Human Predators Stalk Haiti's Vulnerable Kids

[Missizzy]

There's so much irony here, I could cry. It turns out that Laura Silsby, one of the "master-minds" behind this crazy mess is a well-known businesswoman. She owns a company called Personalshopper.com. Yes, you too, can have your very own Haitian orphan. It makes me physically sick. It reminds me far too much of the families who go out and adopt Chihuahuas or Dalmations the day after seeing a Disney film.

http://www.personalshopper.com/jsp/info/About.jsp?content=AW&

“Laura Silsby, founder and CEO of PersonalShopper.com, a leader in the evolution of personalizing the e-commerce experience for women, was named the ‘2006 International Businesswoman of the Year’ by eWomenNetwork......

This honor came as a result of other businesswomen nominating Silsby for her visionary leadership, impressive accomplishments, and strong commitment to helping others.”**

Someone has written a blog post about Ms. Silsby's exploits:

http://www.babylovechild.org/2010/0...ort-au-prince-by-guest-blogger-mike-doughney/

"It’s clear from all the documentation available online that one of the primary people involved with all this is Laura Silsby, the founder and CEO of PersonalShopper.com, an online gift shopping service based in Boise. Through a bit of digging online, mainly on Facebook, its obvious that there are numerous connections between Silsby and the others arrested, including Paul Thompson, the pastor of Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho.

It’s on Thompson’s church website where the “smoking gun” can be found, a document completed on January 19 which outlines the entire plan, for a so-called “rescue mission” to Haiti, to scoop up 100 children, some unspecified portion of them directly off the streets of Port-au-Prince, and to transport them to a temporary headquarters in a newly-rented hotel in Santo Domingo. But the whole document reads like a bit of a pipe dream; it has that feel of a lot of evangelical writing, where the expectations of the writer aren’t quite connected to the physical realities of the planet......."

Much more interesting info at the link.

 

[Missizzy]

And who is paying for all this?

"Interim New Life Children Refuge Location: NLCR is in the process of buying land and building an orphanage, school and church in Magante on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Given the urgent needs from this earthquake, God has laid upon our hearts the need to go now vs. waiting until the permanent facility is built. He has provided an interim solution in nearby Cabarete, where we will be leasing a 45 room hotel and converting it into an orphanage until the building of the NLCR is complete. This interim location will enable us to provide a loving environment for up to 150 children, from infants to 12 years old."

God provided this interim solution? And who is donating it or paying for it? What safety measures are in place? Doctors on site, educators, social workers, lawyers, nannies, clothes, food, medicine? This is getting mighty spendy. Are the good people of the Baptist churches in Idaho still behind this plan? Can I ask how this was to be sustained or do I not want to hear the answer? Please, no. Not a Thai resort idea, please God, no.

While I was not raised Southern Baptist (American, the ones who can dance), I do greatly respect their convention. This is tremendously embarrassing for a huge number of good people. Can someone with some say-so step in and put an end to this ordeal and bring these nuts home. After serving two years of house arrest (so she can maintain her Personalshopper business and repay the country of Haiti for their trouble), then we'll talk.

 

[Missizzy]

I have to stop before I get myself into hot water. All I needed to see that Laura Silsby's Facebook page says that she's a fan of Sarah Palin.

I swear that if Sarah shows up down there in Haiti, with a Haitian baby on her hip, I'm putting my head in the oven. There, I've said it. I'd better go see what the Mohlers and the Texas Serial Rapist are doing to keep my head from exploding. Where's the meds, quick.

 

[i.b.nora]

Detained Americans appear in court, Haitian officials say

By Moni Basu, CNN
February 2, 2010 3:09 p.m. EST

"Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Ten Americans accused of illegally trying to take 33 children out of Haiti appeared in a preliminary hearing with a judge on Tuesday, court officials said.

A list of charges will be drawn up at the hearing, court officials said.

The missionaries say they were just trying to help the children leave the earthquake-stricken country, but Haiti's prime minister has said that the group was kidnapping the children.

Following Tuesday's hearing, the preliminary hearing judge will send the charges to a tribunal judge, court officials said, and the Americans will eventually appear before a tribunal."

more... Actually, this seems to be an updated article from a good one yesterday.

 

[songline]

I did not know about this thread, Lengthy post on Haiti thread.
[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4761837&postcount=654"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - 7.0 Earthquake Hits Haiti Hospital Collapses[/ame]

 

[i.b.nora]

In this article, it mentions a "Jean Sainville", some kind of pastor.

"The Americans had no official paperwork with them when they were stopped at the border with the Dominican Republic. But they say they had permission to take the children from a Haitian pastor, Jean Sainville."

So, is this the 'well known' pastor?


US Baptists to stand trial in Haiti

Note: the title of the article is not what the article is really about.

 

[i.b.nora]

And, another spelling of the name from another article:

"According to information they posted online-- one of the goals of their New Nife Children's Refuge there, is to "provide opportunities for adoption."

Several of the 33 children, now being cared for at an orphanage outside the Capital, it turns out, have parents. A Haitian woman who claims she is the mother of five children now says she was deceived. Also, a 10 year old named Sabrina said she was promised a good school and a vacation, and that her parents could visit her. The group insist they did not plan to adopt out any of the children with parents. And that permission to take them, had come from this man, Haitian Pastor Jean Sainvil, who also lives in the U.S."

I really want to know who this guy is.

Culberth Court Hearing Postponed

This article is from last night. I believe the hearing/s were held today.

 

[Missizzy]

Creole/Haitian names are notoriously misspelled. It is possible that this is the pastor to whom Ms. Silsby was referring. However, he's in the US, not Haiti. And didn't the Baptist group insist yesterday that they had NO plan to place the children for adoption. I wish they'd get their stories straight.

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/22414086/detail.html


"NORCROSS, Ga. -- A Gwinnett County pastor is defending the 10 missionaries who were detained on human trafficking charges in Haiti.

Pastor Jean Sainvil claimed Tuesday that he was the one who gave the missionaries permission to move 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic.

On Friday night, authorities stopped a bus carrying the orphans and missionaries as they tried to cross the border.

“The Americans were not trying to kidnap the children, but they were trying to save those children,” Sainvil said."


Excuse me, who gave Pastor Sainvil permission to make life choices for those children or the families they were taken from? Billy Graham could have said it would be a good idea but that doesn't mean that a bunch of Baptists should go running down there and grab kids and break the law. Ms. Silsby needs to stop passing the buck and accept responsibility for this ill-planned debacle.

In a country where literally hundreds of thousands are suffering, ten people have claimed the headlines for over a week. That's abominable.

You know, I can almost wrap my mind around Pastor Sainvil's story until the last sentence:

“There was no reason for them to be detained as kidnappers or people who are trafficking children. They were people from a church, not from the streets,” he said.


Just when I thought I could stop worrying, I read that!! We're from the church, we're here to help you.

 

[Missizzy]

If this has already been posted, I will remove it but I scanned the thread and didn't see it. It's a written "plan of attack" concerning the New Life Children's Refuge. Hmmm. Didn't see this a week ago. You don't think someone could have pre-dated this, do you? Couldn't be.

http://www.esbctwinfalls.com/clientimages/24453/pdffiles/haiti/nlcrhaitianorphanrescuemission.pdf


Get your notebook and pen ready so you can write down your list of questions. You'll have many, no doubt.

 

[i.b.nora]

Glad you found that article, Izzy. Wow, Norcross, Georgia, eh?

He speaks of the New Life Children’s Refuge (Inc.) as if it is his organization, however, we know the name and incorporation of it was applied for by Laura Silsby in the State of Idaho on November 25, 2009. It is currently registered to Laura's home address. Also, while the application said it intended to be a 'not for profit', I believe the application for that status is seperate and takes awhile to be granted. Someone correct me if I am wrong about that.

Jean Sainvil is not listed as being on the Board of Directors of the New Life Children's Refuge, Inc. There are three people listed as the Board of Directors: Laura Silsby, (The ringleader), Charisa Coulter, (the live-in nanny of Silsby's own children), and a third person who is, I believe Silsby's sister and is thus far not implicated in this caper.

"Sainvil said the goal of his organization, New Life Children’s Refuge, was to move the orphans to a nicer orphanage in the Dominican Republic, which had a soccer field, classrooms and a swimming pool.

Sainvil said after last month’s earthquake, some parents signed over their children in hopes that they would have a better life outside the country.

“I got their phone numbers, their names, their children’s names, their children’s date of birth,” he said."

and as you highlighted:

"“There was no reason for them to be detained as kidnappers or people who are trafficking children. They were people from a church, not from the streets,” he said."

I am not buying it. Still wondering who this guy really is, and am stupefied by the utter audacity of these people, all of them.

If they do get out of Haiti, I think their Passports should be cancelled forever, and they should be put on the "No Fly" list.

 

[i.b.nora]

If this has already been posted, I will remove it but I scanned the thread and didn't see it. It's a written "plan of attack" concerning the New Life Children's Refuge. Hmmm. Didn't see this a week ago. You don't think someone could have pre-dated this, do you? Couldn't be.

http://www.esbctwinfalls.com/clientimages/24453/pdffiles/haiti/nlcrhaitianorphanrescuemission.pdf

Get your notebook and pen ready so you can write down your list of questions. You'll have many, no doubt.

I do believe it was there when this whole thing first 'broke'. I will look at it to see if it seems to be the same document. Those people whose blogs you found last night, they had quotes from it as well in their postings.

 

[i.b.nora]

Yes, that's the same document that has been there now for quite awhile.
Its like a blueprint for a bank heist. Of course church people don't engage in nefarious activities.

 

[Missizzy]

In some ways I feel better knowing they had a "plan" but then I want to scream and say, "Who thought this would work?" This is a mainstream, well attended church. Didn't an attorney or a social worker or a state employee say, "Wait a minute......"

I actually feel badly for Pastor Sainvil as I feel as if he's being used by a woman "on a mission". I am bothered by his pompousness, though. If I were in the Haitian government, I would want these people out of my country NOW but with the assurance from the US State Dept. that they will be prosecuted.

If the US ever wants to have the adoption pipeline opened again with Haiti, they'd better prosecute this group. This will not be soon forgotten. I just cannot get over how blatantly Silsby has lied and changed her story. I don't deal well with lying.

 

[Ada]

I'm so glad I'm not alone in my outrage :furious:

 

[Texas Mist]

In some ways I feel better knowing they had a "plan" but then I want to scream and say, "Who thought this would work?" This is a mainstream, well attended church. Didn't an attorney or a social worker or a state employee say, "Wait a minute......"

I actually feel badly for Pastor Sainvil as I feel as if he's being used by a woman "on a mission". I am bothered by his pompousness, though. If I were in the Haitian government, I would want these people out of my country NOW but with the assurance from the US State Dept. that they will be prosecuted.

If the US ever wants to have the adoption pipeline opened again with Haiti, they'd better prosecute this group. This will not be soon forgotten. I just cannot get over how blatantly Silsby has lied and changed her story¸¸. I don't deal well with lying.

Silsby strikes me as "the end justifies the means" type....In her mind, everything she does is perfectly OK....her calling, her mission -- just in case anybody asks.

 

[i.b.nora]

Anderson Cooper is back and just had about a 15 minute report about Laura Silsby and her posse. Karl Penhault (spl?) has been investigating. Tonight, he talked about some translators who worked with the group and what they had to say about a Haitian policeman and a Dominican Republic policeman. I imagine it will repeat at the top of the hour.

Nothing tonight about the 'well known' Haitian Pastor Jean Sainvil (who seemed to get back to his cozy digs in Norcross, Georgia before the abductors had even gotten to the border). He was the one who, supposedly his orphanage had collapsed so Laura and her group were rescuing the kids from his orphanage. Oh wait, that story has changed.

As I have said, I don't like these people, I don't trust these people, or anything they say. Laura is a proven liar. I don't believe anything she or any of her associates in either Haiti or in Idaho have to say.

Just because Haiti as a country is dirt poor and currently in chaos, it doesn't mean that it is open season on stealing their kids. It stinks.

 

[i.b.nora]

Oh Brother!!! Another good article! More lies and deceptions.

Parents Tell of Children They Entrusted to Detained Americans

By GINGER THOMPSON and SHAILA DEWAN
Published: February 2, 2010

"And while the Americans said they did not intend to offer the children for adoption, the Web site for their orphanage makes clear that they intended to do so.

In addition to providing a swimming pool, soccer field and access to the beach for the children, the group, known as the New Life Children’s Refuge, said it also planned to “provide opportunities for adoption,” and “seaside villas for adopting parents to stay while fulfilling the requirement for 60-90 day visit.”

An empty house in an unfinished subdivision in Meridian, Idaho, is listed on the nonprofit incorporation papers filed in Idaho for the organization. The address was listed in November on papers Laura Silsby filed to establish New Life as a nonprofit. Two days after they were filed, records show, Ms. Silsby sold the house at a substantial loss.

Signs in front of the house on Tuesday offered it for sale as a foreclosed property."

and . . .

"The missionaries’ account of their activities in the Dominican Republic was hard to verify. They said they had been in the process of buying land and building a complex in Magante, on the north coast of the country.

Mayor Aniceto Balbuena said that he had been approached by two women about building an orphanage, but that the idea had fallen through because of a legal entanglement."

much more . . .

This part is too good to pass up, another 'Pastor':
"Several parents denied accusations that they had been given money for their children, or that they wanted their children to be put up for adoption.

They trusted the Americans, they said, because they arrived with the recommendation of a Baptist minister, Philippe Murphy, who runs an orphanage in the area. A woman who answered the door at Mr. Murphy’s house said he had gone to Miami. But she also said that he did not know anything about the Americans.

Ms. Valmont wondered whether her trust in Mr. Murphy had been misplaced."

 

[Melly53]

After doing a bit of research I can understand why the idea that "they are a church group" trying to help might not mean much to the Haitian government, and I can't say as I blame them.

http://www.windsorstar.com/life/Missionary+priest+faces+charges/2131759/story.html

A former local priest, who founded a mission to aid the poor in Haiti, has been arrested in the Dominican Republic and is awaiting extradition to Canada to face charges of sexually abusing teenage Haitian boys.
John Duarte, 43, former leader of the Windsor-based Hearts Together For Haiti, was picked up Tuesday in the city of Puerto Plata by Dominican authorities on a warrant issued in Canada, according to a statement released by the Dominican Immigration Office and National Drug Control Directorate.


Or this story:


http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/...Fueled-Mans-Sex-Trips-to-Haiti--59662657.html

Federal authorities have charged Doug Perlitz, a man with strong ties to Fairfield University, with sexually abusing several boys at the Haitian school he founded for disadvantaged youths – and they allege he enticed the boys with cash collected by a local religious leader.

 

[Missizzy]

I will post this again as some might have missed it. We adopted from Haiti in 1989. We worked through a Christian agency based in the US but had our homestudy done by a private agency in the SF Bay Area. Once a homestudy is completed and your appropriate paperwork is done for the country of your choice, the social worker will search for a child and present you with possibilities.

We were matched with a three year old little girl who had lost her mother to AIDS. The entire process took about 10 months and cost $10,000 (not including travel). E was born in Cité Soleil (the poorest slum in the Western Hemisphere) and had been taken by an American nurse to live with a Christian foster family (a minister's family, I believe) and then later to a number of orphanages in Fermathe--the hills above Haiti.

We flew in and met our daughter at the Port au Prince airport. She was handed to us by the couple handling the adoption. We had three sons by birth at home and had twice traveled to South Korea to adopt. We were "old hands" at this. However, we knew something was very wrong with our little girl the moment we met her. Her eyes her absolutely "dead" and she seemed almost drugged. We took her to stay at the Ibo Lele Hotel in Port au Prince (only one other person, a drug smuggler, was staying in this incredibly gorgeous old hotel where Ernest Hemingway and Marilyn Monroe once stayed). We really believed that she was just in shock.

We spent a fascinating two weeks in Haiti and traveled to many of the orphanages which had some connection to this group. We had brought duffel bags of supplies and medicines with us and got to meet many many children and their nannies. This was our first experience in a third world country and we were awestruck by so much--the beauty of the people, the stunning views of the sea, and the abject poverty. We walked the streets of Port au Prince with a "guide" and felt reasonably safe, but always eyeing the men with machine guns in the back of trucks. We felt, however, as if we were carrying along a "shell" of a child. E was not responding to anything.

One thing that stuck with me was the feeling of the orphanages. Every single one, without exception was run be a sixty something couple from the US. We were told over and over that these people were retired pastors or missionaries. I was far more naive then than I am now but I distinctly remember telling my husband that I worried about the children we met. E would stiffen her little body as we entered a "home". Everyone seemed to be trying to put on a happy face for us but every single male director I met totally creeped me out. The only time E ever clung to me was when we were in the presence of these men. We must have met five of them. The nannies were loving and vibrant and the children sang and danced. There was just this odd air of something not being "right".

We came home with our beautiful little girl and she honestly never "woke" up except to fly into five hour long rages and to try to grab every knife in the house and make stabbing motions at people and pets. She rocked, she spun, she penetrated herself with forks. We had her assessed and no one seemed to know what was wrong. The diagnoses of "attachment disorder and PTSD" were unknown to me then. We tried everything we could think of, hiring a translator, going to all sorts of therapy, prayer, and nothing worked.

After two years, we reluctantly allowed the agency to place the child in a highly specialized home. I dressed her up in her prettiest dress and gave her all the doll clothes I'd made for her along with her special doll. We had a special dinner and told her about her adventure....nothing. We all stood on the porch and wept. She never turned around. The worker told us later that she took off the clothes and left them and the doll in the car. She had to wrap her in a coat.

E finally ended up growing up in a group home for DD children. The translator had taped some of her "stories" which she screamed when she was raging. She helped us to understand some of the things she tried to tell us. The "white old men" had "poked" her and hurt her. She had been locked in a closet for days at the pastor's house and beaten as she was thought to have wicked spirits. Over and over, she was sent to one or the other of the orphanages to be hurt by the "white old men". It broke our hearts. We couldn't believe that all this could have happened to such a tiny child. We hadn't been able to figure out why she used the word "machete" for penis. We'd let her bathe with a little neighbor boy a couple of times and she'd pointed at his penis and screamed that word. We learned that was the knife the Tonton Macoute used to terrorize people and somehow she related it to rape.

One day, about 6 months after she'd left, a former missionary called us. We'd met him in Haiti but he'd parted ways with the Christian group and wanted to tell us the real story of our child's history. E had been born in Cité Soleil and her mother had died of AIDS. That was about the only part of the story which was true. The American nurse had ferried this little girl all over Port au Prince. We've never been able to figure out if she was complicit in her abuse or unknowing. For whatever reason, the nurse would drop her off at one orphanage for a few days, pick her up and take her to another. The man told us that she was used for nothing more than a sex toy for the older men. The Haitian pastor who housed her did beat her and locked her in a closet. Because she'd been raped, the pastor's family felt she was dirty and so they scapegoated her in front of the other children. They beat her, made her stay naked, forced her to eat bugs, forbade her water, and tortured her in ways I can't even type. We were absolutely devastated. Our entire family had suffered with her for two years trying to unlock her secrets and they were vile.

We've never forgotten her and always feel as if the lessons we learned from her helped us go on to parent the other children in our family. But we've never since encountered such a broken little girl.

I know hundreds, if not thousands, of wonderful and healthy children have come to the US from Haiti. I know they will again. I consider our experience to be unique (oh, I hope). I truly think that the American nurse thought she was doing the right thing by not telling us the real story. She must have thought that love would heal the child. Well, those were wounds which love could not heal.

I tell this story as I need to bear witness to the fact that children can and do suffer horrific abuse while under the care of well-seeming Christian groups. There was no oversight and oversight equals safety. This is why this current case bothers me so terribly. I'm sorry for the rant but I wanted everyone to hear "my side of the story". I do NOT trust the intentions of Silsby and her group. I'm tremendously pleased these children were snatched back from her greedy hands. Haiti is a dichotomy and is going to require massive amounts of assistance but stealing children is not the answer.

 

[Melly53]

Hugs to you Missizzy. You did your best but some children are just too broken to ever be able to recover. Thank you for sharing your story. It is rather ironic that you posted your story tonight because earlier I was doing some research on child and sex trafficking. Their was a line in one of the stories by a perpetrator who said that the really little children were too young to remember what was done to them. Research has proven this to be wrong as exemplified in your case. These children carry their scars for the rest of their lives. No child should ever be subjected to sexual abuse at any age!!!!!