A U.S. federal court has sentenced a former missionary from Oklahoma to
40 years in prison for sexually abusing children at a Kenyan orphanage.
His arrest and conviction—one case among several recent instances of
overseas abuse—highlights the need for more vetting procedures in
international volunteering, experts say.
Prosecutors accused Matthew Lane Durham, 21, of sexual misconduct with
children in Nairobi’s Upendo Children’s Home between April and June
2014. Durham had volunteered at the orphanage since 2012. A jury
initially found Durham guilty on seven counts, but U.S. District Judge
David Russell acquitted him in January of three of those charges. He
also ordered Durham to pay restitution of $15,863.
“These were heinous crimes committed on the most vulnerable victims,” Russell said. “He was their worst nightmare come true.”
The orphanage’s founder, Eunice Menja, read a statement in court in
which she said Durham’s actions were a betrayal of the trust the
orphanage placed in him.
“Matthew Durham defiled the children,” Menja said, as she fought back tears.
In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said Durham’s misconduct will
affect how other foreign volunteers are viewed in Kenya and elsewhere.
His case follows a string of others. Last year, a U.K. court sentenced
British national Simon Harris to more than 17 years in prison for
abusing street children in Kenya between 1996 and 2013. Harris headed a
charity that placed volunteers in Kenyan schools.
While some mission organizations don’t have plans to change their
volunteer vetting processes, others say tighter controls are necessary.
Shannon O’Donnell, author of The Volunteer Traveler’s Handbook, said she
has seen her share of ethical and legal loopholes in vetting
volunteers.
“I don’t run orphanage volunteering specifically because so few of them
actually run background checks on volunteers or require they have a
history of social work,” O’Donnell said. “Anyone with money can
volunteer on any trip they want with a lot of these organizations.”
Impact Nations International Ministries, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based
Christian group that runs short-term missions and other sustainability
projects, only requires volunteers to fill out lengthy applications and
provide their pastors’ contact information. Often times, the nonprofit
leaves the responsibility of background checks to the groups that send
volunteers.
“Sometimes churches would send a whole group with us and they’ll vet
the people on their team,” said Christina Stewart, director of Impact
Nation’s journey teams.
Other organizations put the onus on volunteers, encouraging them to
take responsibility for vetting the organizations they work with.
“Make sure your programs screen their volunteers and conduct background
checks,” international travel organization Go Overseas recommends on
its orphanage volunteer programs page. “Very rarely should you actually
be allowed to interact directly with the children.”
But Better Care Network (BCN), an interagency research organization
that focuses on global childcare policies, believes volunteers should
have no contact with children in orphanages and other care homes. In
2013, BCN began the Better Volunteering, Better Care Initiative with
Save the Children UK. The initiative conducts research and collects data
to discourage international volunteering in residential care homes—a
trend BCN director Florence Martin said would be unheard of in the
United States.
“We feel as a global working group that no amount of vetting stops the
harm of volunteering in residential care,” Martin said. “Not having a
criminal record doesn’t mean there might not be safety issues.”
Beyond the possibility of sexual offenses, Martin said focusing only on
orphan care encourages care homes to lie about the status of the
children who live there. Ghana’s department of social welfare recently
revealed up to 80 percent of children in local orphanages have one or
both parents still living, and only 10 of the 148 orphanages in the
country are licensed by the department.
BCN advocates volunteers go beyond orphanages and one-on-one contact
with children to work with existing local groups that focus on building
up families.
“What you’re doing is that you’re volunteering with community
organizations that are really working with vulnerable families and
children to enable them to care for their kids,” Martin said. “That, we
think, is positive engagement.”
Courtesy: WORLD News Service
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