Who can stop this tragedy?

Gabriela

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Dec 4, 2003
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According to the Saturday Toronto Star: A more plausible scenario, according to Baptiste, is that children may be exiting the country by car through Haiti's 360-kilometre border with the Dominican Republic where they could be more easily equipped with falsified papers and sold to the highest bidder.


Orphaned children are being sold as sex slaves, and the pedophiles are avoiding the airports in Haiti because papers are needed. How can we stop this from happening?
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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A few minutes ago I was watching ABC News and the news anchor very quickly mentioned that a group of people were arrested at the border attempting to smuggle Haitian kids into the DR. The arrest came after they failed to supply proper documentation to justify the entry of the kids into Dominican territory. Among the arrested was the head of an NGO organization (a charity) from the US.

I'll see if there is anything about this online, if I find anything I'll add a link.

Didn't take long to find an article about this:

Americans arrested taking children out of Haiti
 

Gabriela

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Dec 4, 2003
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Let's all write Oprah!

Obviously there is a need for legitimate refuge within Haiti and the DR for orphans. Is there any foster parenting system in either country to aid these children while awaiting final word on their families?
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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NALs: aslo mentioned tonight on CNN.

I hope that this is going to be stopped...

This is only the tip of the issues facing Haiti now...

God help them.

HB
 

Chip

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Jul 25, 2007
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The news link provided was a group of US missionaries that had collected some 30 odd kids that they were relocating to the DR to establish an orphanage. It was coordinated with a Haitan Pastor in PAP.

Human trafficking - not likely. Illegal - probably. The right thing to do - most certainly.
 

Lambada

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Mar 4, 2004
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This is now in a lot of newspapers. According to the Washington Times the children were going to be temporarily housed in a 45 roomed Cabarete hotel, leased by the organisation until their permanent orphanage was built.
10 detained for crossing Haiti border with orphans
'The group described their plans on a Web site where they also asked for tax-deductible contributions, saying they would "gather" 100 orphans and bus them to the Dominican resort of Cabarete, before building a more permanent orphanage in the Dominican town of Magante.'

'The plan was never to go adopt all these kids. The plan was to create this orphanage where kids could live. And kids get adopted out of orphanages. People go down and they're going to fall in love with these kids, and many of these kids will end up getting adopted.'

I pause a bit when I read that last sentence: child cuteness really shouldn't be featuring too much in the serious 20 year (or so) task of bringing up a child, but maybe it was just an unthinking quote from a relative of one of those arrested. But I DO wonder, if these children were to be adopted from the DR and not Haiti, how much this organisation had liaised with CONANI for example.

Other reports here:
Haiti holds 10 US citizens over trafficking concerns

Haiti arrests US nationals suspected of child smuggling Obviously they only gathered 33 children and not the 100 they were hoping for.

However, it is clear that this was a planned visit to Haiti if you read what the organisation itself says, so not trafficking.
New Life Children?s Refuge
Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission


It seems like they thought they had permission from the DR government to import these children. But.........why no clearance from what is left of the Haitian government to export them from Haiti?
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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I think they let their "God will provide" and "We are Americans doing good" attitudes interfere with reality...

While the idea might be nice I can see several issues:"Why DR and not Haiti?" "Why not northern Haiti?" "Why another language and religion" and I am sure a lot more would arise.

They were most likely trying to do good in the "we are American missionaries, and we know better than you do" attitude so many of them have, which is not going to cut this. I am sure it will be resolved, but those people took a hit as to their program...

And, of course, one problem is where to find the right people to talk to in the first place...there are no government buildings standing according to my students. So where would yuou go to get the proper forms and signitures...I can empathize with these folks...especially with the "get it done" attitudes they bring.

HB
 

Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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Sounds like they weren't prepared to pay the necessary "exit duties". I'm sure these people's intentions were good. They were not sinister human traffickers but it is nonetheless a genuine concern.
 

Gabriela

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Dec 4, 2003
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Arrest traffickers not do-gooders

If anything, the arrest of well meaning rescuers shows how we cannot depend on Dominican policing to arrest the right people. For sure the real traffickers will pay and get through without arrest.
 

Lambada

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If anything, the arrest of well meaning rescuers shows how we cannot depend on Dominican policing to arrest the right people. For sure the real traffickers will pay and get through without arrest.

Dominican policing? Weren't these people arrested by Haitian authorities? Certainly they are being detained in a Haitian facility & due to go before a judge on Monday.

There's another issue too - looks like these volunteers thought the children were 'orphans' without perhaps understanding that many children with parents are placed in Haitian orphanages when the family can't afford to raise them.

It goes back to one of the other threads we have advising volunteers not to go to Haiti unless they go as part of a recognised organisation & have prior experience, appropriate language skills and cultural understanding.

Detained Americans say they had good intentions in Haiti

Americans Arrested While Taking Children From Haiti
 

Berzin

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Nov 17, 2004
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So these "do-gooders", cloaked in absolute ignorance and armed with a total disregard for the rule of of law, attempt to take a bunch of children they had no authority to take out of their home country to bring them to another country where they have no rights because they are not citizens of the DR.

The DR, a country that has it's own issues in regards to human trafficking.

And they were going to take these children to an alleged orphanage in Cabarete, where their legal status as orphans from another country is going to be what, exactly?

Those from the West who go to Haiti to engage in such patently illegal activities are the reason why Haiti's going to have a rough go of getting itself off the ground.
 

Gabriela

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Dec 4, 2003
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Act locally

Haitian or Dominican police....no difference. And I doubt the American military are there to clean out the various international mobs. But we can do something. For years sex tourists have gone to Sosua and Cabarete. Now I understand stem cells are also available. Hmmmm....whose stem cells? Clean up the North Coast. Expose the criminals doing business there. Demand honest polic ing. Demand the Dominicans deport all criminals back to their homelands. Demand the Americans and Canadians bring them back for long prison terms. Don't let Hispanola remain the refuge for the scum of the earth. Throw the Dominican lawyers who defend them into Dominican prison.
 

las2137

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Sep 1, 2008
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All accounts that I have read say that it was the Haitian authorities that stopped the exit into the DR. The group in question had only negotiated with the Dominican government, it appears- and the Dominican government has no say over the rights of Haitian citizens in Haiti.

According to the group, the children did not have any passports. Government approval is needed for any Haitian children to leave the country.

But the group said it believed the children were orphaned, and it was going to house them in a converted hotel in the Dominican Republic.
CNN.com article linked by Lambada

"Believed"? I hope that is the journalist's voice, not the words of the organizers. Taking children out of the country should be the absolute last option. And because someone else has said it much better than I: If this were your child - Haiti orphans

Imagine that you're at work when whatever natural disaster is most probable in your state strikes. For me it would be an earthquake, for you it might be a flood, volcanic eruption, or hurricane. The natural disaster has toppled telephone poles and cell phone towers, damaged roads, and collapsed bridges. You try desperately to contact family members but no phones are working.

What was a simple 45 minute commute this morning has become an almost impossible journey. The freeway is impassible and roads are covered in debris. It takes you almost a week to reach home. When you finally arrive you receive word that your sister and her husband were seriously injured and did not survive. As you absorb this loss you worry about your three year old niece and five year old nephew.

After several frantic days you make it to your sister's destroyed house only to find out from her neighbors that your niece and nephew have been taken by foreigners to be cared for in an orphanage. You are thankful to hear that they survived and are determined to find and care for them. Unfortunately, the neighbors don't know which organization took the children. All they know is that they spoke only a little English and wore matching green shirts with words in either Spanish or Portuguese written on them.

You are frantically searching for the orphanage when word reaches you that foreigners have begun flying plane loads of children out of orphanages to be adopted in other countries. You start to panic for fear that by the time you find this orphanage it'll be too late. If your niece and nephew have been taken to another country you may never be able to find them and bring them back. It's now a race against time.
 

bob saunders

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Jan 1, 2002
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Haitian or Dominican police....no difference. And I doubt the American military are there to clean out the various international mobs. But we can do something. For years sex tourists have gone to Sosua and Cabarete. Now I understand stem cells are also available. Hmmmm....whose stem cells? Clean up the North Coast. Expose the criminals doing business there. Demand honest polic ing. Demand the Dominicans deport all criminals back to their homelands. Demand the Americans and Canadians bring them back for long prison terms. Don't let Hispanola remain the refuge for the scum of the earth. Throw the Dominican lawyers who defend them into Dominican prison.

A lot of those "scum of the earth" are not Canadian or American. Cleaning up international crime is a bit beyond the resources of the Dominican Authorities, however there needs to be more oversite with these children. Good on the Haitian police for catching these people, regardless of their good intentions- road to hell is paved with good intentions.
 

pedrochemical

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Aug 22, 2008
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So these "do-gooders", cloaked in absolute ignorance and armed with a total disregard for the rule of of law, attempt to take a bunch of children they had no authority to take out of their home country to bring them to another country where they have no rights because they are not citizens of the DR.

The DR, a country that has it's own issues in regards to human trafficking.

And they were going to take these children to an alleged orphanage in Cabarete, where their legal status as orphans from another country is going to be what, exactly?

Those from the West who go to Haiti to engage in such patently illegal activities are the reason why Haiti's going to have a rough go of getting itself off the ground.


Good post.
I would change the words "absolute ignorance" for "absolute arrogance", however.

And Gabriela, Haitian police and Dominican Police - TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!
In my experience the Haitian National Police of the last few years are streets ahead of the Dominican police in terms of honesty and integrity.
There is a world of difference - if you want to put this to the test try offering a Haitian police officer 200 gourdes propina after she stops you for a vehicle check!

Speaking as a recent child trafficker myself, I can understand the motivation of these people.
But their execution was laughable.
 

Lambada

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And Gabriela, Haitian police and Dominican Police - TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!
In my experience the Haitian National Police of the last few years are streets ahead of the Dominican police in terms of honesty and integrity. There is a world of difference - if you want to put this to the test try offering a Haitian police officer 200 gourdes propina after she stops you for a vehicle check!

Further elaborated here in the Washington Post:
In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti
 

Gabriela

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Dec 4, 2003
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Good news...

I'm glad the Haitian police have improved and wonder if the old oligopoly structure is also a thing of the past...