Haitian children adoptions.

[Canadian]

Haitian adoptees arrive in Canada

A plane carrying 24 young Haitians, the first group of children to have their adoptions fast-tracked since the earthquake in Haiti 12 days ago, touched down in Ottawa on Sunday.

Some of the children were wrapped in blue blankets to protect them from the cold as they were carried off an Air Canada Airbus A-330 plane about 7:30 a.m. ET. The children, who are beginning a new life with Canadian families, range in age from 11 months to 14 years.

Fifteen are to be resettled with families in Quebec, while the rest will travel to destinations in British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick.

"She told me this morning that the snow is cold," Gerry Naugler of New Brunswick said about his adoptive daughter. "And mom is putting a new winter coat on them and cleaning them up."

The father said he was at first concerned about their conditions but they appeared to be fine.

Read the rest here

Well I hope they are doing it for the kids and not their ego's or because Madonna and Angelina Jolie make it the 'fashionable' or 'in thing' to do. These kids are people not accessories.

I also wonder where these people are for all the kids in Canada that need good homes or to be adopted?

I am not begrudging Haiti or the people there at all, they need help and should get it, I just find it 'funny' how when a natural disaster occurs people all rush to help and yet when it comes to ones own country (whatever country that may be) or people the effort is not there to help them or in this case adopt kids.

This story at the Star may shed some light... Here

[Canadian]

How come the planes that are bringing these kids and babies to Canada do not pull up to the terminal? Instead they stay on the tarmac and have someone carry them out in the cold wrapped in blankets for what I assume is a photo op?

[Canadian]

Americans detained after 33 Haitian children taken

Ten American Baptists were being held in the Haitian capital Sunday after trying take 33 children out of Haiti at a time of growing fears over possible child trafficking.

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children. But officials said they lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Friday night in a bus along with children from 2 months to 12 years old who had survived the catastrophic earthquake.

The group said its “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” was an effort to help abandoned children by taking them to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

“In this chaos the government is in right now we were just trying to do the right thing,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told The Associated Press at the judicial police headquarters in the capital, where the Americans were being held pending a Monday hearing before a judge.

The children, some of them sick and dehydrated, were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, which was trying to find their parents or close relatives, said a spokesman there, George Willeit.

“One child, an 8- or 9-year-old, said she thought she was going to some sort of summer or vacation camp in the Dominican Republic,” Willeit said.

I wondered who to is deciding what kids should be adopted or not. Seems to be many being adopted out and are they, whoever they is, sure the kids have no living relatives.

Read the rest here at the Tor Star

[Toby Fourre]

I also wonder where these people are for all the kids in Canada that need good homes or to be adopted?

There aren't as many as there used to be. Several things changed: birth control, smaller families, universal health care, social programs and acceptance of single mothers.

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children.

Probably, but they exhibit a common Western arrogance toward people in the Third World.

[Hard Luck Henry]

I've just listened to a report on the World Service which stated that at least some of these children were not orphans, their parents were alive. There was also concern that, once taken across the border and without the correct paperwork, these children would simply disappear. Very disturbing.

[peapod]

The old god card, which actually means we are above all laws, cept for what it says in our comic book.

[Canadian]

Haiti PM: U.S. Baptists knew removing kids was wrong

Haiti's prime minister said Monday it's clear to him that the 10 U.S. Baptists who tried to take 33 children out of his quake-ravaged country without permission "knew what they were doing was wrong."

But Prime Minister Max Bellerive also told The Associated Press his country is open to having the Americans go before courts in the United States because his own nation's judicial system was devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

The aborted Baptist "rescue mission" has become a distraction for a crippled government trying to provide basic life support to millions of earthquake survivors.

Haiti has been a devastated place for a very long time..

Link to the rest

[Swiss Miss]

“In this chaos the government is in right now we were just trying to do the right thing,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told The Associated Press at the judicial police headquarters in the capital, where the Americans were being held pending a Monday hearing before a judge.

Just trying to do the right thing????? Just when did taking kids become the "right thing"? I heard these idiots on TV last night saying that "god told us to take the children so they could be safe" "and that we should just leave the name of our pastor...." These people are the type of people we should be looking out for. I hope they make an example out of these religious nuts.

[Canadian]

U.S. Baptists grilled by Haitian judge

A group of U.S. Baptist missionaries arrested trying to leave Haiti with a busload of children faced more questioning by a local judge, while an orphanage director said many of the children had parents.

The investigating magistrate was to meet with the five men on Wednesday, a day after he questioned the five women for several hours at judicial police headquarters, where they are jailed, according to Haiti’s communications minister. No lawyers were present.

Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said the evidence from the judge will be presented to a Haitian district attorney who will decide whether to file criminal charges against the 10 Americans.

The Baptists from Idaho say they were only trying to help orphans survive the earthquake. But legal experts say taking children across a border without documents or government permission can be considered child trafficking.

At the SOS Children’s Village orphanage where authorities are protecting the 33 children, regional director Patricia Vargas said none who are old enough and willing to talk said they are parentless: “Up until now we have not encountered any who say they are an orphan.”

Man oh man.. That sounds like kidnapping to me. But I do not think they are the only ones.

I wonder with all the other kids being adopted to other countries, how many are really orphans or not? Haiti is lawless and has been and plucking children off the street would not be that difficult.

Link to the rest

[Hard Luck Henry]

This all puts the Haitians in something of a quandary, given how desperate things are there and their dependence on US Christian charities. The best outcome might be that these people are tried in the US, thus sparing the Haitian government a difficult decision; I don't think "God told me to do it" is a valid defence even in American courts.

[Canadian]

http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/world/2010/02/04/12737156.html

Parents in this quake-wracked Haitian village unable to feed or clothe their children handed the youngsters over to a group of American missionaries who promised to give them a better life.

In a testament to the misery of a nation that was the western hemisphere’s poorest even before a Jan. 12 earthquake, many Callebas parents say they wouldn’t know what to do if they had to take the children back.

“I am living in a tent with a friend,” said Laurentius Lelly, a 27-year-old computer technician who gave up his two children, ages 4 and 6. “My main concern is that if the kids come back I’m not going to be able to feed them.”

The Americans were to appear Thursday before a prosecutor who will decide whether to file charges or release them, Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue told the AP.

The stories the parents told The Associated Press on Wednesday in this village a half hour from the capital contradict claims by the Baptist group’s leader that the children came from orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.

Think that is true or were they bought off? Like would parents really give their children up like that? I never had kids so I don't know...

Read the rest here at 24 hrs

[Swiss Miss]

unless it was very clear my children were in grave danger and there was no end of it in sight would only then would I consider sending my children off.

[peapod]

Nobody knows what they will do when driven by depair and hunger. Why didn't the missionaries offer cash to the parents of the childern they stole. They had enough money to bribe and set up a orphanage, why not help the parents feed their childern. If this is god work, than he should be fired...Oh look, I didn't even get hit by a lightening bolt.

[Swiss Miss]

you are so funny,

love ya P

[peapod]

Thanks for the cuddle missy...We need to have another beach fire..

[Canadian]

Jailed U.S. Baptists in Haiti seek release

If they are charged, why should they get to leave the country?

[Hard Luck Henry]

From the link: "Coq has said that the group's leader, Laura Silsby, knew she couldn't remove the youngsters without proper paperwork, but he characterized the other nine missionaries as unknowingly being caught up in actions they didn't understand.

"They were naive," he said. "They had no idea what was going on and they did not know that they needed official papers to cross the border. But Silsby did."'

Sorry, but I'm sure 'ignorantia juris non excusat' applies even in Haiti. I'm assuming Haitian law is based on the French, but it doesn't really matter, it's a fairly universally held axiomatic principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

[Canadian]

US missionary convicted of Haiti child smuggling

A US missionary has been convicted of trying to illegally take 33 children out of Haiti in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in January.

The judge sentenced Laura Silsby, 40, to the time she had already spent in jail on remand, and said she was free to leave the country.

Silsby, from Idaho, was caught with nine other Americans trying to take the children into the Dominican Republic.

The other missionaries were not charged and returned to the US.

They claimed they were trying to help destitute orphans.

But it emerged that the children were not orphans. Some of the parents said they had handed them over because they thought they would get better care in US hands.

The earthquake in Haiti on 12 January killed more than 220,000 people and left more than a million homeless.

Not much time for kidnapping.

Link to the rest