"According to a report in her hometown newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, Ms. Silsby, the founder and C.E.O. of PersonalShopper.com, is being sued by a former employee for unpaid wages and by a law firm for unpaid fees. The Statesman reports that she is due in a Boise court next Wednesday in connection with the suit by her former marketing director — a jury trial in that case is scheduled to start on Feb. 22 — and again in March in a suit filed by a local law firm."
I have a feeling that La Silsby won't be making those court dates due to the charge of child trafficking being laid on her by the Haitian government who is seeking a 25-year sentence. Now ain't that a kick in the head? It seems her entourage was just following along on what they thought was a mission for God (there goes Elwood Blues, again) and will only get short sentences. Their only crime was gullability and the usual arrogance of the fundies who think their religion, culture, etc., are so superior that it justifies taking children from their parents.
As I read the article, where these parents whose backs were against a major wall were promised visitation, no adoption and progress reports, I hearkened back to the coercion used on mothers from the BSE. Our backs were also against the wall. Our crisis was being isolated from our homes and families, shamed, blamed and rejected by society. Many of us were promised contact when our child became 18. Many of us were also promised the cookie-baking wife and the wise, pipe-smoking husband as adopters for our children. Ask us what we didn't get.They used our love for our children against us. We were also ripe for the picking for the social (engineering) workers. Be it an eathquake or an unjust society, the only help we or the Haitian parents were offered was removal of our children to a "better home."
It seems that the spirit of Georgia Tann, the infamous Baby Thief, is alive and well and predating on less affluent nations for adoptable children. Lest we think that Silsby was being altruistic, just read the article in the link above, about her financial and legal woes. For what some PAPs are willing to pay, she might have bought her way out of trouble if she had been able to get those kids out of Haiti. I doubt her group of hero wannabes would have ever seen a cent had her plan succeeded.
To keep abreast of these developments, End Child Exportation and Trafficking in Haiti, is the go-to blog. It also includes one of the better press releases from CUB that I have read in a while. I like what many are having to say and would love to hear the state department use stronger language than "unfortunate." This is more than unfortunate. Situations like this are pure, unadulterated, greed and arrogance-motivated crimes against Haitian families.
Ya gotta give it to the baby-sellers, though. If they can't get 'em here...they'll get 'em wherever they can.
1 comment:
The one thing that keeps coming to mind as I watch this unfold and each day more bizarre than the day before is that their own excesses will be the thing that topple the industry.
The current news contains daily reports of the father of Baby Gabriel, still missing, who came to San Antonio to try to get a lead, and this from Haiti which becomes more sordid with each passing news alert. The positives from them is that they are bringing to light the things that mothers and adoptees have been saying for years! It is shining the light of public scrutiny on the illicit practices used, denying father's rights to grease the skids for a HWI, or trafficking in desperately poor nations, making empty promises and then run with the goods!
As you say, much like the EMS, when we white, middle class, unmarried women were the ones whose backs were against the wall, whose wombs carried the product and whose rights were summarily dismissed as unimportant and irrelevant delays to getting the baby to the arms of the paying adopters.
Great blog, Robin. Good information. THanks for the links.
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