Inquisition 21
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The opportunists
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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Legislating for malice, corruption and racketeering
Children falsely portrayed as tsunami orphans
Sheri Scott accuses IJM and Fox News of deceit
From Sheri Scott in Thailand
Recently, I viewed the John Kasich Fox News January 8, 2005 (ET) interview with Gary Haugen, president of the International Justice Mission (IJM). The interview reported on the December 26, 2004 tsunami with warnings of how such a disaster will leave thousands of tsunami children vulnerable to the sex traffickers who lure innocent children into a world of sex slavery.
Haugen mentioned that his organization, the International Justice Mission, is hoping to raise $10 million for the year 2005, which he claimed will be used to rescue child sex slaves from prostitution or what he called a “rape for profit” industry, that “victimizes about a million new children every year”. In a nutshell, the Fox News interview with Gary Haugen delivered a powerful message to support the International Justice Mission, which is in the business of rescuing millions of innocent children across the globe, from a life of sex slavery and child prostitution.
The interview also enticed sales for Haugen’s newest book Terrify No More, which documents the 2003 police raid of a red light district known as Svay Pak, a Vietnamese community located 11 kilometres outside Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Svay Pak once attracted foreign pedophiles and sex tourists worldwide, offering sexual services of very young Vietnamese girls, illegally trafficked in from Vietnam. Although Svay Pak has been closed for over a year, on the Fox News TV interview, Haugen resurrected it. However, not as a Vietnamese brothel district, but as a disaster zone of “tsunami orphans” and “tsunami sex slaves” from the countries of Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
On the show, Haugen appeared quite presentable, authoritative, and well prepared. He reminded me of a rather slick car salesman who had given an old, beat up sedan a paint job, having then placed a shiny sign over it reading, “This is the car Elvis drove when going to work as a youth. A bargain at $10 million.” As for myself, being an expert on the sex industry in Southeast Asia, and quite familiar with the art of camera trickery, I found the Fox News interview with Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission to be flagrantly deceptive and smoothly dishonest. In short, the interview was nothing short of a scam to solicit sales for Haugen’s book and promote his so-called Christian organization, the International Justice Mission, on the pretence of rescuing tsunami sex slaves. Let me illustrate the point.
The most disturbing part of the Fox News interview was when Haugen presented video clips of what we were led to believe were of “TSUNAMI ORPHANS” and “TSUNAMI SEX SLAVES”.
However, if you look closely at the video clips of these so-called “tsunami orphans” and “tsunami sex slaves”, you can see behind the subtitles the hidden dates, “JAN 31 2003” for the first clip, and “FEB 5 2003” for the second. It’s impossible that these video clips are of authentic tsunami orphans or tsunami sex slaves, as the dates hidden behind the subtitles reveal the clips were filmed nearly two years before the December 26, 2004 tsunami disaster struck South and Southeast Asia. By hiding the dates behind the bold subtitles, the viewers on the Fox News were all too easily duped into believing they were viewing authentic tsunami orphans and tsunami sex slaves. Hang on, because it gets even worse!
Believe it or not, these exact same clips already appeared a year earlier, on the NBC Dateline, "Children for Sale” (January 2004), where Gary Haugen told us these exact same clips were of Vietnamese sex slaves forced to the work the brothels of Svay Pak, Cambodia.
Now, follow what is happening here. On the NBC Dateline in early 2004, Haugen is using clips filmed in Cambodia, as documentation of child sex slavery in the red light district of Svay Pak, Cambodia. Yet, a year later, on the Fox News interview of early 2005, Haugen is using the exact same video clips of Svay Pak – a brothel district that has been closed for over a year - as evidence of present day “tsunami orphans” and “tsunami sex slaves” of the countries Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.
For those of you unfamiliar with Svay Pak, it was the prime destination for both sex tourists and foreign pedophiles alike. However, it is now shut down. This is powerful evidence that the child sex trade in Cambodia, at least as presented by Haugen, is dead. I cannot help but wonder why Haugen is so insistent on resurrecting it. There can only be one answer. The minute the child sex trade in Southeast Asia is seen for what it is, a dying industry, Haugen’s organization, the International Justice Mission, is out of a job. Isn’t it amazing the extent people will go to when it comes to making money!
See Svay Pak closed.
The video clip above documents the 2003 police raid on Svay Pak, as originally shown on both the NBC Dateline “Children for Sale”. Oddly, this clip was shown on the Fox News Heartland interview, with the added subtitle “tsunami orphans”. Exactly why we are shown a clip of a Khmer (i.e., Cambodian) policeman, during the 2003 raid of Svay Pak, with the subtitle “TSUNAMI ORPHANS”, is beyond my comprehension. Such video documentation has nothing to do with any tsunami orphans and is therefore utterly fake.
So now let’s rap it up. What does all this mean? First, it means that Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission is in the business of falsifying video documentation on tsunami orphans and sex slaves in the countries of Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Under the International Justice Mission website, we are told that, the International Justice Mission seeks to establish factual records of reported human rights abuses based on the investigations of legally trained professionals (My emphasis).
Factual?
A “factual record” of tsunami orphans and tsunami sex slaves would have to contain at least two criteria: (a) Video footage dated on or after the tsunami, and (b) Video footage recorded within region of the areas where the tidal waves struck. Haugen was unable to establish either of these criteria for his video documentation, thus proving his documentation was not the least bit factual; in fact it was fake.
Second, Haugen’s deceptive camera trickery is nothing less than immoral and runs contrary to the moral code of the Bible and mandates of God, which his organization claims to follow*. This means Haugen’s claim to be “doing God’s
work” is closer to the work of the devil, as the devil is the author of all deceit and lies. The Bible strongly is opposed to absolutely any and all forms of lying and deception (Proverbs 6:19).
*Note: The IJM website claims to follow the mandates of the Bible, but has clearly broken them by lying to the public on international TV.
Third, it raises serious question as to how competent Haugen and the International Justice Mission are at rescuing real children in need. If Haugen is unable to document current and authentic cases of tsunami children and child sex slaves, it means he’s unable to find them. How can Haugen rescue children he himself can’t even find? (It also makes Haugen out to be a liar, because he said on the Fox News interview, “Millions of customers can find these victims everyday”. If so, why can’t Haugen find them himself?)
Fourth, it raises into question Haugen’s claims that child prostitution in Southeast Asia is a flourishing industry. The closure of Svay Pak a year ago, the only child brothel district Haugen was able to document (recorded 2003), is evidence the child sex trade is dying out, rather than growing. Svay Pak is closed. And so ends the industry of child sex slavery in Cambodia, at least as Haugen presented it.
As the interview on Fox News came to its closing remarks, host John Kasich encouraged support for Haugen’s organization with the words, “Gary, do you get enough support out of the government, do you need a couple of congressmen to make this a big issue?”
I think both the government and congressmen should make this a big issue. However, the issue should first be that of exposing scam artists and hustlers such as Gary Haugen, who exploits falsified video footage of tsunami children as a way to solicit millions of dollars for his organization.
Granted, while any endeavour to rescue Asian children from a life of sex slavery is commendable, the use of deception, half-truths, and camera trickery, as a ploy to raise money in the name of rescuing tsunami sex slaves, should never be tolerated. The way to rescue Asian children from a life of sex slavery and the hands of sex traffickers will not be found along the paths of deception, lies, and falsified video documentation.
To stamp out true child sex slavery, we must be guided by experts who are honest and truthful, not scam artists who employ camera trickery to dupe people into supporting their cause. As long as hustlers, such as Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission, are allowed to dominate TV news reports on tsunami orphans and child sex slavery, the public will continue to be grossly misinformed, government funding will be misdirected, and the real child sex slaves of the world will remain unprotected.
Haugen was unable to document a single case of child prostitution in Thailand, either prior to or after the tsunami disaster. Rather than honestly admit the industry of child sex slavery in countries such as Thailand has now died out, on the Fox News interview, Haugen resurrects a buried sex industry along the dusty streets of Svay Pak, Cambodia, through the use of falsified video documentation and camera trickery.
Copyright Sheri Scott, 2005. Copies may be freely distributed.
Contact Sheri here through Contact in menu on left.
IJM and Fox News O'Reilly hop on Save the Children band wagon
Earlier story from Sheri Scott in Thailand
On January 7, 2005, Fox News (the O'Reilly Factor) interviewed Gary Haugen, president of the International Justice Mission (IJM), and author of his newest book on child prostitution in Cambodia, Terrify No More.
Haugen will be a familiar face to those of you who viewed the NBC TV special, "Children for Sale" (January 2004) in which he led a rather forceful brigade of Cambodian police into a red light zone popularly known as Svay Pak or K11 (called so because it's located 11 kilometres out of the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh). Although now closed down, Svay Pak was once a popular brothel area for foreigners, due to its large number of very attractive, white skinned (as opposed to the darker-skinned Khmer women) and Vietnamese sex workers, a small handful of which were below the age of 18.
While the interview between O'Reilly and Haugen would appear to start us off feeling sorrow for the victimized children of the tsunami disaster in South and Southeast Asia, it's not long before narrator O'Reilly and self-proclaimed, child-saving hero Haugen pull a sharp u-turn away from the tsunami victims themselves, taking us deep into the shocking and sensationalized world of child prostitution, sex trafficking and sex slavery. Next thing you know, we've forgotten about the tsunami disaster, and suddenly find ourselves in the brothels of Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Bangkok, Thailand, where no tidal wave, to the best of my knowledge, has gone before.
If you're wondering what the capital of Cambodia and Thailand have to do with the more than 155,000 deaths and millions of devastated lives throughout Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the island of Phuket, Thailand, the answer becomes rather clear: How can IJM president Haugen promote both his new book and his pseudo-Christian organization - which is hell bent on incarcerating white-skinned American sex tourists, guilty or not - if the FOX NEWS interview stays focused on more deeper issues, such as the December 26 tsunami disaster?
All too quickly we learn from this interview that Haugen is much more interested in promoting the International Justice Mission, a pseudo-Christian organization, then helping victims of any tsunami disaster. (Note: I'm a theology graduate and I'll tell it to your face, IJM has nothing to do with the basic principles of love and forgiveness found in the Christian faith. The great mandate of Christ was to go into the world and make disciples, not solicit donations and government grants in order to incarcerate alleged paedophiles from America. Haugen's obvious obsession with child sex abuse makes us wonder about his own personal history as a child. Common, Haugen! Open your heart and let us in on what makes your heart so full of hate and revenge towards white-skinned American men!).
As the interview continues, a shocking and rather slanderous statement is made. Haugen explains to us how the child sex slave industry in Southeast Asia, which in his own words is nothing more than "a global trade of rape for profit", manages to stay in business, despite all the NGOs war against it. He says, the child sex trade "only flourishes because police are on the take. The police could shut this down whenever they want. Any police can do that whenever they wanted. It only flourishes in places where local laws enforcement is complicit with it."
I'm sure the Royal Thai police in Thailand will be more than pleased to hear this. While you may be quick to agree that corruption among Asian police, particularly in Thailand, exists, the fact is Haugen's accusation that the Royal Thai police could at any moment shut down the entire industry of child prostitution in Thailand (which means hundreds of thousands of child sex slaves, assuming for a moment the NGO's statistics are anywhere near correct) is not only outright slanderous, but based on a utterly false assumption. That false assumption is child prostitution in Thailand, to any significant degree, exists. In fact, it doesn't.
Case in point. A quick walk throughout the Bangkok Go Go bars of the Nana Entertainment Plaza, Patpong, Soi Cowboy, not to mention the massage parlours of Rachada, Angels disco at the Nana, Thermae Coffee House on Sukhumvit, Eden Club on Soi 7, and so on, will easily testify to the fact that the sex workers of Bangkok are both consenting adults and eager to engage in their trade. The same can be said of the red light districts throughout South Pattaya, Patong Beach (once
devastated by the tsunami, but now back on its feet), Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, etc. You won't find a shred of child prostitution in any of these areas, contrary to what IJM may tell us.
How do I know this? For one, look at the sign that appears at the front entrance of every Go Go bar and disco throughout Thailand: "No one under 20 allowed inside". Second, go there and see for yourself, rather than trusting the words of moral crusaders such as Haugen, who makes a living out of lying and fabricating statistics on child prostitution in order to sell his organization to the world. You'll be hard pressed to find a single prostitute much under 15, the legal age of consent in Thailand.
"Well, what about O'Reilly's expose on child prostitution, in which he claims he exposed a woman who was selling a 12-year-old Thai girl in Bangkok?" so you ask. Good point. Except for that fact that what O'Reilly found is now nearly ancient history. As O'Reilly admits, "When I was there [in Bangkok] 10 years ago."
What happened 10 years ago is hardly representative of the sex trade today. Let's quick dwelling on the past and get back to the present where hundreds of devastated children and broken families find themselves in dire need on the island of Phuket, Thailand, oddly enough, of which neither Haugen nor O'Reilly seem to be the least bit interested in. I cannot help but wonder why. Perhaps the answer will be found in O'Reilly's statement in the introduction to this interview, regarding those that exploit the industry of child prostitution. He says "They'll do anything to get money".
And isn't that exactly what this FOX NEWS interview is all about, doing anything to get money for Mr. Haugen, both through the promotion of this newest book and that of his so-called child saving organization, which by the way, for the years 2001-2002 spent a whopping $3,248,381 paying themselves salaries and employee benefits, while a mere $1,254 went to their Good Samaritan Expense, and $9,280 went to the child prostitutes victims aftercare expense. Imagine that!
Over three million dollars goes into the pockets of IJM employees, while less than a fraction goes to the very children in need. What does that tell you about IJM's real interests and motivations? (Source: International Justice Mission FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND INDEPENDENT AUDITORS' REPORT DECEMBER 31, 2002 AND 2001)
This, my friends, is not an organization concerned about saving children: it's all about pretending to save children as a ploy to solicit donations and government grants so people like Gary Haugen and his scheming cohorts can strike it rich. The three million dollars that went into the hands of IJM employees testifies to that. To me, such scams constitute fraud and deceit, which, last time I checked, are illegal where Haugen comes from. So why isn't Haugen facing criminal charges for such fraud? Or is it that the same corruption of justice he so much complains about within the child sex trade in Asia, is also found in Haugen's very own backyard?
As for TV programs such as the O'Reilly Factor FOX NEWS, they should be exposing such scams, rather than promoting them. One pimp sells the kids for sex (the sex trade in Asia), while the other pimp sells the story of kids being forced to engage in sex (FOX NEWS O'Reilly Factor). Both are - how shall I put it? In the words of O'Reilly himself, nothing more than ‘on the take’.
Editorial comment. If the Royal Thai police in Bangkok agree with Sheri Scott’s defence of them against what she calls their defamation by IJM, perhaps they and the other relevant Thai authorities will now cooperate with us in exposing the activities of IJM and certain other NGOs in Thailand.
And will Gary Haugen respond to Sheri Scott’s challenge to come forward and tell us exactly where the so-called thousands of child sex slaves in Bangkok are to be found? She is there and can check.
Also would he please respond to our examination of IJM’s financial accounts where we found only a small fraction received in grants and donations possibly going to charity?
Second picture of children falsely portrayed as tsunami orphans
Not tsunami children either
The opportunists
UNICEF
IJM - the International Justice Mission
The CWCC
Global PAC - Protect All the Children.
AFESIP
The NSPCC
The other agendas
Identifying and Dealing with ‘Child Savers’
Sheri Scott accuses IJM and Fox News of deceit
World Vision
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