[Peace-discuss] Hatian children's parents handed them over, hoping they could find a better life / Native American children are grown now -- what do they say?

[Karen Medina]

[ As the media tells the story, "It has since emerged that the parents
of most of the children are still alive and handed them over in the
hope they could find a better life in the U.S." I say that we have
seen this all before. Maybe the Native Americans can tell it better.
-karen medina ]

Native Americans/First Nations Can Relate To Haiti's Worst Nightmare -
Haitian Parents Facing Their Worst Nightmare: Children Being Stolen
by Monica Davis
It's a parent's worse nightmare: someone steals your child and you
have no idea where your child is. It's bad enough that the Haitian
people have endured a devastating earthquake. Now they are being
targeted by arrogant do-gooders and evil doers as well.

Native American children were taken from their parents and forced into
residential schools hundreds of miles away, where many faced torture,
sexual abuse and death, under the guise of "civilizing them".

Cultural competency often runs in the opposite direction when it comes
to these kinds of cases. Caseworkers, adoption agencies and other
blind do-gooders often assume that any household they choose is better
than the one the of color child has. In this hyper paternalistic view,
white folk know best, no matter what it costs the child's family.

Native Americans are still fighting for information on thousands of
children who "disappeared" into church run residential schools in the
United States and Canada. Rev. Kevin Annett, an activist who broke the
story on residential school abuse 15 years was recently beaten by two
men in Canada for his advocacy on behalf of the survivors of this
atrocity.

Children were stolen from their families under the cover of law,
abused, tortured and killed. All under the guise of being "civilized"
by white missionaries. That many of these children ended up dead, or
as sexual abuse survivors points to an arrogance and evil on the part
of the so-called missionaries that knows no bounds.

Native people know what they are talking about. They have seen evil
with their own eyes. Many of the survivors of these atrocities have
seen children molested, murdered and killed. They have seen sex rings
in operation, organizations which hide behind the authorities which
protect them, and are often complicit in these crimes against
humanity.

Haiti has had a major domestic problem in child trafficking and child
slavery for years. Two years ago, a conference in child slavery in
Haiti noted "the plight of an estimated 173,000 Haitian children
internally trafficked for domestic servitude, known as Restavek (stay
with)."

An organizer of the conference told a reporter that the problem was
serious. Thousands of children whose parents were unable to care for
them, sent them to the cities in the care of strangers, believing that
the strangers could give their children a better life.

Through the Restavek system, parents unable to care for their children
send them to relatives or strangers living in urban areas supposedly
to receive care and education in exchange for housework. But the
reality is a life of hardship and abuse; enslaved by their so called
"hosts", the children seldom attend school.

These children aren't stray animals that people "find and take home."
They are real people, with families--somewhere. They have rights. As
do their native countries.

The situation was bad enough before the quake turned thousands of
children into orphans or displaced persons. Now, it seems, that these
very vulnerable children are now being targeted by arrogant do gooders
and evil doers as well.

The earthquake-generated chaos in Haiti has turned the nation into a
fertile hunting ground for resource pirates and child traffickers. The
economic and institutional chaos, combined with the revelation that
Haiti has massive oil reserves, has put the nation in the cross hairs
of rapacious oil companies, child traffickers and other opportunists.
And, unfortunately, neither the children, nor the government have the
resources to go head to head with the traffickers and energy pirates.

Haiti's Prime Minister told the Associated Press that the missionaries
were no innocents. He said they knew that some of the children weren't
orphans. "It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border
without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live
parents," Bellerive said. "And it is clear now that they knew what
they were doing was wrong."

-------
Below is an excerpt from Renee Sansom-Flood's book, "Lost Bird of
Wounded Knee: Spirit of the Lakota", about her experiences as a Social
Worker.

"But prejudice in its blatant form wasn't the main reason I was
concerned about continuing in my job. I had watched while many Indian
children were placed in foster and adoptive care away from their
tribes. Due to ignorance and lack of funds there were inadequate
services offered to Indian children in foster care, and some were lost
for years in the legal system, lobbed from one foster home to another
like battered tennis balls. Many had been taken from their families
because the social worker, lawyer or judge did not understand Indian
ways.....

One day I went to a local hospital with another social worker. On the
maternity ward, we found a young Lakota mother holding her baby boy.
She had him wrapped up tightly in a warm blanket, and he was asleep.
When the social worker barged in on the mother, she didn't look up. A
nurse came and pulled the curtain around us.

"Are you having trouble finding a place to stay?" The worker began
sympathetically. She gave me a knowing look and she thought the Indian
girl hadn't noticed.

The girl was scared. Without looking, Indians can read body language
like radar. "We just need a ride back to Rosebud," She said softly,
still without looking up.

Now began the barrage of questions, each unconsciously calculated to
destroy the young woman's self-esteem. "How will you raise your child
without money?" the worker asked. "What kind of life can you provide
for him on the reservation? If you really love your boy, you'd give
him a chance in life. We have a long list of good people who can never
have children of their own. They have money, beautiful homes. Your
baby would have everything; a good education, nice clothes, loving
parents, opportunities you can never give him...."

When we got to the state car in the parking lot, I looked back up at
the hospital window. There stood the young Lakota mother, her open
palms on the window above her head. The worker handed me the baby, and
I held him, still looking up at the Lakota girl watching us helplessly
as we drove away with her precious child.

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