Directors
of the Global Development Group Board
Unit
6
734
Underwood Road
Rochedale,
QLD 4123
23rd
May 2014
Dear
David James Pearson
Geoffrey Winston Armstrong
Ofelia (fe) Luscombe
Alan Benson
David Robertson
We are the Cambodian mother
and father of Chanti Rosa and Chanty Cheata. Our daughters have lived in
Citipointe church’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ since 2008 against our wishes.
The Global Development
Group (GDG), of which you are Executive Director, provides funding to
Citipointe church’s ‘SHE Rescue Home.’ This funding has been approved, through
the Australian Council for International Development, by AusAID.
The GDG is bound by the
Australian Council for International Development Code of Conduct and is
obliged, in accordance with the Code, to be ‘transparent’. The meaning of the
word ‘transparent’ is clear in the Code of Conduct.
‘An organisation’s openness
about its activities, providing information on what it
is doing, where and how
this takes place and how it is performing’.
Neither Citipointe church nor GDG has provided us
with any of the information we have requested since Citipointe church removed
our daughters from their home in 2008. Instead, the church keeps promising to
return our daughters but never does.
We have read the ACFID Code of Conduct and
understand that we, as parents of Rosa and Cheata, are known as ‘stakeholders.’
We read the following in the Code of Conduct:
B.1.1
Accountability to primary stakeholders
Signatory
organisations will ensure that their purpose and processes are shaped by
stakeholders and that their work is open to review and comment by partners and
participants alike. In all instances those directly affected by aid and
development activities are considered the primary stakeholders and their views
afforded the highest priority.
Obligation:
Signatory organisations will
prioritise accountability to local people and those directly
affected by aid
and development activities, prioritising their needs and rights
As stakeholders our views about Citipointe
church’s refusal to return our daughters have been ignored. As stakeholders our
needs and rights have been ignored. We are told that our rights are outlined in
two Memoranda of Understanding Citipointe church entered into with the Cambodia
government – the first in 2008 and the second in 2009. Citipoint church and
your own GDG have refused to provide us with copies of the two MOUs so we do
not know what our rights are or what we must do to have our daughters returned
to us.
As a ‘signatory organisation’ (to the
ACFID Code) the GDG is obliged to “analyse the needs and expectations of key
stakeholders in all aid and development activities, pursuing informed and
balanced accountability to each.” Our own needs and expectations have
been ignored for nearly 6 years.
We request that the Global Development
Group provide us with (a) Annual self-assessment by GDG for the years 2008 -
2014 “by the signatory organisation’s governing body”, and (b) a reason why our
complaints to Citipointe since 2008 have been ignored. It is the responsibility
of the GDG to see to it that there is “an
independent complaints handling and discipline process.”
Finally, the Code of Conduct is clear about the
Global Development Group’s obligations:
“Obligations on the signatory
organisation to be ethical and transparent in marketing, fundraising and
reporting.”
Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ has behaved in an
unethical way by presenting our daughters to sponsors and donors as victims of
human trafficking. The ‘contract’ Citipointe tricked me, as mother, into
signing on 31st July 2008 makes it clear that it was only the fact
that the family was very poor at the time that caused me to ask the church for
help for a short time. Rosa and Chita were not victims of human trafficking. I
have never been a victim of human trafficking myself, even though Citipointe
says that I was.
Could you please provide us both, as parents, with
answers to our questions and with copies of any documents the Global
Development Group has in its possession that relate to our daughters removal
and detention by your funding partner, Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ – as you
are required to do as signatories of the ACFID Code of Conduct?
Yem Chanti Both
Chhork
Mother Father
