The catastrophic earthquake in Haiti has brought out the best in people, organizations and governments.
In particular in the case of the thousands of existing orphans (some sources put this figure to be around 380,000) and newly orphaned children (tens of thousands more) in that devastated country, people, organizations and what was left of the Haitian government opened up their hearts, their homes and cut red tape in order to simplify and expedite the normally lengthy three-year Haitian adoption process.
We were all heart warmed to see the planeload of 53 Haitian orphans arrive in chilly Pittsburg a couple of weeks ago. According to authorities, 47 of the 53 children already had agreements for adoption and the other six orphans were in the process of being adopted.
Other flights with orphans and with children who needed urgent medical care arrived in the U.S. in the days that followed. That operation was named “Operation Pierre Pan.”
Operation Pierre Pan was also an effort to place thousands of Haitian children who had lost their parents in the earthquake in U.S. homes or with relatives living in the United States.
A few days later, however, the airlift was suspended.
Matt Chandler, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said U.S. rescue and relief efforts “must be vigilant not to separate children from relatives in Haiti who are still alive but displaced, or to unknowingly assist criminals who traffic in children in such desperate times.”
Experts began to warn about the dangers of trying to take children too quickly out of a country—including for adoption—in the aftermath of a disaster, and cited the Indonesian Tsunami of 2004 as an example.
They also warned about increased adoption trafficking reports from places such as Cambodia, China, Vietnam, India, etc., and about the more sinister child-trafficking.
David Smolin, a professor at the Cumberland Law School who has written extensively about adoption, says in a New York Times “Room for Debate” discussion:
It is difficult enough in a country like Haiti, with a history of corruption, limited government capacity, child trafficking and adoption trafficking, to guard against adoption trafficking in normal times. In the midst of a disaster, where government capacity has been destroyed, many children have been separated from their families, and illicit schemes can flourish amid the chaos, it would be virtually impossible to guard against both mistakes and criminal misconduct.
And that is exactly the dilemma that both Haiti and the United States are faced with today—guarding against both mistakes and criminal misconduct—as both governments tackle the case of the 10 Americans, most of them members of an Idaho Baptist congregation, who last week tried to take 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic.
Haitian authorities have now charged the Americans with child abduction and criminal conspiracy.
The Americans claim that they only intended to take the Haitian children to “an orphanage” that they say they were “building or leasing” in the Dominican Republic. They acknowledge that they did not seek the necessary approvals to take the children out of Haiti, but claimed that they did not know they were breaking any laws until they were detained. Some of the children have at least one living parent in Haiti.
In a sign of the cloudy nature of the case, the prosecutor, Mazar Fortil, decided not to pursue what could have been the most serious charge against the group, that of trafficking. The charges will now be considered by an investigative judge, who has up to three months to decide whether to pursue the matter further.
The Times also reports that the Americans “will face a potentially extended legal proceeding in Haiti and could, if convicted, face prison terms of up to 15 years.”
Accusations and allegations are flying. Some accuse the 10 Americans of child trafficking, some accuse them of “spiritual trafficking,” by “mixing the help they offer to victims of last month’s earthquake with proselytizing” and are “offended by the prospect of children from a Catholic culture being airlifted into evangelical institutions or families — losing their faith along with their families.”
In the previously mentioned debate on the Haiti adoption issue, Smolin has this to say about inter-country adoptions in general:
Views of intercountry adoption vacillate between the positive, in which it is portrayed as a humanitarian act of goodwill benefiting both child and adoptive family, and the negative, in which it is portrayed either as child trafficking or as a neo-colonialist child grab.
I will be the last one to, at this point, accuse anyone of anything, but it seems, at the very least, that good intentions may have gone horribly awry.
This event underscores the need for people and organizations, no matter how well-intended, to follow not only their heart, but also the law.
As E. J Graff, an associate director and senior researcher at Brandeis University, puts it: “It’s heartbreaking to watch Haiti’s child protection crisis unfold. Many of us long to fly to Haiti and bring a child home. But sometimes the head should overrule the compassionate heart.”
UPDATE:
As the 10 Americans charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy await further legal proceedings in Haiti, I found this piece by Tim Padgett in this week’s “The Moment” section of Time, which in my opinion summarizes the reactions of many:
There are few children more vulnerable than the youth of Haiti. So when the western hemisphere’s poorest country was ravaged by the Jan. 12 earthquake, people in the developed world turned their Brad-and-Angelina eyes to the tens of thousands left orphaned in the rubble. Well-meaning interest in adopting Haitian kids has spiked worldwide, prompting the Haitian government to apply the brakes for fear that amid the chaos, children might be whisked away illegally. On Jan. 29, that concern seemed borne out when 10 Baptist missionaries from Idaho were arrested trying to ferry 33 children out of Haiti without proper documents. The Americans called their efforts caring, but many Haitians sided with Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, who called the missionaries misguided “kidnappers”–especially since many of the kids weren’t orphans at all. The incident struck a raw nerve in a nation where children are prey to human traffickers and thousands of youths live in slavery. It was also a reminder that the best way to help Haiti’s children may not be plucking them from their country but helping rebuild it as a safer place for them to grow up
Emphasis mine.
UPDATE II:
ABC News has just reported that the Americans held in Haiti have just fired their Haitian lawyer.
The group says that the lawyer told them last Wednesday that he wanted $10,000 to take the case; “later that day he doubled the fee, then he doubled it again.” Out of fear of repercussions, the group verbally agreed.
Apparently the group was not able to transfer the money in time. On Thursday all 10 were charged.
The group says that the lawyer told them in a conference call that if he would have had the money in time the group would have been released.
The lawyer told ABC that he has not yet received “a penny” for his work, and refused to answer any questions
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.