UN slams Chad 'child-smuggling'
The French workers are being held in the town of Abeche in eastern Chad
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Saturday, 27, Oct 2007 09:36
The United Nations has condemned a French charity's attempt to transfer over 100 children from Chad to France.
A total of nine French citizens were arrested in the African country yesterday as they tried to take the children to Europe via plane for what they claimed were humanitarian reasons.
One of those arrested is the head of the charity Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark), which seeks to shift children from Sudan's troubled Darfur region to Europe. Members of another organisation Children Rescue were also among those detained.
The French foreign ministry and Chad's government have condemned the incident and launched investigations into it. Chad has insisted that the charity's move was unauthorised and the country's president Idriss Deby has called the move "inhumane… unthinkable… [and] inadmissible".
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has also termed the move "illegal and totally irresponsible", stating that it was in violation of international law.
Unicef spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said that the charities had violated the terms of international treaties such as The Hague Convention on international adoption and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Ms Taveau added that it should not be assumed that children separated from parents in areas afflicted by natural disasters or violent conflict had no relatives to take care of them.
Both humanitarian organisations have denied that they were seeking to take the children to France to facilitate their adoption. Stephanie Lefebvre, secretary-general of Zoe's Ark, said: "There has never - I repeat - never been any question of us being an adoption agency. These children were not intended for adoption. Our motives were simple: we just wanted to rescue them from death.
"These children were abandoned, enlisted by warlords. Some were drugged and armed. In addition they were malnourished and in an alarming state of health," the head of the charity added.
Media sources have cited French diplomats as saying that the group had received payment from French families eager to adopt a child to conduct the operation.
France's secretary of state for human rights Rama Yade has said that the activities of Zoe's Ark had been monitored adding that the group had ignored "recommendations and warnings" given to them.