# 191 “The ultimate transformation - me.” Scott Neeson, April 2016

“The ultimate transformation - me.” Scott Neeson April 2016

Scott Neeson’s latest 'sponsored' Facebook advertisement has only one subject- Scott Neeson!

There is no mention of the 700+ children in CCF residential care.

Did sponsors and donors pay for Scott’s self-aggrandizing advertisement for himself?

 Do Heather Graham and others on the CCF board believe that Scott Neeson's self-promotion on Facebook is a worthwhile way of spending money earmarked to assist desperately poor Cambodians?

Is the CCF board at all concerned that the legal and human rights of 700+ children and young adults have been breached by the contracts their parents have been forced to sign?

Does the CCF board approve of the debt bondage that results from the signing of such contracts?

Will the Cambodian print media and human rights organisations such as LICADHO and ADHOC ever get around to asking Scott Neeson a few pertinent questions about these contracts?

Vong Soth, Minister for Social Affairs endorsing CCF's World Housing initiative!

Vong Soth

Minister for Social Affairs

Ministry of Social Affairs Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation

No 788B

Monivong Boulevard

Phnom Penh

Cambodia

25^th April 2016

Dear Mr Vong Soth

Earlier this year you vowed to cut the number of children in orphanages by 30 per cent within two years through a joint campaign with NGOs. You said:

“The centres should receive only real orphans who have no other option, not children who are living with families and parents.”

Scott Neeson admits that all but 35 of the 700+ children in residential care at the Cambodian Children’s Fund have families.

Do you believe, Minister, that round 650 CCF children with parents (not orphans) should grow up in institutions?

I would like to draw your attention, and that of your partners, USAID, UNICEF and Friends International, to the fact that impoverished parents are often tricked by NGOs into giving up custody of their children. The parents are then told they cannot have their children returned to their care until they pay the NGO money.

For example, consider the following extracts from a contract that the Cambodian Children’s Fund forces parents to sign:

  

3(I)         The Parents/guardians agree to reimburse and compensate any cost of expense including blood test and vaccination for child, and financial and materials support to their family, although it was a gift or loan, and other expenses while their children were residing in CCF if they demand to bring their children back or the decision made by the child him/herself and that such those decisions may affect the child’s future and advantages without obvious justification from the parents/guardians.

And:

Any dispute that may arise out of this Agreement shall be settled by the Parties amicably. Any dispute which cannot be amicably settled by the Parties shall be settled by binding arbitration in a location to be decided by the mutual agreement of the Parties. The dispute shall be settled by one arbitrator or more mutually agreeable by the Parties. The arbitrator’s decision shall be final and binding on the Parties. The Parties agree that they will not refer their dispute to any court in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

And:

Article 6           Severability

If any of the provisions of this Security Agreement shall be held invalid or unenforceable, this Security Agreement shall be construed as if not containing those provisions and the rights and obligations of the Parties shall be construed and enforced accordingly.

The Cambodian Children’s Fund is using legal trickery to make it impossible for parents to have their children returned to their care other than at the whim of Scott Neeson or his staff.

With the provisions outlined in this contract CCF seeks to convince parents that if they withdraw their children from the NGO’s care they must pay CCF many thousands of dollars! This is despite the fact that every child at CCF has at least one sponsor – paying CCF $150 a month to care for that child.

That CCF should ask the poorest of the poor parents to re-pay money provided by sponsors is morally reprehensible.

Further, CCF seeks to convince these parents – many of whom can neither read nor write – that they have, in signing the contract, relinquished their right, if they are unhappy about the arrangement they have entered into with CCF, to seek redress in a Cambodian court of law.

Is it possible for any person, any organization, to induce someone to sign away their legal and constitutional rights in this way?

In addition to intimidating parents into believing they have signed away their right to have their dispute with CCF settled in a court of law, the parents are not allowed to retain copies of the contracts they have signed. Consequently, they are not able to seek independent advice regarding the wisdom of signing such the contract.

If the contract the Cambodian Children’s Fund forces parents to sign is illegal (and the legal advice I have is that it is), the NGO is in breach of 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:

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

Without legal authority or any other legal justification to do so to take a minor person under general custody or curatoship 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.

I would strongly recommend that the Ministry of Social Affairs Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation insists that the Cambodian Children’s Fund and all other NGOs  entering into contracts with impoverished families provide your Ministry with copies of these contracts. And I believe, in the interests of transparency and accountability, that all parents should be provided with copies of such contracts and be encouraged to seek independent advice regarding their legal status; regarding whether or not the contracts are in breach of their legal, human and constitutional rights.

It would take only a few days for all registered NGOs to provide your Ministry with copies of such contracts. And it would take only a few days to determined whether or not these contracts are legal under Cambodian law. I believe that NGOs that have coerced parents into signing illegal contracts should be charged accordingly and their offences referred to courts to be dealt with by the Cambodian legal system.

I suspect that at least 30% of the ‘contracts’ NGOs have entered into with the parents of children in their care have no legal standing. If so, a reduction of 30% in the population of children with families living in orphanages could be achieved in a matter of weeks. Fines levied against NGOs guilty of forcing parents to sign illegal contracts could be used to pay for the appropriate integration of these non-orphan children back into their families and communities.

yours sincerely

James Ricketson

# 190 Why Scott Neeson should be in jail for the illegal detention of children and abrogating the legal and human rights of their impoverished parents.

Dear Scott

You have 700+ children in residential care.

In one of your latest Sponsored Facebook advertisements you acknowledge that all but 35 of these children have families they can visit during Khmer New Year celebrations.

That’s 665 children, approximately, who have families but who are nonetheless living in what amounts to an orphanage. (Despite each child bringing in $150 a month in sponsorship monies for CCF, they sleep 2, 3 and 4 to a bed. And on the floor!)

The same old questions arise:

Why are these 665 children growing up in an institution when they have families?

How many of these children have families living in the provinces?

How many of these children have families living in or around Steung Meanchey?

It is understandable that kids from the provinces are provided with residential care but as I understand it the vast majority of kids have families in Phnom Penh.

How much does such a ‘Sponsored’ post on Facebook cost you?

And:

Do you own (or have a long lease on) the property on which is to be found the ‘Black Bamboo’ restaurant? 

Is the $300,000 figure I have been given for renovations an accurate one or a bit high?

If you are the owner/lease holder on ‘Black Bamboo’ did you use your own money to acquire it? Or did the money come from generous sponsors and donors who think their contributions to CCF are going to help materially poor Cambodian families?

The same apples for the land upon which the World Housing homes are being erected.

Do you own the land? Are you now the owner of 360+ homes ‘gifted’ to poor families? Homes that have added between $500,000 and $1 million to the land? If you are not the owner, who is he/she?

You will not answer these questions, of course. This is your way. Transparency and accountability play no role in your running of CCF.

Luckily for you, for the time being at least, no journalists in Cambodia will even ask you  questions of the kind I ask. The reason for this, in the case of the Phnom Penh Post, is obvious. You have bought the silence of the Post’s journalists by acquiring a significant stake in the newspaper. It is worth your while to lose around $25,000 a month to make sure that PPP journalists will ask no questions and publish no stories that are not hagiographic PR puff pieces that contribute to the myth about yourself that you have been cultivating for many years now.

As for the Cambodia Daily I (and many others) are very curious to know whether you have made a deal with Bernie Kirsher such that he too will not allow the Daily to publish anything negative about you. Time will tell.

Then there’s Khmer 440. Not that this site is to be taken at all seriously but you have, nonetheless, taken it over with a view to guaranteeing that you are not exposed as a fraud on it.

The extraordinary efforts you embark on to control your public image pale in comparison to the extraordinary efforts you go to to control the families whose kids wind up in CCF care.

I have been asking you for 18 months now to make public a copy of the pro forma contract that you force parents to sign when you take their kids into residential care. You have refused to do so. Likewise, you refuse to allow the parents themselves to retain a copy of the contract they have signed, or to show it to any NGO (or lawyer) who might be in a position to advise them about the legality of it; about the advisability of signing it.

The sections of the CCF contract that I think would be (should be) of interest to lawyers and human rights groups are:

  

3(I)         The Parents/guardians agree to reimburse and compensate any cost of expense including blood test and vaccination for child, and financial and materials support to their family, although it was a gift or loan, and other expenses while their children were residing in CCF if they demand to bring their children back or the decision made by the child him/herself and that such those decisions may affect the child’s future and advantages without obvious justification from the parents/guardians.

And:

Any dispute that may arise out of this Agreement shall be settled by the Parties amicably. Any dispute which cannot be amicably settled by the Parties shall be settled by binding arbitration in a location to be decided by the mutual agreement of the Parties. The dispute shall be settled by one arbitrator or more mutually agreeable by the Parties. The arbitrator’s decision shall be final and binding on the Parties. The Parties agree that they will not refer their dispute to any court in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Article 6           Severability

If any of the provisions of this Security Agreement shall be held invalid or unenforceable, this Security Agreement shall be construed as if not containing those provisions and the rights and obligations of the Parties shall be construed and enforced accordingly.

So, CCF receives considerably more in funds from sponsors to care for one child for a year than that child’s entire family earns in a year!  And yet you expect, demand, that any parent who wishes to have their child returned to their care must repay CCF an amount that these extremely poor people cannot afford. And you have intimidated them into believing that they have signed away their right to have their dispute with CCF settled in a court of law! Not only is this morally reprehensible, it is a form of bondage and illegal under Cambodian law.

If human rights organisations such as LICADHO and ADHOC were genuinely concerned about the human rights of impoverished families whose lives you now control they would commence legal proceedings against CCF. That they do not do so speaks volumes of these same human rights organisations’ complicity, through turning a blind eye, in the multiple orphanage scams that blight Cambodia.

I hope that at some point in the not-too-distant future a lawyer commences a class action suit, signs up 100s of parents and children (now young adults) who have essentially been kidnapped by CCF and drag you and your NGO into both the court of public opinion and the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. The relevant law:

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 curatoship 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.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7259345/Law-on-Suppression-of-Human-Trafficking-and-Sexual-Exploitation-15022008-English

I do not believe that CCF has any legal right to be taking minors from their families and refusing to return them when asked - citing contracts that are, in themselves, illegal. And there can be no doubt that CCF has no legal right to be controlling (as it does) the lives of young men and women who are over the age of 18.

You need to get your house in order, Scott. The media will not give you a free run forever – not even those parts of the Cambodian media whose silence you have, essentially, bought.

If you believe that I am defaming you here (your Neeson Trolls are forever accusing me of doing so) commence legal proceedings against me. I would be delighted to meet you in court.

cheers

James

# 189 "Daddy give everyone a wonderful life in CCF" Scott Neeson self-promotion!

Dear members of the Phnom Penh Post staff

Alessandro Mara, Alice Cuddy, Ananth Baliga, Audrey Wilson, Ayanna Runcie, Ban Socheata, Brent Crane, Bun Phalla, Buth Reaksmey, Cam McGrath, Chad Williams, Chamnan Noeng, Chap Narith, Charles Rollet, Cheng Sereyrith, Cheng Sokhorng, Chhay Channyda, Chhim Sreyneang, Chhuon Meng, Daniel Nass, Daniel Pye, Dit Sokthy, H S Manjunath, Harriet Fitch Little, Heng Chivoan, Hong Menea, Hong Raksmey, Horng Pengly, Hun Channet, Igor Kossov, Im Soneath, In Sopheng, Jamie Elliott, Joe Curtin, Julius Thiemann, Kali Kotoski, Kay Kimsong, Keo Puthy, Keo Vikram, Khouth Sophak, Kim Sarom, Koam Chanrasmey, Kun Kourchettana, Lay Samean, Leang Phannara, Meas Sokchea, Mech Dara, Michael Philips, Monnyreak Prach, Morn Vanntey, Ney Chan Borin, Oeur Sayon, Pan Simala, Pann Rethea, Pech Sotheary, Pek Ros, Pha Lina, Phak Seangly, Phon Sokchea, Pok Sampeakra, Pov Linna, Prum Pheak, Reth Vanna, Saing Chanchakriya, Sam Rith, Scott Howes, Sen David, Shaun Turton, So Visal, Sok Bopha, Sor Chandara, Sorn Sarath, Sou Vuthy, Soy Sontery, Sreng Meng Srun, Stuart White, Tang Kok, Tep Thoeun Thyda, Tin Rosaly, Toun Chanreaksmey, Tuy Engly-Sakura, Uong Ratana, Vandy Muong, Victoria Mork, Vong Sokheng, Zoe Holman

I tried to write to a few of the journalists amongst you but the PPP server bounced them. The powers that be at the PPP do not want me to communicate with any of you by email.

How do you all feel about the Phnom Penh Post providing Scott Neeson and the Cambodian Children’s Fund with free public relations material?

How do you feel about having, as part owner of the Post, a man who insists that PPP journalists, only write positive stories about him and his NGO?

“Since 2007, the Post (has) faced constant turmoil and criticism from many of its excellent journalists on staff who protested the degrading of a once impenetrable iron curtain that, prior to Dunkley, never compromised the integrity and fearless editorial independence from the many vested, often corrupt, moneyed interests in Cambodia, including the ruling dictatorship in political power.”

Nate Thayer

You might like to ask Sue Townsend, friend and associate of Scott Neeson and a member of the wealthy Australian family that co-owns the newspaper, if it is true that she and Scott must now pump $50,000 a month into the PPP in order to keep the ailing newspaper afloat? If so, and if Scott Neeson owns 50% of the PPP, does this mean he is pumping $25,000 a month into the newspaper to pay your salaries? If so, where does this money come from? Donations given to CCF to help impoverished families in Steung Meanchey?

Sue Townsend & Dalai Lama

How do you feel about not being able to ask any questions about Scott Neeson’s World Housing initiative? Like, “Who owns the land upon which the houses ‘gifted’ to poor families have been erected? Scott Neeson himself?  Country Manager Kram Sok Channoeurn? Do you find it annoying (to say the least!)  not being able publish whatever your research might uncover about World Housing or many of the other CCF initiatives that raise both ethical and legal questions – like the removal of 700+ children from their families, to be brought up in what is, in effect, an orphanage?  An orphanage in which children with real fathers are encouraged to call Scott Neeson ‘Daddy’. (That Neeson should boast of his ‘Daddy’ status on his Facebook page speaks volumes of how insensitive he is; how out of touch with reality!)

“Once Dunkley compromised the Post's integrity by cutting sweet advertising deals in exchange for fawning coverage, employed corrupt journalists who subordinated the independence of their news stories for personal financial gain and access, muddied the previously clear line between the advertising department and the newsroom, and undermined the reputation of a free press in Phnom Penh by offering little different than the already available questionable news fare in Cambodia, it has been a decidedly uphill slog to recover.”

Nate Thayer

Do you approve of the ‘fawning coverage’ the Post gives to Neeson? Supposedly news stories that are really little more than advertisements for Neeson, CCF and the CPU?

CCF net assets 2014, US$11.5 million

With the Maha Songkran holiday just 6 days away wouldn’t you like to ask Scott Neeson why he has told the 700+ children in residential care that there will be no balloons, no decorations, this year because CCF can’t afford them?

“Scott, at the end of 2014 CCF had $14 million in assets, $3 million in cash! How is it that CCF can’t afford to buy balloons for the kids this year!”

 (Upon reading this I imagine that Scott will send out for balloons and other decorations so that one of his Trolls can write, “Wrong, Rickets. The kids will get their balloons as always.” Mind you, the words ‘loser’, ‘jealous’, ‘moron’ and other colourful epithets will be used as Scott tries, yet again, to shoot the messenger.)

Of course there are many other questions. Like:

“How much did Scott Neeson and Sue Townsend pay for their photo opportunity with the Dalai Lama?”

Scott Neeson, Dalai Lama & Sue Townsend

And

“Who is the teenage girl in the arms of a man more than twice her age? Is she a CCF girl? Is Scott her ‘daddy’?”

Daddy!?

And countless more to be found in this blog.

I do not know the answers to these questions. Scott Neeson does not answer questions from me as a matter of principle. Perhaps if a delegation of journalists from the PPP were to ask him some of them he would answer. And if he does not, that is your story. And if the PPP will not publish it because Scott Neeson is part owner of the newspaper, that makes the story all the more important to be told if you value your independence and integrity.

My suggestion:

The next time Chad Williams asks any of you to re-write a Scott Neeson press release and make it seem like a news story, say ‘no’. Tell Chad Williams that you want to write about World Housing, about why it is, with millions of dollars in assets, Scott has announced that there will be no balloons this year for the CCF kids!

'Salaries' $3.7 million! 'Other Expenses' $4.6 million!

When Neeson’s House of Cards collapses under the sheer weight of his lies there will be a lot of people with egg on their faces – including journalists who, on instructions from Neeson himself (via Chris Dawe and Chad Williams), failed to ask the right questions or, having asked them, failed to publish what they discovered.  Declaring, at some time in the future (and it may be soon), “I had no idea that the World Housing initiative was a scam” will not wash. Claiming that you were just doing as you were told will not absolve you of your ethical responsibilities as journalists.