Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Playthings For the Rich and Powerful

UN has these sex abuse cases all over the world and here is another example, using French charities this time.

"Journalist criticizes French charity charged with abducting children, but defends intentions" by Elizabeth Ryan/Associated Press November 6, 2007

PARIS - A journalist who accompanied French charity workers charged with kidnapping 103 African children criticized the group's methods yesterday, and his documentary showed the workers making little effort to verify the youngsters were orphans from Darfur.

Seventeen Europeans - including nine French citizens - were arrested in Chad on Oct. 25 when the Zoe's Ark charity was stopped from flying the children to Europe. Marc Garmirian told French radio the aid workers were not child traffickers.

Garmirian's documentary, aired Sunday on French television channel M-6, showed one charity worker haphazardly screening children brought by tribal elders to the group's center in eastern Chad. Speaking through translators, Emilie Lelouch did not request details or ask for even the most basic documentation or verification. Asked if she could be mistaken on basic facts - such as whether the children were Chadian or Sudanese or whether they were orphans - she readily acknowledged she could be wrong.

When Garmirian asked if the group was concerned about violating international laws, Lelouch said: "What laws?"

In other scenes in the documentary, the charity workers wrapped the children's heads and limbs in gauze bandages, dousing some of them with iodine to make them look, in the words of one worker, like "war casualties."

Can you believe anything you see on your tv screen anymore, readers?

Mine is not on
.