Ethics Newsline®

Case centering on allegations of child kidnapping raises ethics questions on many levels, including whether the workers were duped and how their sentence of eight years of hard labor will be interpreted by a French Court

PARIS
A multi-layered ethics story involving French foreign aid workers has raised questions over international jurisdiction, the rights of children, and the fate of charity workers who may have been duped by members of communities they were assigned to help.

The case involves six charity workers who were convicted of child kidnapping in Chad.

Last week, they were transferred from Chad to Paris where a court will determine how the Chadian sentences of eight years of hard labor can be translated into French law, which has no such contingencies.

The Agence France-Presse reports that the transfer came after months of diplomatic wrangling, and raises the question, as posed by one of the defendant’s lawyers, of whether “French jurisdictions will … endorse a decision rendered by totalitarian justice.”

According to the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, the aid workers were part of a charity group formed in 2004 to help Sudanese orphans fleeing across the border into Chad.

The workers were arrested as they prepared to board a flight to France with 103 children, many of whom were neither orphans nor Sudanese, reports Radio Netherlands.

Workers claim they were duped by various local middlemen, and some families of the children claimed that they were deceived and told that their children were being taken to educational facilities in eastern Chad.

According to an analysis from the Scotsman, the case has embarrassed France and compromised aid efforts in other areas of Africa. The Republic of the Congo recently announced it is suspending international adoption programs after the incident in Chad.

Sources: Radio Netherlands, Dec. 28 — International Herald Tribune, Dec. 28 — AFP Dec. 28 — Scotsman, Dec. 28.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 23, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 24, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 24, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 12, 2004 — Related Newsline story, July 14, 2003.