(J) Chanti and Chhork's request to GDG for information they are entitled to in accordance with the ACFID Code of Conduct, to which GDG is a signitory

Directors of the Global Development Group Board

Unit 6

734 Underwood Road

Rochedale, QLD 4123

23^rd May 2014

Dear    David James Pearson

Geoffrey Winston Armstrong

Ofelia (fe) Luscombe

Alan Benson

David Robertson

We are the Cambodian mother and father of Chanti Rosa and Chanty Cheata. Our daughters have lived in Citipointe church’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ since 2008 against our wishes.

The Global Development Group (GDG), of which you are Executive Director, provides funding to Citipointe church’s ‘SHE Rescue Home.’ This funding has been approved, through the Australian Council for International Development, by AusAID.

The GDG is bound by the Australian Council for International Development Code of Conduct and is obliged, in accordance with the Code, to be ‘transparent’. The meaning of the word ‘transparent’ is clear in the Code of Conduct.

‘An organisation’s openness about its activities, providing information on what it 
is doing, where and how this takes place and how it is performing’.

Neither Citipointe church nor GDG has provided us with any of the information we have requested since Citipointe church removed our daughters from their home in 2008. Instead, the church keeps promising to return our daughters but never does.

We have read the ACFID Code of Conduct and understand that we, as parents of Rosa and Cheata, are known as ‘stakeholders.’ We read the following in the Code of Conduct:

B.1.1 Accountability to primary stakeholders

Signatory organisations will ensure that their purpose and processes are shaped by stakeholders and that their work is open to review and comment by partners and participants alike. In all instances those directly affected by aid and development activities are considered the primary stakeholders and their views afforded the highest priority.

Obligation:

Signatory organisations will prioritise accountability to local people and those directly 
affected by aid and development activities, prioritising their needs and rights

As stakeholders our views about Citipointe church’s refusal to return our daughters have been ignored. As stakeholders our needs and rights have been ignored. We are told that our rights are outlined in two Memoranda of Understanding Citipointe church entered into with the Cambodia government – the first in 2008 and the second in 2009. Citipoint church and your own GDG have refused to provide us with copies of the two MOUs so we do not know what our rights are or what we must do to have our daughters returned to us.

As a ‘signatory organisation’ (to the ACFID Code) the GDG is obliged to “analyse the needs and expectations of key stakeholders in all aid and development activities, pursuing informed and balanced accountability to each.” Our own needs and expectations have been ignored for nearly 6 years.

We request that the Global Development Group provide us with (a) Annual self-assessment by GDG for the years 2008 - 2014 “by the signatory organisation’s governing body”, and (b) a reason why our complaints to Citipointe since 2008 have been ignored. It is the responsibility of the GDG to see to it that there is  “an independent complaints handling and discipline process.”

Finally, the Code of Conduct is clear about the Global Development Group’s obligations:

“Obligations on the signatory organisation to be ethical and transparent in marketing, fundraising and reporting.”

Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ has behaved in an unethical way by presenting our daughters to sponsors and donors as victims of human trafficking. The ‘contract’ Citipointe tricked me, as mother, into signing on 31^st July 2008 makes it clear that it was only the fact that the family was very poor at the time that caused me to ask the church for help for a short time. Rosa and Chita were not victims of human trafficking. I have never been a victim of human trafficking myself, even though Citipointe says that I was.

Could you please provide us both, as parents, with answers to our questions and with copies of any documents the Global Development Group has in its possession that relate to our daughters removal and detention by your funding partner, Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ – as you are required to do as signatories of the ACFID Code of Conduct?

Yem Chanti                                                                 Both Chhork

                        Mother                                                                        Father