Who to trust

The BBC reported THIS STORY today on Haiti children being take across boarders when they are not actually orphans.

Here is just a little exert from it: [full story here]
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The five men and five women, from Idaho-based charity New Life Children's Refuge, were arrested on Friday night.

They were stopped while travelling on a bus with the children on the border with neighbouring Dominican Republic.

The Americans said the youngsters had all lost their parents in the quake.

But George Willeit, a spokesman in Port-au-Prince for SOS Children's Villages, which is now looking after the children, says at least one of them, a little girl, said her parents were alive.

He told journalists the girl said she had believed she was being taken to a boarding school or summer camp.

Mr Willeit said many of the children had been found to be in poor health, hungry and dehydrated.

One of the smallest - just two or three months old - was so dehydrated she had to be taken to hospital, he added.

Haitian authorities said none of the children had documentation or proof they were actually parentless.

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This story brings such sadness to my heart. Such vulnerable children in the face of tragedy, scared, looking for someone to trust, and all they are met with are a group of people essentially abducting them. This is what happens when children are not given a voice - someone should have been listening to that little girl when she tried to say her parents were still alive.

I don't know whether this group was trying to actually help these children, or just make a buck through the adoption process - but it is already a scary world for children - and now they can't even trust the relief workers that come in claiming to offer them aid and protection.