By Esther Armah

Ten white faces, bewildered and confused, emerge on the small screen. They are Americans from a Baptist missionary church in Idaho, arrested and accused of illegally taking 33 children out of Haiti, across the border to the Dominican Republic. Twenty of those children, it has been revealed, are not orphans. The SOS Children’s Villages, the group now caring for them, say they have parents.

The arrests came after days of growing concerns that well-motivated individuals, criminals and potential pedophiles may use the devastation of Haiti as opportunity. Child trafficking, said Haitian voices, scooping up brown babies whose mamas, somebody had decided, were no longer present, and so the kids would be potentially better off in the homes of others. The Missionary’s Position is one of trying to help, wanting to rescue, being motivated to move, provoked by plight, running to the rescue. That’s what is said. Naïve—that’s the word most often used in describing the missionaries’ actions. In there is another word: criminal.

Just as there is another truth.

The Missionary’s Position is loaded, questionable, curious and often racist. It has its roots in history, in the missionary’s positions on people of color over centuries. In Haiti, is the present tragically replaying the past?

European missionaries have a long history of negative encounters throughout the world. From the 15th century to the early 20th, there are countless examples of how European missionaries have acted as agents of imperialization and colonization. Their actions and legacies have had devastating consequences throughout Asia, Latin America and the black Diaspora. On the other hand, we must be careful not to condemn all missionaries or assume that all missionaries of modern times (black, white, of other backgrounds) are driven by conscious or even unconscious malicious motives. But what we know of the behavior of the 10 accused Americans raises troubling questions.

It has been discovered that they knew the documentation for the children was inadequate. Some have argued adoption is an amazing avenue to offer a better life for a child. And the merits and challenges of adoption are an important conversation. Loving a child is a priceless commodity. But that’s not what’s being discussed here. Would it be better, others suggest, for children left parentless by the trauma of a devastated nation to remain homeless among its rubble-filled streets, or should we lend a hand and enable them to be raised and loved well in other environments?

These are all valid questions.

But there is a legitimate debate to be had about the plight of Haitian children in the face of disaster. One is to consider Senegal’s offer regarding a mass adoption program in African countries. In this recent debacle, though, 20 of the kids have been found not to be parentless as they were headed to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Documentation was incomplete. Proper channels were ignored. And the 10 Americans who took the children knew that.

CNN reports that on February 4, “Ten Americans detained last week while trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the country were charged Thursday with kidnapping children and criminal association, a government official said.”

These American missionaries should be tried, and the evidence of what they did or did not do assessed. If found guilty, they should serve time. No longer can brown babies be taken, stolen, claimed in the name of any God. Nor can naïveté be used as the justification in the name of the Missionary’s Position.

Esther Armah is an acclaimed international journalist, author and playwirght who has worked in print, radio and television in the United States, the United Kingdom and Africa. Director of a creative media company, she also hosts the provocative radio show, Off the Page, on WBAI 99.5FM in New York City.