America's Over-Eager Humanitarians in Haiti

Here and here are two news articles about 10 American missionaries who were arrested last week for trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border to the Dominican Republic.  This situation is an interesting example of miscommunication between people from different cultures as well as some clashing between religious and political ideas.  These 10 Americans are being held in a Haitian jail while they are being charged by the Haitian government for child abduction and criminal conspiracy for trying to take these children out of the country without official documents.

Now, while these Americans keep claiming that they had good intentions, what amazes me is the fact that they even attempted to take children across the border without proper papers and without official custody of those children - how can they not think it's illegal?  One of the above articles says that the leader of the missionary group, Ms. Silsby said that:

...she acknowledged that she had no documentation to show that the children were orphans, or permission to remove them from the country, she said they had planned to return to the capital to complete the paperwork. She also said that in the midst of Haiti’s crisis, they thought they did not need the documents.

Why in the world did she think the law would not apply to her situation?  Just because there's a national emergency doesn't give them license to do as they please.  Now of course Ms. Silsby may have been genuine and would have done as she said she would and return to Haiti to complete the paperwork, but no amount of confidence in her own integrity gives her a right to exempt herself from Haiti's national laws on border-crossing.

Another crazy thing is that it was discovered that some of these children still had living parents, they weren't orphans at all!  The parents were told that their children would be educated and cared for for awhile, not put up for adoption.  The articles mention that even one of the children themselves was unaware of the intentions of these Americans; she just thought she was going on a short vacation then would return home.  Clearly, there was some kind of communication gap here, and that's the problem at hand: a lack of understanding on both sides.  I've even heard (see video below) that the organization that these missionaries were from wasn't even officially registered as a non-profit - the 'orphanage' they were planning on taking these children to wasn't even ready and equipped to receive these kids.



Now there's nothing wrong with someone wanting to help out, and I'm all for American humanitarianism, there should be more of it, but you have to be informed about the consequences of your proposed actions and have a thorough understanding of the laws and culture of the country that you're going to.  It becomes a problem when aspiring humanitarians get caught up in a fantasy of personal sacrifice when they *turn on the sarcasm* privileged to be so rich, leave their comfortable lives in their home country to go to the dark places of the world and help those poor unfortunate souls.  Then when someone slaps their benevolent hand, they jump in shock, not comprehending - after all, they were only trying to do a good thing *sarcasm off.*  Some of these humanitarians from rich Western countries never take the time and effort to research and understand the local culture of the people they are trying to reach out to; they think their intentions give them all the authority they need and that their first assumptions (read 'bias') are always correct.  These people are sadly mistaken.

Also important in this case is the idea of law in a time of national emergency or disaster.  Just because this group had money to give didn't entitle them to do what they wanted with these Haitian children; the earthquake did not invalidate the laws governing border crossing. Sure, there may be times when a law may be broken in an emergency, but trafficking children across national borders without legal papers is something completely different from breaking into a grocery store so you don't starve.  Now granted in such a big disaster as the quake in Haiti, things are going to be a mess, official documents may be lost, or these children may never have had them in the first place.  Yet these are things that should have been thought of before this group arrived in Haiti.  Did they pursue all the official outlets to get the children papers?  Did they know for sure that these children were orphans, or had official consent from the parents, and communicated with local orphanages that they were going to take care of the children?  These few news articles don't give all the details, and there could be many misunderstandings at hand in this situation.  Nevertheless, it brings up the important point that when you travel to a foreign country you need to have taken careful consideration of that country's laws and regulations; you can't assume all the same rules will apply as in your home country.

As one article quotes:  “If people want to help children of Haiti,” said Marie-Laurence Jocelin Lassègue, a government spokeswoman, “this is not the way to do it."

Attached to this issue is the recurring and oft-overlooked problem of insensitive and incomprehensive humanitarian aid from the first world to the third, which I will talk about in a future post.