# 119 Scott Neeson has hagiographic PR piece written about him by Wall St Journal journalist Alexandra Wolfe

Dear Alexandra Wolfe

It is a pity you did not do a little more research before you wrote your hagiographic piece about Scott Neeson:

From Hollywood Executive to Philanthropist

(http://www.wsj.com/articles/scott-neeson-from-hollywood-executive-to-philanthropist-1434134269)

If you had even typed ‘Scott Neeson’ into google you would have discovered that there are questions you needed to ask Scott Neeson if you were to write anything other than a public relations piece to help him raise money for the Cambodian Children’s Fund.

These are questions that journalists almost never ask him. Like you they rely only on the PR material provided to them by Neeson – combined, perhaps, with a skype interview in which Neeson trots out a very familiar (and factually inaccurate) account of his life and his achievements in Cambodia.

Just as those who read your Neeson PR piece (this is not journalism, Alexandra) should take what you write with a large grain of salt, so too should you (and others reading this) take what I write with a huge grain of salt. Check the facts for yourself; ask questions.

You could start here, with some questions I asked of Heather Graham – a Hollywood actress who also spruiks for the Cambodian Children’s Fund:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/115-some-questions-heather-graham-might.html

It seems not to have occurred to you (or to many journalists) that, as a marketing person (and a highly skilled one, spruiking for Hollywood!) that Scott Neeson knows precisely what to say about himself to elicit the response he wants – which is to get new sponsors and donors to open their hearts and wallets.

Scott has a secondary objective, and it may well be the one most important to him in the long run - to solidify the narrative myth about his life that he has been propagating for years now:

Scott Neeson,  knight in white shining armour, on his white steed riding into the Phnom Penh rubbish dump to rescue children living in squalor who have no families to take care of them; no hope for the future.

This is great story and, no doubt, this will be the major theme of the autobiography he will write and which, he hopes, will be made into a Hollywood film to perpetuate the Scott Neeson myth.

I wonder if Scott will I include in his biography the fact that he has, as head of the Cambodian children’s Fund Child Protection unit, a man James Mc Cabe who is a convicted criminal! With half an hour of internet research you would have found the following, Alexandra:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/ex-nca-cops-plea-deal-over-drug-sting/story-e6frg6o6-1111116525996

The overwhelming majority of the children Scott Neeson  takes into residential care, have families. They have mums and dads who love their children but who, through circumstances beyond their control, are desperately poor and unable to adequately feed, care for and educate their children.

Very often the extreme poverty of these families is the result of a serious illness that resulted in doctor and hospital bills that they could not pay. Such debts led them to borrow money from rapacious money lenders whose interest rates render the debts owed virtually impossible to repay. This in turn leads to their losing their only assets – their homes and land. Given the lack of work in the countryside they gravitate to Phnom Penh, where they find that there are virtually no jobs for unskilled workers other than the most demeaning and dangerous. And so it is that many of these families wind up working in and living alongside the Phnom Penh rubbish dump.

When Scott Neeson arrives on the scene, offering to help these families, the mums and dads, who want the best for their children, do not ask any questions about the terms and conditions of such help. The simply say, “Yes, please, help us raise our children.”

Scott Neeson does, in fact, impose some very onerous conditions on the help he provides. He forces the mums and dads to sign contracts with the Cambodian Children’s Fund but does not allow them to show the contracts to any independent third party and nor does he allow the parents to keep a copy of the contract. He then tells the parents, if they should ask for their children back, that  they have signed a contract that essentially ‘gives’ them to CCF until they are 18 years old. He then claims, in his tax return statement to the IRS, that he is spending $4,000 a year housing and educating these children. Don’t take my word for it. Check this out for yourself:

https://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/images/stories/financial/CCF_990_Form_2013.pdf

Neeson does not tell the families just how much money CCF is making out of caring for their children. Do the sums yourself, bearing in mind that the sum of $4,000 Neeson claims to spend on each child in institutional care in any one year is more than double the amount of money the average Cambodian family earns in a year.

And if you want to find out what happens when any of the families whose children Neeson has in institutional care get behind in their rent, check out the following:

http://cambodianchildrensfund.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/25-scott-nesson-locks-poor-family-out.html

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve280RWEV5w

Alexandra, I did not expect such lazy journalism from someone working for the Wall St Journal. By not bothering to do even the most minimal research or to ask any questions at all you have provided Scott Neeson with just the kind of free advertising he needs and wants in order to keep the Cambodian Children’s Fund afloat.

Neeson’s business model requires that he have a constant stream of children to rescue. This in turn requires that he convinces potential sponsors and donors that he is the only person who can help these children. This in turn requires that he sidelines the parents, the families, the communities to which these children belong. Finally, in order to sell his ‘knight in white shining armour message to the world he needs journalists whom, he knows, will publish whatever PR material he provides them with and call it journalism.

The charity sector in the US is rife with scams that should be exposed, if you would ever feel inclined to do some real journalistic research:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/96-message-for-heather-graham-re.html

Please, Alexandra, the next time you and/or the Wall St Journal might feel inclined to write a hagiographic piece about a charity, do your homework first. 

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 118 Charity Navigator a scam

Dear Scott Neeson

How can you, with a straight face, declare that Charity Navigator has given the Cambodian Children’s Fund a 100% rating in the ‘transparency and accountability’ category! 

CCF runs in a fog of secrecy. You never answer any questions at all – not just from me but from any journalists.

As you know, as I know, as anyone with an IQ over 100 can figure out for themselves, Charity Navigator is a scam. Comments critical of CCF are deleted almost immediately.

Does Charity Navigator charge CCF to delete negative comments? If so, what a wonderful a wonderful way to squeeze money out of NGOs eager to be at the top of the pile and be able to publish ‘results’ such as those to be found above.

It is very easy to publish whatever lie you like on a social network site, as is the case here on CCF’s Facebook page. It is also very easy, thanks to Google, for any lies launched into cyberspace to be found and exposed by anyone with the most basic of ‘Google-search’ skills.

It doesn’t take long, for instance, to find this from the Vancouver Sun last year:

“Neeson had been travelling in Asia in 2003 after leaving 20th Century Fox, where he had made more than 200 films in 10 years, including Titanic and Braveheart.”

This information would, no doubt, impress many a potential donor of sponsor.

“Scott Neeson has made 200 films! Wow!”

A little more Google research would reveal to potential donor of sponsor that you have not, in fact, made one film. You were involved in the marketing of Hollywood movies. Perhaps even 200 of them. A potential donor of sponsor might feel justified, at this point, to ask:

“If Mr neeson plays fast and loose with the truth about the 200 films he has made, can I believe anything he says?”

A potential donor of sponsor, armed with a couple of typing fingers and with access to Google, could also learn from the internet that:

“…for every unit sold (by a construction company in Canada), a new 130-square-foot home worth $2,500 will be built in Steung Meanchey to house families who eke out a living on the garbage dump.”

Mmmm, very impressive. Canadian home builders donating houses to poor Cambodians who work in a rubbish dump.

Well, not quite. The homes given to CCF are not passed on to poor homeless Cambodians . CCF rents these homes to the families whose children are in CCF residential care. The land on which the houses are built belongs to you/CCF so there is no chance that these people will ever own them. They will, for as long as they live in them, have you as their landlord.

If potential sponsors and donors are vigilant, they might even stumble upon this blog and learn that perhaps not everything that appears in cyberspace about Scott Neeson and the Cambodian Children’s Fund is necessarily true. They would also discover that the guy writing the blog has been variously described as someone who hates Scott Neeson, is a wanker, a nutter, a cunt, a ‘looser’, a ‘kiddie fiddler’ a slug and many other unpleasant things. Maybe all or some of them are true?

In this new digital age our hypothetical potential donor or sponsor is free to read as much or as little as s/he likes of this blog and form an opinion about both the blogger and CCF. And, of course, yourself.

This is democracy in practice. Sometimes harsh, yes, but the aim of journalists and bloggers (and of course documentary filmmakers) is to hold people in positions of power accountable for how they wield that power. And it is up to other journalists, bloggers and filmmakers to hold each other accountable. (In this instance, me.)

This is the way the system works. Or should work. If I make statements here that are factually incorrect these should be pointed out to me and if I persist in making false statements I should be exposed as a liar. I should not be allowed to get away with it.

In practice the various Trolls that espouse your cause on this blog rarely, if ever, attack me on the basis that I have been factually incorrect and pointing out to me why. No, the abuse is almost always personal – the belief being, I guess, that if I can be discredited as (see list above), then all that I write becomes questionable.

This may work for some potential sponsors and donors but the more discerning ones and, I suspect, the ones with the deepest pockets, are going to look beyond the abuse to the facts. And, if they wish to be careful about which charity they give their money to, they will ask you questions. Lots of questions.

The Neeson Trolls tell me, often, that you are too busy a man to bother reading the nonsense I write here. You and I know that this is not true. The only way it could be true is if you simply refuse to open any email from me; if Bob Tufts (board member) refuses to open any email from me.

The tide of history is against you, Scott. In the not-too-distant future running an orphanage will not be seen as an asset but as a liability. OK, you don’t run an orphanage. You merely have 500 or 700 kids living in dormitories who have mums and dads. Call them what you will, these kids are effectively living as orphans and being presented to potential sponsors and donors as kids who would have no future if not rescued by you. Not true. You could be ‘rescuing’ entire families, revitalizing communities. This is the way of the future and it would be great if you could get on board. You clearly have the marketing skills to take CCF in a new direction and take your sponsors and donors with you.

# 117 Closing down fake 'orphanages' and 'rescue homes'

HE Vong Soth

Ministry of Social Affairs,

Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation

#788, Monivong Blvd.

Phnom Penh

Cambodia

11^th May 2015

Dear Minister

When will the Ministry of Social Affairs close down fake ‘orphanages’ in Cambodia?

When will the Ministry of Social Affairs tell NGOs running fake ‘orphanages’ that they must return ‘orphans’ to their families?

Why does the Ministry of Social Affairs allow NGOs to operate ‘orphanages’ in which 75% of the children have at least one living parent and in which close to 100% of children have families that could care for them if they had the appropriate support?

Fake ‘orphanages’ can be broken into three categories. They are run by:

(a) unscrupulous NGOs exploiting poor Cambodians to make a profit.

(b) evangelical Christians who force Cambodian children to abandon their Buddhist religion and culture

and

(c) foreigners who believe Cambodian parents are incapable caring for their own children.

All three categories of NGO are exploiting the material poverty of the Cambodian people and using images of children to induce well-meaning sponsors and donors to open their hearts and their wallets.

When will this exploitation end?

When the Ministry of Social Affairs does close fake orphanages, you need to take into account that many NGOs do not refer to the children in their institutional care as ‘orphans’ but do treat them as ‘orphans’.  

In the case of Citipointe Church’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’, run by evangelical Christians from Brisbane, Australia, Pastor Leigh Ramsay refers to the girls in institutional care as ‘victims of human trafficking’ – despite the fact that very few, if any, of the girls in the church’s care have been rescued from the sex trade.

Citipointe church tricks materially poor parents into placing their thumb prints on a ‘contact’ they cannot read and do not understand. The church then tells  the parents that Citipointe now has legal custody of their daughters. The parents, who have no idea of their legal rights, believe that they have no choice but to give up their daughters.

 This is a form of kidnapping and is contrary to Cambodia’s Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation:

Article 8:Definition of Unlawful Removal

The act of unlawful removal removal in this act shall mean to:

1)    Remove a person from his/her current place of residence to a place under the actor’s or a third persons control by means of force, threat, deception, abuse of power, or enticement, or

2)    Without legal authority or any other legal justification to do so to take a minor person under general custody or curatorship or legal custody away from the legal custody of the parents, care taker or guardian.

Article 9: Unlawful removal, inter alia, of Minor

A person who unlawfully removes a minor or a person under general custody or curatorship or legal custody shall be punished with imprisonment for 2 to 5 years.

Why are the Christians such as Pastor Leigh Ramsey not charged in accordance with Cambodian law with the illegal removal of children from their families?

Scott Neeson’s Cambodian Children’s Fund, run by another Australian, is yet another fake orphanage. Mr Neeson does not refer to the 700 or so children he has in institutional care as ‘orphans’. They are presented to donors and sponsors as children who do not have parents who can take care of them. This is not true. These children have very poor parents who require financial assistance when they fall upon hard times or because they are locked in a poverty cycle that they cannot extricate themselves from.

The Cambodian Children’s Fund takes advantage of the vulnerability of these very poor families by offering to help take care of their children. The parents think that this is a very generous offer and do not hesitate to sign a ‘contract’ given to them by Mr Neeson. Once the ‘contract’ has been signed, however, Mr Neeson, who does not provide the parents with a copy of it, tells the parents that he now has control of their children. If the parents want their children returned to their care have nowhere to turn for assistance when Mr Neeson refuses to do so.

I believe it to be essential, in protecting the rights of both parents and children, that parents be allowed to retain copies of any contracts they enter into with NGOs such as Citipointe church and the Cambodian Children’s Fund. The parents should be encouraged to show copies of these contracts to others who can offer them expert advice on the fairness or unfairness of the terms and conditions contained in them. Parents need to be informed that they have a right for their children to be returned to their care if they wish; that the contracts they have signed do not give an NGO to take control of the children’s lives.

Whilst requesting that Mr Neeson return the 700 fake ‘orphans’ in his care to their families you might ask him also to explain why it is that he tells the US Tax office it costs the Cambodian Children’s Fund $4,000 each year to provide accommodation and education to one child. As you know, $4,000 is more than double the amount of money it would take to support the entire family of one child in institutional care.

Scott Neeson will tell anyone who is prepared to listen that he is very well connected to powerful people in the Cambodian government. This may well be the case but these ‘powerful people’ should be ashamed of themselves if they are aiding and abetting in the break up of Cambodian families.

Future generations of children removed from their families by unscrupulous NGOs will one day ask you and others in your government, “Why did you allow this to happen?”

All NGOs running orphanages, even if they do not use the word ‘orphan’ should to told to present your Ministry, in the near future, with a detailed plan of:

(a) How they intend to re-integrate these fake orphans back into their families and communities over the next year

and

(b) How they intend to assist these children from materially poor families in the years to come.

It will be interesting to see how many of these NGOs continue with their ‘charitable’ work under these circumstances. I suspect that many of them will close their doors and move to another part of the world where they can steal the children of materially poor people with impunity. This will almost certainly be the case for evangelical Christian NGOs if they no longer have the opportunity to force their Christian beliefs on Cambodian children.

I find it hard to see what benefits there are for Cambodia in allowing the exploitation of Cambodia’s poor in this way. Yes, there may be some corrupt officials whose incomes are boosted by turning a blind eye to the clear breaches of Cambodian law practiced by these NGOs but Cambodian society, Cambodian culture loses out by having so many of its young people alienated from their families, their villages, their culture and religion whilst unscrupulous NGOs either make a lot of money or win souls for Jesus Christ.

I hope that the day comes when these children, removed from their families in a manner that is at times illegal and at others immoral, take the NGOs responsible to court and sue them for the emotional damage they have inflicted on themselves and their families.

The policy of removing children from their families in the belief that it was in the best interests of the children to be institutionalized, was tried in Australia for more than a century. This experiment in social engineering  failed so badly, caused so much emotional and psychological damage, that the Australian government had to apologize, a few years ago, for the creation of what we refer to in Australia as a ‘Stolen Generation’.

There is a ‘Stolen Generation’ of children being created in Cambodia and history will either look back on you as the person who brought this cruel practice to an end or as one of those who perpetuated it.

best wishes

James Ricketson