going missing

Those conspiracy theorists...

You see, this is why people stick with trusted news sources, like ABC news. ABC news brings this disturbing report that some Haitian children have gone missing from hospitals. UNICEF suspects these children may have been fed into an international trafficking ring.

United Nations officials say children have gone missing from hospitals in Haiti since the devastating January 12 earthquake, raising fears of trafficking for adoption abroad. "We have documented around 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals and not with their own family at the time," said UNICEF adviser Jean Luc Legrand. "UNICEF has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti that existed already beforehand.

"Unfortunately, many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption market."

An ADOPTION ring! That's right. Orphaned children might be smuggled out of desperate, ravaged Haiti to be given loving homes with white people. Of course that doesn't quite explain why the children disappear from hospitals, does it.

Here's the little faux-outrage politically correct bullshit argument that I'm sure somebody somewhere will go running with: This is outrageous. Surely in every single instance, the people must have only the purest of intentions. But that does not mean they can take these poor children away without following the legal procedures. Even if they only want to save them.

And here is the matching argument for the other foot: This is outrageous. Why should these children be left to die for lack of care and good homes when wonderful people can take them out of that hell right now and give them wonderful homes? Leave these good people alone they are only trying to help.

That controversy oughta keep a few people busy for a while...

The agency said it had warned countries during the past week not to step up adoptions from Haiti in the immediate wake of the quake. However several are fast-tracking adoption procedures already under way, including Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States. Mr Legrand said the situation was similar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Asia five years ago.

Trafficking networks were springing into action immediately after the disaster and taking advantage of the weakness of local authorities and relief coordination "to kidnap children and get them out of the country". Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said child enslavement and trafficking in Haiti was "an existing problem and could easily emerge as a serious issue over the coming weeks and months".

The UN mission in Haiti has stepped up surveillance of roads, UNICEF officials said. Mr Legrand said there was separate but only anecdotal evidence of people taking children by road to the neighbouring Dominican Republic and loading children on to planes. "We have seen over the past years many children being taken out of the country without any legal procedure," he said. "This is going on. This is happening now. We are starting to have the first evidence of that, this is unquestionable."

He was unable to give details on the 15 missing children or their condition or clearly connect the anecdotal observations in Haiti's chaos with trafficking.

The cases were documented by social workers and by partner non-governmental organisations working for UNICEF in hospitals.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/23/2799492.htm

Do you see that trafficking networks are....well....good? Or at least not all bad? They spring into action immediately and take advantage of the weakness of local authorities to kidnap children and get them out of the country. See? It's "nuanced."

But of course, we can take our sharp little stick and poke around that trafficking idea and ask some more pertinent questions, like: what other rings might be operating in the chaos in Haiti -- aside from the fairy tale adoption rings of people who only ever have the best intentions?

Sex trafficking? Human slaves? Organ trafficking? You know, it's kind of funny that Mr. Legrand would say: "This is going on. This is happening now. We are starting to have the first evidence of that, this is unquestionable."

Because, to be honest, the authorities have known about these problems for years.

And they also know about the international pedophile rings.




And that doesn't even begin to touch upon the organ trafficking angle.

But ABC News doesn't do conspiracy theories.

and so it would be very rude of me indeed to cast an aspersion on this whole haiti roadside hospital narrative and ask just how the sam hill did the israelis, out of all the people in the world who have converged on the little island, how exactly did the israelis manage to get their hospital equipment set up? i thought there were some bottlenecks but i guess they have connections. lucky huh? and what exactly do they do in the mash field hospital with all the little orphaned children? does anyone oversee anything going on or would that be rude? would that insinuate that maybe, you know, given the circumstances of the israeli organ stealing that has happened in the past with disadvantaged populations that maybe our israeli bestest friends could use some chaperones around the destitute orphans of haiti, lest their little kidneys go missing?