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Haitian "Orphans" Actually Had Parents Alive

By Howard M. Friedman

AP reported yesterday that the 33 Haitian children that Baptist missionaries from the U.S. attempted to take illegally to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic after the recent earthquake (see prior posting) were not orphans. All were all turned over to the missionaries by parents because the parents were promised the children would be kept safely there. Two of the missionaries, leader Laura Silsby and her her assistant, Charisa Coulter, are still being held in jail in Haiti. Silsby after her arrest claimed that the children were either orphans or came from distant relatives. Apparently even before the January 12 earthquake, half of the 380,000 children in Haiti's orphanages have parents who are living. However they are unable to care for the children.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on February 21, 2010 (boomark / email).