Children taken from Haiti are not orphans

On Jan. 12, 2010 at 4:53 p.m., a tragic 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, which devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince and put over 3 million people in need of emergency aid. In attempts to contribute aid to Haiti, a group of ten United States Baptist missionaries organized a "rescue mission" to save and rescue children from the post-quake in Haiti. United States based-Haitian Pastor Jean Sainvil led Baptist Group leader Laura Silsby, 40, and assistant Charisa Coulter, 24 to the slums of Cintron and the mountain town Callabas in Haiti.

Silsby led eight other missionaries who joined for the "rescue mission." These missionaries are part of the Southern Baptist Convention from Idaho, Texas, and Kansas church groups. This is the largest Protestant denomination and participates in world wide humanitarian programs.

Silsby wanted to create an orphanage this past summer and with the earthquake that hit Haiti, she organized the "rescue mission" where she had Pastor Sainvil lead them.

Silsby and her 9 other missionaries took a total of 33 children; 13 children from Cintron and 20 children from Callabas, and promised parents they would bring them to a safe 150-bed orphanage in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. Some of the parents could not take care of their children after the quake due to a lack of food, water, and shelter.

Other children were taken care of by distant relatives and some were orphans. Children were becoming dehydrated, sick, and vomiting because there was essentially no one to care for them in the rubble of the aftermath.

It was documented that the mothers who gave up their children to the U.S. missionaries were having hysterical fits and going into trance-like depressions, knowing that they would never see their children again. The mothers were told their children would be brought to a safe place, where they would be given medical and immediate attention. Even some of the children who were taken said they knew they were not "orphans" and believed they were going on summer camps or extended holidays.

The problem arises that these children are in fact not orphans and have living parents, even though the parents willingly gave their children up to these U.S. missionaries. The parents of these children were told that they would provide a safe, sheltered place where the children would be taken care of with the appropriate medicines and attention.

The day after Pastor Sainvil rescued 13 children and the missionaries were taking all of the children across the border to the orphanage in Dominican Republic, Sainvil, Silsby and her group were arrested. According to CBS News, the 10 missionaries were charged with kidnapping for trying to remove children without proper documents and bringing them to the Dominican Republic. As of Wed. Feb. 17, 2010, 8 out of the 10 missionaries were freed and returned to the United States. Silsby and Coulter still remain in jail until their hearing on Tue. Feb. 23, 2010.

In an article from CBS News.com, it stated that Sainvil said what she was doing did not constitute adoption "because the parents had the right to go visit their children or take them back when their situation changed."

Silsby told the Associated Press (AP) that the children were orphans or came from distant relatives. She also admitted she did not have the appropriate adoption papers and documents for the children she "rescued."

Some see what Silsby did as "trafficking" of children while the missionaries see this as rescuing and saving abandoned children. In an article by the Associated Press from newsvine.com, Deb Barry, a protection expert at Save the Children stated, "The instinct to swoop in and rescue children may be a natural impulse but it cannot be the solution for the tens of thousands of children left vulnerable by the Haiti earthquake." She also states, "The possibility of a child being scooped up and mistakenly labeled an orphan in the chaotic aftermath of the disaster is incredibly high."

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with a population of 10 million people. To gain a perspective of Haiti's geographic size, it is slightly smaller than the U.S. State of Maryland. With 80% of the people living under the poverty line, the capital Port-au-Prince is the home of 2 million inhabitants. Since Haiti is one of the poorest countries, it is a country that does contain children who are orphans.

According to a source from CBS News.com, it states the problem is that some of the "orphans" end up as sex slaves or are given jobs doing housework in exchange for food and shelter - and sometimes school. It is precisely because of that problem that, after the quake, Haiti's government banned all adoptions except those approved before the disaster.

The banning of all future adoptions causes that percentage of children who do not have parents or are lost and separated from their families will be more susceptible to being kidnapped or sold.

Currently, all of the children rescued by Silsby and her group are located at an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Social Welfare Ministry does not know if all of the 33 children will be released to their parents.