Haitian Kidnapping Arrests Reflect Adoption Chaos

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Feb. 2) -- A group of American activists remained in jail today on charges they intended to traffic 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. The Americans claim the children were given to them by relatives in hopes of providing them with a better life abroad, but Haitian government officials have insisted that in striking such unauthorized deals, both the Americans and the Haitian families contravene Haitian law.

The 10 Americans were arrested Friday for allegedly attempting to take the children into the Dominican Republic and then to the United States without the Haitian government's authorization.They remain in jail in Port-au-Prince while American and Haitian officials attempt to work out the case's still-murky details. The Associated Press reported that an agreement may be in the offing to allow the 10 to be tried in the U.S., since Haiti's justice system doesn't have an intact facility for a trial.

Most of the accused are affiliated with the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, including pastor Paul Thompson, 43, and his 19-year-old son, Silas. The children, some of whom showed signs Friday of malnourishment and dehydration, are being cared for at an Austrian-run orphanage in the capital.
The arrests came amid growing concern among Haitian citizens and government officials that the Jan. 12 quake, which killed more than 200,000 people by the last estimate, has given rise to a burgeoning child trafficking industry. The notion weighs heavily on Haitian parents concerned they can no longer care for their children amid the ruin.

In makeshift refugee camps in Port-au-Prince, where water and food relief remains either scarce or nonexistent, some desperate mothers have reportedly offered their children to aid workers and journalists, hoping to save their offspring from the ensuing hardship and starvation.

"This is obviously a very difficult issue. ... Women are going up to strangers and saying, 'Take my children so they can have a better life,' " said Susana Barciela, policy director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, which helps Haitians and other immigrants with legal issues stemming from immigration. Though the group does not deal in adoption cases, FIAC does work with unaccompanied minors entering the United States.

The situation has spawned numerous rumors, some likely based in fact, that child traffickers are prowling the camps hoping to snatch up unwanted or untended children for sale to black-market adoption rackets, or worse, into the sex trade. There has even been talk of nefarious plots to round up kids to harvest their organs for transplant patients oversees.

In Haiti today, it is often difficult to discern where fact meets fiction. And since the quake, many Haitians are inclined to believe the worst.

Concerns over child abductors masquerading as adoptive parents prompted the Haitian government to ban the transport of minors out of the country unless the adopting parents have full authorization of Haitian officials. As a result, the U.S. State Department reversed an earlier decision to allow all adoptees to enter the U.S. regardless of what stage a child might be in the often-difficult adoption process.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the courts could be "more lenient" with the 10 accused child traffickers if it's determined their intentions were truly altruistic, The Associated Press reported. He added, however, that those incarcerated "knew what they were doing was wrong."

The arrest of the 10 Americans came as little surprise to an American missionary couple who say they have spent years dealing with corrupt Haitian officials seeking additional bribes during every phase of the adoption process.

Jennifer and Jarod Ebenhack spent the better part of eight years trying to adopt a child in Haiti. They moved to the country in 2002 to work with orphaned children and those whose parents couldn't afford to care for them.

"It's sounds to me that (the 10 American suspects in Haitian custody) might have put their hearts before their heads," said Jennifer Ebenhack, who with her husband returned to their home in Kansas 10 days after the earthquake with three Haitian adoptees in tow: twin 11-year-old boys, Richard and Ricardo, and 8-year-old Daphne.

Ebenhack said she is delighted to add their new children to her existing American family, but she cautions friends who ask her about pursuing Haitian children for adoption.

"We have to tell people that want to adopt from Haiti that we don't recommended it because of all the corruption and the wait," she said, adding that the Haitian director of one American-administered orphanage she declined to name was bilking prospective parents out of thousands of dollars to "facilitate" adoptions that were often several years in the making.

If that weren't enough, the prospect of possibly joining the 10 Americans sitting in a Haitian jail could very well convince even the most compassionate would-be parents to seek adoptive children elsewhere.