Doug's Blog: Rescue Haiti's Children: A Report on the American Missionaries Now Charged With Kidnapping

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.