This article begins by discussing King Leopold of Belgium’s presence in late 19th century Chad, where he set up orphanages for all the needy children. The orphans Leopold was searching for did not actually exist and his army therefore kidnapped boys from their homes and put them in these centers for education, military training, and baptism. Fears rooted in this historical period reemerged last week when a French charity, Zoe’s Ark, tried to fly 103 orphans out of Chad and into France. The article expresses how Chadians feel “violated” by Westerners who infringe upon their sense of sovereignty. Because Chad is a largely Muslim country, its beliefs regarding childcare are especially strict and adoption is illegal by religious law. The major African response to Zoe’s Ark’s attempt to remove these children was that if Europe were so welcoming to Africans, why not “open its borders to African migrants, grant African professionals jobs without discrimination, drop its barriers against African goods and allow Africa to export finished products.” Idriss Déby, president of Chad, goes as far as to suggest that Zoe’s Ark was taking these children in order to sell them as sex slaves in Europe.
Although I do not know details about the attempted migration or the intent of Zoe’s Ark, my first inclination is to defend the charity. When I first read the article I immediately compared the charity to Mapendo. Mapendo goes into countries in Central and Eastern Africa, including Chad, to find “vulnerable refugees” to either be treated at the health clinic in Nairobi or to be resettled in the United States. Mapendo exists because the United Nations fails in its missions to help African refugees: each year the United States has the capacity to take in 70,000 African refugees but in the past 5 years we have take between 20 and 40 thousand a year. The excuse for this is that the missions “cannot find refugees,” thus Mapendo goes looking for them. Because of this slightly distant comparison, I do not automatically assume the worst of this charity. Although the principle of taking children out of the country may be against the religious law of the country, there is no excuse for accusing the Charity of slavery. In the end I think this is simply a poorly written article because I do not have a sense of the intensity of the situation, nor do I know who to believe.
