Directors of the Global Development Group Board
Unit 6, 734 Underwood Road
Rochedale, QLD 4123
2nd March 2014
Dear David James Pearson, Geoffrey Winston Armstrong
Ofelia (fe) Luscombe, Alan Benson, David Robertson
Given that the Global Development Group has no intention of speaking with Chanti and Chhork, I have suggested that they return to Prey Veng. They left this morning.
That GDG has no interest in speaking with them about the serious allegations they have made about a GDG-funded NGO is extraordinary. No, what the Global Development Group believes to be the top priority at this juncture is to have a lawyer read through the correspondence! GDG has not only failed in its duty of care for Chanti and Chhork (through its careless funding of the ‘SHE Rescue Home’) but seems to be unaware that it even has a duty of care!
Last night I asked a friend, whose experience with NGOs dates back to UNTAC, if he knew about the Global Development Group. He smiled, nodded. I asked him what he could tell me about GDG. He raised his eyebrows and held his hands up in a gesture that I am familiar with: I am not going to say anything. He did, however, tell me that Geoff Armstrong earns well in excess of $250,000 a year and expressed his amazement, when I told him this story, that Geoff had not jumped on a place personally and come to Phnom Penh to sort this mess out. “Perhaps because he is a member of Citipoitne church,” I ventured. He laughed, shook his head and exclaimed “Cambodia!”
I still don’t know for sure that Geoff is a member of Citipointe church. Whilst I have been told by two sources that he is I need a third to be convinced. Perhaps the board can enlighten me on this score?
Let me provide the board with yet another example of the inadequacies of GDG’s assessment and monitoring processes, since what I have provided already – three examples - has not resulted in GDG being at all curious to know the names of two of the NGOs I have mentioned but not identified.
A couple of days ago I spoke with a young woman and her brother from a very poor family in Phnom Penh. I will call them Seny and Srey Pal for the time being. Their story, in broad brushstrokes, is this:
Whilst selling cheap and illegally photocopied books to tourists on the streets of Phnom Penh, Seny was approached by a Khmer woman who identified herself as working for an NGO that is funded by GDG. He was told that he and his family would be helped financially if Seny was to place his thumb print on a document accusing a foreigner of having taken him to his hotel room and having sex with him. As this had not occurred, Seny refused. The female NGO employee then told Seny that help for his family was contingent upon his placing his thumb print on the document accusing the foreigner of a crime he had not committed. The police would then tell the man that for $4,000 the charges against him could be dropped. Seny and Srey Pal, with her own experiences of this same NGO (as a resident), told me that they knew of other instances in which this had happened – the child that had placed his or her thumb print on a document accusing a foreigner of being a pedophile then removed from their poor family and taken into the care of the GDG-funded NGO.
There is more to this story but this is enough for our present purposes.
As I hope is apparent to GDG workers in Cambodia, a common scam practiced by the police here is to arrest a foreign man, take him to the police station, tell him that a young boy or girl alleges the foreigner took him/her to his hotel room for sex. If the foreigner would like to pay $7,000 (a figure quoted to me by various NGOs familiar with the scam) the matter can be resolved very quickly. 10% of the sum so obtained through blackmail is given to the family of the child who has made the allegation.
If this scam is not known to your Cambodian staff they are not spending enough time on the streets of Phnom Penh.
In the instance I am referring to here it seems that the Khmer employee of the GDG-funded NGO was working in cahoots with the police and using her access to street kids and other children of poor parents who work on the streets, to blackmail foreigners into paying bribes to have charges against them ‘dropped’. This particular NGO would then get the Ministry of Social Affairs to award custody of the child to the GDG-funded NGO. Whether the Ministry of Social Affairs is playing a witting or unwitting role in this alleged scam I have no idea at this point. I will, over the next few days, be conducting interviews with all the kids involved. I will make sure that I have a competent interpreter with me.
My point here is not that GDG is guilty of funding an NGO whose staff are engaged in such scams. Or, to be more precise, ‘alleged scams’. My point is that there is no way GDG can know whether or not such things are happening within any of the NGOs it is providing funding to because your assessment and monitoring processes are inadequate.
In the case I have just brought to your attention it may be that there is no truth to it. Unfortunately, I have heard this and similar stories so many times now from street kids with no reason to lie, that it has the ring of truth to it. (There was an instance back in 2007 that you may be aware of in which a policeman whose job it was to protect tourists was selling his 11 year old daughter to foreigners for sexual purposes and, in the case that I became involved with, then arranging for the arrest of the foreigner concerned.)
If it turns out that the story Seny and Srey Pal cannot be backed up with sufficient evidence, I will not use it. Again, my point is that GDG can only, by virtue of its inadequate monitoring and assessment processes, be blissfully unaware of allegations such as these. Who are these kids going to confide in when invited by an NGO to participate in blackmail? The police involved in the scam? The NGO whose staff member is involved? And if you come from a very poor family and this NGO is offering to help your family if you place your thumb print on a document, it is hardly surprising that there will be some kids who will do so. If someone such as myself were then to bring this scam to the attention of GDG, Geoff Armstrong has made clear what GDG’s response would be:
“Please do not respond or contact us further in regards to this matter. Please speak to the authorities in Cambodia.”
This is Geoff’s concept of due diligence! And he is the Executive Director of an Australian NGO that disburses $25 million a year to third world countries – in most of which corruption is endemic!
If Seny and Srey Pal’s story is true, it would not surprise me at all if senior management of this particular GDG-funded NGO knows nothing at all about the scam being conducted by at least one of its Khmer employees. If GDG, either through the inadequacies of its assessment and monitoring processes or its willful ignorance, is unable to root out such practices you, as members of the board, are failing in its duty of care to the poor and powerless that the Global Development Group is dedicated to helping. And you are abrogating your responsibility to the many Australians who have made generous donations to GDG in the belief that the money will be used to help lift the poor out of poverty, to help make them self-sufficient and not to break up families or employ staff who engage in blackmail scams.
In the case of Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ a number of allegations have been made about the way in which the staff treat the girls in their care. I am referring here to the Khmer staff, not the expatriate staff. However, there are many occasions when there are no expatriate members of staff on duty and the Khmer staff, whose wages are minimal, can act in their own best interests and not in those of the girls. I will say no more here but I believe that GDG should find a culturally appropriate and unobtrusive way of speaking to the girls in the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ without members of the staff present – either Khmer or expatriate. In ways familiar to anyone with experience in child protection, an independent monitor/assessor should ask the girls about their lives in the institution. What do they like about it? Are there any things they would like to change? Do they get on well with the staff? What do they think of the food? Do they get enough to eat? If they wake up in the middle of the night feeling thirsty, is it easy for them to find some fresh water? How they feel about the volunteers who come to visit the Home regularly? And so on. Not leading questions but questions asked in a way that makes the girls feel relaxed about providing honest answers.
Women trained and experienced in child protection know how to conduct such informal talks with kids in such a way as to elicit the sort of information that the NGO may have told them not to reveal? These girls are powerless and are not going to speak up if they feel that they will be punished by the NGO staff for doing so after the child protection workers have left. The girls need to be made to feel safe. They need to know that if they do not feel safe living in the NGO they can say so and leave with the child protection workers.
This is a job for trained professionals who are totally independent of the NGO and, in this instance, a major funder of the NGO – the Global Development Group. The job performed by these independent monitor/assessors is not to tell GDG what it wants or hopes to hear but what is actually going on. Without such an independent process GDG will, inevitably, be an unwitting party to the kinds of human rights abuses that Citipointe church has visited upon Chanti and Chhork’s family for more than five years now – right under the noses of the GDD staff whose job it has been to prevent such things from occurring.
I have, over the years, managed to film with Rosa and Chita during their rare home visits without Citipointe being aware that I was doing so. The first thing that Chanti has to do on each visit is delouse the girls’ hair. Their heads are crawling in lice. Every visit. The clothes the girls are wearing are tatty. They often have holes in them. Their first request of me is to buy them some proper clothes. I do. The girls complain that at night the cupboard that has the bottles of water in it is locked so they cannot drink during the night if they are thirsty. On Sundays the girls have no choice but to go to the church that all ‘SHE Rescue Home’ girls attend – all of them from Buddhist families. And so on.
On the point of forced conversation to Christianity. Imagine if, for some reason, dear members of the board, you were unable to take care of your own children for a period of time owing to circumstances beyond your control. Such things occur even in rich countries like Australia where, for a variety of reasons, children are fostered into the care of families other than their own. Imagine if the family into whose care you entrusted your children made it a condition of their care, that your kids be indoctrinated in the beliefs of a religion different from your own? Islam? Hinduism? Buddhism? How would you feel? Would you feel that your rights as parents had been usurped? Would this forced conversion to another religion constitute, in your minds, a human rights abuse?
In Australia, of course, the forced conversion of foster-children is illegal. In Cambodia it is not. My question here is not a legal one. It has to do with the moral values of the Global Development Group. Do you, as members of the board, believe that it is appropriate that the children of materially poor Buddhist Cambodians are forced by their foster-carers (NGOs) to become Christians?
In the even that you are not cognizant with Queensland law would like to draw your attention to some pertinent sections of the legislation covering the fostering of children:
• In deciding in whose care the child should be placed, the Chief Executive must give proper consideration to placing the child, as a first option, with kin.
• If a child is removed from the child’s family, it is the aim of authorized officers working with the child and the child’s family to safely return the child to the family if possible. (Child Protection Act Part 2, 5 (2f i))
• The child’s need to maintain family and social contacts and their ethnic and cultural identity must be taken into account and respected by all parties to this Statement of Commitment. (Child Protection Act Part 2, 5 (2f ii))
• In exercising the powers under the Child Protection Act the Chief Executive will ensure that:
(i) actions taken, while in the best interests of the child, maintain family relationships and are supportive of individual rights and ethnic, religious and cultural identity or values
(ii) the views of the child and the child’s family are considered
(iii) the child and the child’s parents have the opportunity to take part in making decisions affecting their lives.
(Child Protection Act Part 2, 5 (2d))
Does the Global Development Group recognize, as it would be legally obliged to in Queensland, that Rosa and Chita have a right to maintain family relationships? If so, why are Rosa and Chita’s visits to their family limited to half a dozen or so a year and arranged, with limited notice to Chanti and Chhork, on the whim of Citipointe?
Is the Global Development Group supportive of the “ethnic, religious and cultural identity or values” of Rosa and Chita? If GDG is supportive of the “ethnic, religious and cultural identity or values” of Rosa and Chita, why does the Global Development Group allow Citipointe to force the girls to abandon their Buddhist faith and be indoctrinated into Citipointe’s evangelical form of Christianity? Why has the Global Development Group allowed Citipointe to refuse all of Chanti and Chhork’s requests that their daughters join the family to celebrate the Water Festival - a significant Cambodian event. This is a time when families converge on Phnom Penh to celebrate, engage in Buddhist festivities and forge the sense of community which is so fundamental to Cambodian culture. It is a time when Chanti, Chhork and her children should be together if the Global Development Group is to extend to children in the care of NGOs in Cambodia the same rights that would be extended to Australian children in foster care?
These are serious questions for the Global Development Group board to consider. They are serious questions for all Australians who donate to the Global Development Group to consider. They are serious questions for the Australian Council for International Development to consider.
Your three Cambodian staff members, whose job it has been to assess and monitor Citipointe (and the other NGOs I have mentioned) seem to know nothing of the human rights abuses I have been writing about here. How could they, unless they spoke with the kids themselves in a context in which the girls felt they would not be punished for telling the truth? If you three Cambodian staff had, even once this past five years, spoken with Rosa and Chita in the way I have suggested above, GDG would have been alerted to problems inherent in the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ in 2008. If your three Cambodian staff members had, even once this past five years, spoken with Chanti and Chhork, they would have been alerted to the problems I have mentioned here. If, in Nov 2008, GDG staff had insisted that Citipointe provide evidence, in the form of contracts, of the legality of the church’s custody of the children they would have discovered that there was no paperwork relating to Rosa and Chita. This would have led to them asking Chanti and Chhork if they wished Rosa and Chita to reside at the ’SHE Rescue Home’ any longer and the answer would have been ‘no’. This exercise would have revealed something else also – namely that in Nov 2008 there was not one girl in Citipointe who had been rescued from the sex trade; that each and every girl in the Home had one or more parents who had, like Chanti, placed their thumb print on a ‘contract’.
Either your Cambodian staff are incompetent or the assessment and monitoring processes the Global Development Group has in place are so inadequate that no employee adhering to these process would be able to discover anything other than what the NGO wanted them to know. My suspicion is that your three Cambodian based staff rely only on what Citipointe tells them, nod their heads a lot and then write the bright and shining report that makes Citipointe wants and which makes the church seem, on paper, to beyond reproach. The same applies for the other two NGOs I have mentioned and about which you, as board members, have evinced no curiosity at all to even know the name of.
Painful thought it may be for Global Development Group to admit to the failure of its assessment and monitoring processes to identify the problems that my correspondence has outlined, GDG could follow the example of the Gates Foundation.
In 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had a great idea about how to fix the problems of American education - break up large high schools and turn them into small schools and “small learning communities” of 400 or fewer students. The driving force behind this idea was that they believed new small high schools would lift graduation rates and student achievement, especially among minority students, because of the close relationships between students and teachers.
The plan looked great on paper but, $2 billion later, the Foundation abandoned this initiative because they found, though their own rigorous monitoring and assessment processes, that it was not achieving the goals Bill and Melinda Gates had hoped it would.
The Foundation’s response, on learning that this $2 billion initiative had failed, was not call in spin doctors to make a sows ear seem like a silk purse, not engage legal counsel to review correspondence, but to publicly admit its failure and set about changing its monitoring and assessment processes to guarantee that such a failure would not occur again. This is what you will find on the Foundation’s website today:
“Achieving our ambitious goals requires rigorous evaluation so we and our partners can continually improve how we carry out our work. Evaluation is the systematic, objective assessment of an ongoing or completed intervention, project, policy, program, or partnership. Evaluation is best used to answer questions about what actions work best to achieve outcomes, how and why they are or are not achieved, what the unintended consequences have been, and what needs to be adjusted to improve execution.”
An unintended consequence of GDG’s failure to assess and monitor properly is that GDG has failed in its duty of care to Chanti and Chhork’s family. And GDG has failed in its duty of care to the recipients of aid in the case of the other NGOs I have referred to.
The good that could come from what has occurred here is that GDG, after publicly admitting to the deficiencies of its assessment and monitoring processes, could formulate new and better ones and invite other NGOs to join GDG in the creation of some form of independent monitoring system that would guarantee that mistakes are not made again. As in all spheres of life there are going to be bad apples and the bad apples can all too often infect all the healthy apples. It is in the interests of all genuine NGOs that a system be in place that identifies and gets rid of incompetent NGOs – the bad apples. Unless and until that happens Cambodia will have orphanages filled with children that are not orphans and refuges for victims of human trafficking who are victims of nothing other than the greed of incompetent and deceitful NOGs – many of which are enabled in their illegal and immoral activities with GDG funding.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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