.
In the interests of transparency I am publishing
this letter on my Citipointe blog.
best wishes
James Ricketson
