Recently, 10 americans have been accused of kidnapping 33 Haitian children and trying to sneak them out to the Domincan Republic. The stunning part of this story is that these 10 americans are Baptist Missionaries who claim that their intentions were to “provide the children with shelter and care.” They were stopped on January 29th at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Shortly after, the missionaries failed to show the officials papers that proved legal custody of the children and on top of that, the officials also discovered that some of the children were not orphans at all.
The Haitian press, after discovering what happened, began portraying these missionaries as human traffickers and criminals. However, some of parents of the 33 children admitted to AP that they “willingly handed over their children to the Americans because they felt they were unable to care for them.” Right now, these missionaries are most likely to be tried in Haiti and it will most likely be up to Haitian authorities to judge them. However, it is also likely that their name will be cleared because of their roles as baptist missionaries.This is an international case though. So I doubt that anyone could really predict what the Haitians authorities’ decision would be.
I believe this case has the potential to become controversial if given enough attention from the mass media. On one hand you have American Baptist Missionaries who claim that their intentions were to look after the children and their well being. Any person would be able to see that these missionaries werent trying to kidnap the children. Why would they? I dont think they have a valid reason to kidnap them. However, they do have all the reason provide shelter and care for the children, and I’m sure that is what they were trying to do. On the other hand, you have Haitian authorities who think that these Missionaries were trying to kidnap the Haitian children. Personally, I think the Haitians have blwon the whole case out of proportion. I think they have misunderstood the missionaries intentions. If Haitian authorities decide to prosecute them to the full extent of their law, each kidnapping count would carry a sentence of 5 to 15 years. On that note, I believe that the Haitian authorities should slow down and take another look at all the facts before prosecutuing the Missionaries
