# The missionaries charged with kidnapping **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 8, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159 "2010-02-08T17:24:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/21 "2010-02-08T20:35:38Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > They were taking them to a place where they’d be brainwashed into ritually consuming blood and flesh and told that they were born with with the burden of evil from their ancestors. Considering that about 90% of Haitians are Catholic, they were already inducted into that one. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/22 "2010-02-08T20:59:46Z")
Regardless of their guilt this trial has the capacity to tighten charitable purse strings. It would be better for Haitians if the court declared it a mis-communication and threw the group off the island with a warning of what will occur if it happens again. They don’t have the resources to feed themselves let alone a bunch of foreigners. Imagine a group people capable of generating great amounts of negative publicity at a time when the country is desperately seeking aid. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/23 "2010-02-08T21:10:57Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > I’m also curious about the size of the adoption market for impoverished, likely non-English-speaking, thoroughly black children. They appear to outnumber Madonnas and Angelinas by a wide margin. Well, with this non-profit adoption agency, it still over $20,000 to adopt, so there is obviously a market. > **[Domain Details Page](https://sedo.com/search/details/?partnerid=324561&language=us&domain=dillonadopt.com&origin=sales_lander_15&utm_medium=Parking&utm_campaign=offerpage)** ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/24 "2010-02-08T21:14:20Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Regardless of their guilt this trial has the capacity to tighten charitable purse strings. It would be better for Haitians if the court declared it a mis-communication and threw the group off the island with a warning of what will occur if it happens again. They don’t have the resources to feed themselves let alone a bunch of foreigners. Imagine a group people capable of generating great amounts of negative publicity at a time when the country is desperately seeking aid. Ugh. Throwing criminal cases out because you’re afraid that “generous” westerners won’t keep giving you aid? That’s like the worst possible outcome. But the most probable. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/25 "2010-02-08T21:19:40Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > In what culture are the missionaries from where you can just pull up in a big bus and have a bunch of people give you their children with no paperwork and no strings attached? I’m pretty sure that’s not how things work in the US. Can you imagine if this happened in the US? If a bunch of Mexican missionaries grabbed a busload of kids post-Katrina and tried to take them back to Tiajuana I don’t think they’d get a very sympathetic response. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/26 "2010-02-08T21:21:30Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > Ugh. Throwing criminal cases out because you’re afraid that “generous” westerners won’t keep giving you aid? That’s like the worst possible outcome. > > But the most probable. ☹ I agree that it would be an odious thing to do but in reality the country of Haiti doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone. they’re lucky it didn’t happen earlier in history because there would have been zero help from the outside world and they would be eating the dead. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/27 "2010-02-08T21:25:56Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I agree that it would be an odious thing to do but in reality the country of Haiti doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone. they’re lucky it didn’t happen earlier in history because there would have been zero help from the outside world and they would be eating the dead. Most of the earthquake damage was in Port-au-Prince. One city. Granted, the largest city in the country and the capital, but one city. Haiti is no more “gone” than it was before the earthquake. Government services and functions outside of the capital are unaffected. It’s not like it’s Somalia. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/28 "2010-02-08T21:34:33Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Can you imagine if this happened in the US? If a bunch of Mexican missionaries grabbed a busload of kids post-Katrina and tried to take them back to Tiajuana I don’t think they’d get a very sympathetic response. Thanks for pointing this out. Nefarious intent is open to interpretation, and the actions of this group are really hard t justify unless you work from the assumption that one culture or religion has moral authority over another. How about Canadians stealing babies born without health care? The French taking obese kids and bringing them abroad for a chance at a healthier diet? There have been several stories of people going to Haiti with no real assets or skills, because they felt they had to do more than donate. It just seems so short-sighted and selfish, especially when most if not all of them become drains on resources intended for actual victims. We can’t reward people too stupid to realize someone else may be better suited for a task. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/29 "2010-02-08T22:29:24Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Most of the earthquake damage was in Port-au-Prince. One city. Granted, the largest city in the country and the capital, but one city. Haiti is no more “gone” than it was before the earthquake. Government services and functions outside of the capital are unaffected. It’s not like it’s Somalia. From an economic perspective, the country is gone. They didn’t have much of an infrastructure to begin with and the area most developed is totally destroyed. they only have 1 real airport and even that isn’t saying much considering it’s a single runway with no taxiways. The country didn’t qualify as a 3rd world nation prior to the earthquake. The financial deficits would have to outstrip any tax revenue being generated at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/30 "2010-02-09T01:09:57Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > In what culture are the missionaries from where you can just pull up in a big bus and have a bunch of people give you their children with no paperwork and no strings attached? I’m pretty sure that’s not how things work in the US. Of course not, that’s why Silby had to go to Haiti. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/31 "2010-02-09T01:40:40Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > There was a similar case on NPR a few years ago about a missionary outfit that took kids from some islands in the S. Pacific from their parents with similar claims, and then gave them to US families looking to adopt. Eventually, one of the families found out that their adopted daughters folks were looking her, putting themselves and all of the other well meaning adopters in the awkward position of basically having unknowingly kidnapped their children, and having to decide whether to return them to their old families. > > (sorry for vague details, hopefully somoene with a better memory can fill in the story) Don’t know about the NPR coverage, but there definitely have been other [instances of overzealous missionary adopters](http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/2/5/93653/59697) in the news: > [@](#): > > The whole episode in Haiti is reminiscent of another orphan debacle in the African nation of Chad that the Monitor reported on in 2007. Back then, 16 Europeans from a France-based group called Zoe’s Ark were charged with trying to smuggle 103 children out of eastern Chad in what the charity workers said was an attempt to save orphans affected by the conflict across the border in Sudan’s Darfur region. > > The group tried to circumvent Chadian authorities and fly the children out of the country on a chartered plane. But after it emerged that many of the children were not orphans or from Darfur, locals in Abéché, Chad, began protesting angrily outside the group’s local offices. Western aid groups in the area began to fear for their safety as mistrust of foreigners began to swirl. > > A few months later, six French members of Zoe’s Ark were convicted of attempting to kidnap the 103 children and sentenced to eight years of hard labor and ordered to pay restitution amounting to close to $9 million. […] > > And in 2005, in the aftermath of the tsunami, a Virginia based missionary group airlifted 300 Muslim “orphans” from Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, with the stated goal of raising them in a Christian children’s home and ultimately converting them to Christianity. > > A Virginia-based missionary group said this week that it has airlifted 300 “tsunami orphans” from the Muslim province of Banda Aceh to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where it plans to raise them in a Christian children’s home. > > The missionary group, WorldHelp, is one of dozens of Christian, Muslim and Jewish charities providing humanitarian relief to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian Ocean, taking more than 150,000 lives. > > Most of the religious charities do not attach any conditions to their aid, and many of the larger ones – such as WorldVision, Catholic Relief Services and Church World Service – have policies against proselytizing. But a few of the smaller groups have been raising money among evangelical Christians by presenting the tsunami emergency effort as a rare opportunity to make converts in hard-to-reach areas. > > “Normally, Banda Aceh is closed to foreigners and closed to the gospel. But, because of this catastrophe, our partners there are earning the right to be heard and providing entrance for the gospel,” WorldHelp said in an appeal for funds on its Web site this week. > > The appeal said WorldHelp was working with native-born Christians in Indonesia who want to “plant Christian principles as early as possible” in the 300 Muslim children, all younger than 12, who lost their parents in the tsunami. > > “These children are homeless, destitute, traumatized, orphaned, with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. If we can place them in a Christian children’s home, their faith in Christ could become the foothold to reach the Aceh people,” it said. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/32 "2010-02-09T03:19:08Z")
From the Onion: > [@](#): > > “Look, these people live in some of the most remote parts of the country. They’re semi-educated at best and prone to superstition. They don’t know the language. So we can’t expect them to travel to Haiti and fully comprehend the seriousness of their actions.” I just thought that was funny, and very appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/33 "2010-02-11T16:45:47Z")
[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/11/world/main6197761.shtml](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/11/world/main6197761.shtml) The Haitian judge says he will recommend that they go free. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/34 "2010-02-12T09:04:44Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > I’m also curious about the size of the adoption market for impoverished, likely non-English-speaking, thoroughly black children. There is a significant market for young children from developing countries, irrespective of those children’s colour. The number of healthy/non-disabled white kids available for adoption has plummeted to such a degree that parents looking to adopt are either forced to consider taking on an older or more “problematic” child, or to look to the developing world. The large majority choose the latter. Unfortunately the consequence of this is that there an awful lot of really, really dodgy adoptions going on. The Haitian one is only the best known at the moment, but it’s happening all over the world. See for example a recent UNICEF report about the Vietnamese adoption industry, which found it to be very clearly demand-driven rather than supply-driven. In other words, the more foreign (read Western) parents looking to adopt children from Vietnam, the more “adoptable” children magically appear. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that something’s not right there. Ethiopia is another good example. Getting back to Haiti, I’m sorry that the judge is letting these criminals go. They are “real traffickers”, even if they aren’t intending to force the children into slave labour or prostitution, and an international example should be made out of them. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/35 "2010-02-12T09:08:31Z")
Even if we presume the best of intentions of these people, this really does show that rescue, recovery and aid is best left to those who know what they are doing. Send money and people with skill, not amateurs. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/36 "2010-02-13T21:34:50Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Even if we presume the best of intentions of these people, this really does show that rescue, recovery and aid is best left to those who know what they are doing. > > Send money and people with skill, not amateurs. And there should be enough government people left in the affected area to control who comes into the country. If you show up with nothing but a smile then you go back. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/37 "2010-02-13T21:45:54Z")
[Oops, not so fast!](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100213/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_detained_americans) Looks like there might be a little delay in their release. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/38 "2010-02-14T01:04:22Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [Oops, not so fast!](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100213/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_detained_americans) > Looks like there might be a little delay in their release. Oy. > [@](#): > > The New York Times first reported that authorities in El Salvador are investigating whether Puello is a man suspected of leading a trafficking ring in that country involving Central American and Caribbean women and girls. > > The newspaper reported that police said his picture appeared to match that of Jorge Torres Orellana, who is sought by Interpol on suspicion of crimes against children, people smuggling, trafficking and illegal immigration. And the question about how Silbey might try to make money off this venture has now been answered. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/39 "2010-02-14T01:23:59Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > Oy. > > And the question about how Silbey might try to make money off this venture has now been answered. A Righteous Christian Woman like Laura Silbey dosen’t have to justify her actions to anyone but the Lord!!! (except maybe the Haitian Criminal Justice system, the U.S. State Department, and the Idaho Attorney General) ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159/40 "2010-02-14T01:37:32Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > Oy. > > And the question about how Silbey might try to make money off this venture has now been answered. Except at this point it’s just the suggestion that someone resembles another person on the planet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missionaries-charged-with-kidnapping/528159.md?page=3)