Baptists in Haiti Face Kidnapping Charges
As if the tragedy in Haiti doesn’t get enough bad press, here’s another story with a distinctly religious bent. Before the earthquake, there were many Haitian children who were in various stages of adoption by American parents. Some were almost ready to be claimed, some were just beginning. All were going to better homes in a more prosperous country, which I think everyone would agree is a good thing.
In the earthquake though, the paperwork for many of these children was destroyed in the devastation. Buildings fell, fires started, backups were not kept. Placing blame for any of this is really pointless, it’s happened and that’s that. Nobody really knows who had done what, when and so the only logical thing to do is have the parents fill out the paperwork again and try to get it expedited through the system.
Unfortunately, one group of American Baptist missionaries who were supposedly doing disaster relief came up with another way. They just took the children, without permission, and were trying to get them smuggled back to the United States without any paperwork whatsoever. Ten Americans have now been charged, according to the Haitian Prime Minister, with “kidnapping”. “They were arrested on the border with children that were not theirs and that they had no papers for those children,” Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said. “For me it’s not Americans that were arrested, it was kidnappers that were arrested.”
The ten Baptist missionaries were trying to smuggle 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic under cover of night. They were arrested trying to make the border crossing. “We came here simply to help these children and we went to the border based on the approval of the Dominican government to take the children into the Dominican Republic and the pastor entrusting these precious children to our care because his orphanage collapsed and his churches collapsed, and he had nowhere for these children to go,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby said. Unfortunately for them, while the Dominican Republic might have agreed to take them in, the Haitian government, who is legally in charge of them, did not.
Another problem is that apparently, some of these children are not even orphans! In the chaos, the Baptist group took children that still had families against their will and tried to shuffle them across the border. When asked for their justification for their actions, they could only spout Bible verses. Even though I’m sure their hearts were in the right place, their minds most certainly were not. They deserve to be prosecuted for kidnapping and serve time for their crimes. Being sincere doesn’t make one correct.
For the innocent children who may have to wait a little longer and for the adoptive parents who have waited up to 2 years already, hopefully the process can be streamlined and the wait can be minimal, but there is a process for a reason. Haitian and American officials are already citing worries about both child traffickers and pedophiles ending up with access to children. “We’ve seen a couple of cases of those in recent days. So this is just something we are working collectively with those organizations that are actively trying to help children, people on the ground, be alert for this kind of danger.” says U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
Right now, I’m worried most about keeping the kids alive. Then, and only after sufficient checking, we can worry about getting adoptions back on track. Trying an end-run around the law, with only Bible verses and emotionalism as a guide, cannot be allowed to stand.
One Comment to “Baptists in Haiti Face Kidnapping Charges”
The problem with submitting to God's higher laws is that the piddling little laws of little countries of Haiti seem to be of little import. The hubris of these people is truly astonishing.
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