U.S. missionaries charged with child trafficking in Haiti
A group of U.S. Christian missionaries, detained in Haiti on charges of child trafficking, are pleading ignorance, saying they were only trying to help. According to the Idaho-based Baptist missionaries, they travelled to Haiti on their own dime in the wake of the earthquake to rescue orphaned children. The group of 10 were arrested on Friday while trying to take 33 children by bus to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. At the time, the missionaries didn’t have passports for the children of the documents required to take them out of the country. The arrest comes after Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive expressed concern about child trafficking in the wake of the disaster. A local judge is currently reviewing the case against the missionaries to determine whether they will be tried in Haiti or in the U.S.