On the ground in Haiti, Christian orphan relief workers and missionaries are experiencing opposition from UNICEF, an international abortion provider, and formal opponent to American adoptions of Haitian children.

Step One in UNICEF’s anti-adoption strategy was to attempt to confound the huge outpouring of compassion and adoption interest by the international community, by voicing their concerns and opposition. Step Two was to politicize the capture of ten American missionaries transporting Haitian orphans over the border to the Dominican Republic, by mounting a media campaign to raise concerns about sex trafficking. Given the tremendous financial input of the United Nations, and their massive presence in Haiti, it is understandable why the Haitian government has often been in lock-step with UNICEF priorities.

Now many reports are surfacing from within the American medical community on the ground in Haiti that the prosecution of these American missionaries and the numerous charges of sex trafficking floating in the media, has created a chilling effect on the American volunteer community.

The New York Times reports that:

“Private medical evacuations of critically injured Haitian children to the United States for treatment have largely stopped because aid workers, doctors and government officials are worried about being accused of kidnapping if they transport the children without first getting paperwork that is slow to arrive or is unavailable.

Before 10 Americans were arrested trying to take children out of Haiti late last month, the largest pediatric field hospital in Haiti was airlifting 15 injured children aboard private flights to the United States each day.

But since the arrests, it has been able to evacuate only three children on private flights to American hospitals, according to Elizabeth Greig, the field hospital’s chief administrative officer, who has been in charge of trying to get the necessary Haitian and American approval.

At least 10 other children have died or become worse while waiting to be airlifted out of the country, she said. Dozens of children are in critical need of care, and there has been no shortage of American hospitals or pilots willing to take them.

But before being permitted to evacuate the children, some doctors said they were now being asked by American and Haitian officials for documents proving that the children were orphans or that the adult traveling with them was a parent — a challenging task considering that many residents’ birth certificates and other records remained buried under the rubble.

“They’re all at risk of dying, and none of these children should still be here in Haiti,” said Dr. Shayan Vyas, an American pediatrician changing an IV at the pediatric field hospital, which is based here at the Port-au-Prince airport and handles most of the private pediatric airlifts out of Haiti. The hospital is run by Medishare, a Miami-based charity, and a coalition of hospitals tied to the University of Miami.”

And the implications sometimes mean that the children will simply die.

“Everything has slowed down, and most pilots are backing out of these medical missions with kids,” said Scott Dorfman, a pilot from Atlanta who has flown 50 flights since the earthquake, moving supplies, doctors and patients.

He said he planned on flying a critically ill Haitian baby to an American hospital this week even though he was nervous about it.

“No matter what, I’m not taking off until I know we have those papers in hand,” he said. “If it means the patient doesn’t go, that’s what it means.”

Adding to the list of problems, Ms. Greig argued, the American Customs officials who issue the so-called medical parole forms allowing children to be evacuated have sometimes failed to coordinate with the pilots who need completed forms in hand before they can take off.

Read more here.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 9, 2010 | Permalink

Rescue Haiti’s Children: The Rescue of an Orphan from Douglas Phillips on Vimeo.

This is one of the most heartwarming stories of our trip. This is the story of a little boy whose mother died while saving him. For two days he held the dead body of his mother under the rubble, and the pressure of her head against his arm ultimately gave rise to the need to amputate it. His father, mother, brothers, and sisters all dead, he was brought to us for assistance by the community leaders of the devastated town. God be praised, today he is in the care of Christians at an orphanage where he will receive love and care, and perhaps he will be adopted by a Christian family.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 8, 2010 | Permalink

The trash in this image is government paperwork. The giant machine was one of two, maybe three of its kind we were able to identify within a perimeter of one-half mile around the capital. It will take months, maybe more than a year of hard work just to clear the debris and recover the corpses. In the meantime, a question for the Haitian government is this: Will the destruction of the bureaucracy open the door for true humanitarian efforts on the behalf of the poor and needy by cutting the red tape and allowing children to be adopted by qualified American families, or will children be allowed to suffer further as Haiti seeks to rebuild its corrupt and draconian bureaucracy. To watch my video report on the mess, and the mountain of government paperwork from destroyed buildings accumulating on the streets, click here.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 8, 2010 | Permalink

Rescue Haitis Children: The Mountain of Paper from Douglas Phillips on Vimeo.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 8, 2010 | Permalink

Before

After

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 8, 2010 | Permalink

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 8, 2010 | Permalink

The Prime Minister of Haiti has just announced that 212,000 bodies have been recovered.

“We have over 200,000 (dead). The last number I received from my services was 212,000 people that were collected on the streets and different places,” Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN from Haiti’s devastated capital Port-au-Prince.

But I believe that we can expect to see this number increase significantly, perhaps double. Here is why:

As my team and I with Rescue Haiti’s Children have travelled through the vast area destroyed by the January 12 earthquake, we have surveyed a good deal of the territory within an hour-and-a-half around the capital. We have seen that only the smallest fraction of the buildings are being touched by excavation and recovery teams.

In addition to the TWO MILLION homeless people dominating the landscape, one thing is abundantly clear—MOST of the tens of thousands of buildings affected by the earthquake have had little or no work done on them to recover bodies trapped deep inside. There simply are not enough machinery and crews, and the demolished Haitian government which has lost 80% of its infrastructure is not capable of bringing this mission to completion any time in the near future. It may be many months before even a quarter of the buildings are cleared of bodies. When all is said and done, we may see a body count closer to a half a million.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 8, 2010 | Permalink

Pictured above: A classroom painting I pulled out of the wreckage of a building where the bodies of more than fifty children remain unrecovered, under the cinderblocks.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 8, 2010 | Permalink

In this devastated community, more than 75% of the town was destroyed. Christian pastors play a key role in the Haitian community, and many of these pastors lost their lives here. I met with surviving leaders in a refugee tent community near the hospital to determine their specific needs for food and medical help.

Joshua talks with some of our new friends and shares news.

I was impressed that they had organized themselves such that they knew the exact number of babies, individuals, and families.

This little girl was happy to have a candy bar to eat.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 7, 2010 | Permalink

The other day, the Lord gave us a huge opportunity to deliver supplies to a hard-hit portion of Haiti, and rescue one orphan amputee who needed immediate help. We were facing several real and potential difficulties including a stuck truck at the bottom of the hill (pictured above) I tweeted a request for help, and reiterated this on Facebook. The response was immediate and overwhelming. Many of you wrote that you were immediately praying for us. I want to thank you so much. God heard your prayers.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 7, 2010 | Permalink

In a world without much electricity and essentially no Internet, one has to be resourceful. We travelled to Haiti with a portable satellite uplink that has allowed us to report from the field. It is cumbersome and very slow, but it has allowed me to post the links and videos. Over the last week I have posted some of these blogs in the morning or evening, from the second story of an orphanage in the vicinity of a dear Haitian family that has allowed us to share their home. The little orphan girls and boys love to see the pictures and watch the news reports on my computer as I type, and usually take it upon themselves to braid my hair for me. Some of you have expressed an interest to see an image or two of this. With a little fear and trepidation, here goes.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 6, 2010 | Permalink

If you have been watching this blog, you have seen my video report from the streets of Port Au Prince on the politicized and improper treatment of the American missionaries seeking to help Haitian orphans and presently charged with kidnapping. Rescue Haiti’s Children has been one of the only news sources to explain the connection between the pro-abortion, anti-adoption tactics of UNICEF to raise charges that adoptions can lead to sex trafficking as means of shutting down American adoptions from Haiti in this time of crisis, and of the influence that UNICEF has over the Haitian government. You have also read my assessment of the decision to single out these missionaries for prosecution at this time: that most judges are dead, the court buildings are destroyed, murderers and rapists are in the streets, children are in dire need of help, and the Haitian government is in ruins, thus it is monumentally improper.

While the actions of the Christians were imprudent, there never has been any evidence of sex trafficking, kidnapping, or any of the trumped-up charges that have been making headlines. Furthermore, the prioritization of this ridiculous prosecution by the Haitian government is a slap in the face to the many Christians who have poured out their lives and millions of dollars on behalf of Haiti’s children. You can view my report and read my comments here.

Now Geraldo Rivera offers this clear, strong, accurate, and helpful report. You must watch this. He does not mention the UNICEF connection, but he hits most of the points accurately.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 6, 2010 | Permalink

Before the January 12 earthquake, Haiti was a country filled with orphans. That number has increased substantially. The first orphanage we visited in Haiti was also the best we have seen. Run by Pastor Fritz, this amazing Christian outreach does its very best to be mother, father, and pastor to the fatherless. When I first visited this orphanage, there were just over seventy orphans. Today there are more than one hundred and ten.

Every day, new children arrive off the street. Pastor Fritz told me that on Thursday, fifteen new children were brought into the care of the orphanage. Of course, with little very space and even less money, there is a finite number of children that can be taken in. Somehow, they have managed to accommodate all of the children. How can any be turned away? But this important work needs help, and they need it now. Furthermore, we are praying the God will put it on the heart of American Christian families to begin the process of reaching out to these children through adoption. These children desperately need Christian families to call home.

Thanks to the generous help of all of you who have supported Vision Forum Ministries’ Rescue Haiti’s Children, yesterday I was able to give directions to my staff to wire $5,000 from America to this orphanage. We hope to give more in the days and weeks to come as God provides. Thanks to all of you who are helping Vision Forum MInistries rescue Haiti’s children!

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 6, 2010 | Permalink

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 6, 2010 | Permalink

Rescue Haiti’s Children: Update on Missionaries Held Prisoners from Douglas Phillips on Vimeo.

A Summary of My Present Thoughts on the Missionary Imprisonment and Charges:

1. Eighty percent of the Haitian government is dead including most of the judges. The court buildings are in ruins. There is real crime on the streets. And yet these missionaries have been singled out for a public censure. They are both the first and the only people to be run through the rag-tag, post quake court system. This is a purely political move because of the intense pressure of UNICEF and the Hollywood crowd that has descended on Port Au Prince to shut down adoptions. The official position of international abortion promoter UNICEF is opposition to American adoption of Haitian orphans.

2. Under the circumstances in Haiti, the actions of the missionaries were unwise and imprudent. There are many great adoption relief works in Haiti that work round the clock to get Haitian orphans into the hands of loving Christian families. They are working within the system, painstakingly, to follow the rules and get these children rescued. The process is painfully frustrating. While it is understandable that the Baptist missionaries wanted to provide immediate help in a desperate situation, their actions have harmed the larger effort.

3. That being said, the charges of kidnapping are misguided. It is now said that because a child had a parent, they were kidnapping the children. Americans unfamiliar with Haiti may be persuaded by such a charge, but those on the ground here know it is false. Thousands of single parents have relinquished and/or abandoned their children here in Haiti. The fact that some of the children brought into the DR have a living parent does not mean these missionaries were kidnapping the children. It appears that the facts are that the children were either orphans in deed (no parents), or economic orphans who were given to the missionaries by a surviving parent for rescue. These missionaries certainly were not kidnapping children from the parents. The orphanages are filled with economic orphans—children whose parents have formally abandoned their children for the purpose that others would care and adopt them because the surviving birth parent(s) are destitute. If these missionaries are kidnappers, then what will be said of the thousands of relief workers who have accepted economic orphans for care. The issue here is crossing the border without the proper paperwork, not stealing children.

4. It was a good move on the part of the prosecutor to drop the charge of “trafficking.” There never was evidence that this was at issue. It became an issue because of the politicization of Haiti’s injured children by actors like Sean Penn and organizations like UNICEF.

5. There are many priorities Haiti needs to focus on. This is not one of them. This is an issue that should have been dealt with simply. These missionaries had improper paperwork. the issue should have been dealt with at that level. Instead, this has become a purely political issue. The generous thing to do would be to release the Christians and let Haiti get back to the business of helping children who are in a desperate and life-threatening situation.

Posted by Doug Phillips on February 5, 2010 | Permalink