Behind Bars

Behind Bars

January 12th, 2010, a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake hits the small nation of Haiti in the Caribbean killing hundreds of thousands and leaving tens of thousands in dire need of medical attention. Due to inadequate infrastructure, the people of Haiti died, and for some families, children became orphans. Once attention from other countries came, such as the United States, adoptions and child trafficking began to occur even if some of these children still had parents. In one of these cases, ten Americans from the Eastside Baptist Church mounted their own rescue mission to Haiti following the earthquake.

These 10 Americans took 33 children from Port-Au-Prince and brought them to the Dominican, Haitian border on a bus, but didn’t have proper papers with them, so they were turned back. The plan of this group was to bring these 33 children to a rented beach hotel in the Dominican for sheltering. The Americans were then jailed for allegedly trafficking Haitian children into the Dominican Republic. Once sent to jail, they were to be tried in a Haitian court although most Haitian courts were crippled by the quake. The spokeswoman for this group, Laura Silsby, said they were “just trying to do the right thing,” which is probably what their intentions actually were. Some of the 33 children, who ranged from 2 months to twelve years of age, said they still had parents, and the prime minister said that some of those parents may have given their kids to the Americans in hopes that they would reach the United Sates.

In a way, these Americans did exhibit moral courage because they saw that after the earthquake, the people of Haiti had nothing, and so to try and bring these children to the Dominican Republic, they would be ...

... middle of paper ...

...world. Standing up, even if it means having to do it yourself, when everyone else is standing down, could show people that there is a different side to life. I feel that being on the other side is something bigger than yourself because a chain reaction occurs. People will begin to do what they feel inside of them is right, instead of being that average, everyday person, and dare to be different. I try doing that same exact thing every day by making a difference even if it means doing a small task because I know that small act of kindness could spark a chain, and lead to something big. The ten Americans tried to do an act of kindness that could lead to other people doing the same thing, and if everyone were to do follow such an example, the world would be a better place.

Bibliography

February 2010 http://www.msnbc.com/id/35181444/ns//world_news-haiti_earthquake/