Nepal to India Trafficking by Founder of Christian Orphanage and School;Tanzania to Kenya Trafficking by Christian Pastor

Two continents, two stories of Christians trafficking children while claiming to their parents that they are getting educated. The first story is from Nepal and India. The second story is from Tanzania and Kenya.

Nepal Story With Religious Conversion and Money from Sponsorships

On October 28, 2011, Dean Nelson in  The Telegraph, shared “Parents paid a child-trafficker more than £100 to take their daughters to good schools in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, but instead they were taken more than 1,200 miles to Tamil Nadu, southern India.

At the Michael Job Centre, a Christian orphanage and school in Coimbatore, they were converted to Christianity, given western names and told that its charismatic founder, Dr PP Job, was now their father.

On websites, the children were given serial numbers and profiles. The charity claimed they had been either abandoned by their parents who did not want the financial burden of raising girls, or orphaned after their “Christian” parents were murdered by Nepal’s Maoist insurgents.

Many of the donors were in the United States, Holland and Britain, where Dr Jobs’s sister organisation, Love in Action, is run from St Mary’s C of E Church in Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset. ”

An anti-trafficking charity run by Lt Col Philip Holmes, a retired British Army officer, assisted Indian officials in a raid on the Coimbatore centre last month, when 23 children were rescued.

His group, the Esther Benjamins Trust, discovered that none of the children were from Christian families, very few were, in fact, orphans and some of the girls had been kept apart from their families for up to 10 years. Among those rescued were six girls from one extended Buddhist family in Humla district in northern Nepal who were all renamed on their first day at the Michael Job Centre.

One 17 year-old, “Daniele”, whose real name is Tara, told The Daily Telegraph yesterday she was seven when she was taken from her village with her five-year-old sister, “Anna Bella”, whose real name is Upaal. On the charity’s website, “Daniele” is presented as “an orphan girl from the area bordering India and Nepal”, while her sister is described as an orphan whose parents were killed by Maoists.

“There was nobody to take care of her. Our Nepal missionary brought her to the Michael Job Centre,” her profile reads. “Anna Bella” is listed as child number 146, and “Daniele” 148, part of a batch of six girls including their four cousins who were renamed Tryphosa (143), Tryphena (150), Jael, and Persis (144).

“Daniele” said: “My mother and father couldn’t afford our education and food. There was no threat from the Maoists. We are all Buddhists but now we have two religions.

“Our parents thought girl children should get married, and that if we got an education we would get money. They thought we were going to Kathmandu. They did not know it was a Christian school.”

Dr Job, the “orphanage” founder, has left India for the United States, where he did not respond to enquiries. But in a letter to the Indian child welfare authority in Coimbatore last month, he admitted many of the Nepalese children were not orphans and blamed Dal Bahadur Phadera, the alleged trafficker who brought the girls to India, for misleading him.

“Most of the children mentioned were brought by Himalayan Orphanage Development Centre, Humla, run by Mr Dal Bahadur Phadera … atthe time of admission it was brought to attention that the children are uncared [for] and that they are living within India. The children were neglected by the society and [were] in [the] orphanage. Till today we are taking care of children properly,” he wrote.

The charity Love in Action raised around £18,000 for the Michael Job Centre between 2007 and 2010, but Tom Reeves, churchwarden at St Mary’s, declined to comment on whether he and his colleagues had been duped.
Mr Phadera was unavailable for comment. A 2006 Unicef report said his organisation was acting in “direct violation of the international convention of children’s rights”.

In an interview with Avenues TV, a Nepalese channel, he denounced Lt Col Holmes’s charity and its role in the raid. “At the time we took our children, there was conflict and we didn’t have any problems that the school took our children. But this is a rescue done in the name of rescue. It’s like they are looking for treatment when there is no need,” he said.

Lt Col Holmes said he had no regrets over the raid. The trafficking of girls from Nepal was “a total abuse of child rights”, he said. ”

Discovery of More Children Trafficked in Michael Job Centre

On November 7, 2011, The Times of India reported in 46 more children with parents identified in Sulur orphanage “The ongoing probe into the alleged international child trafficking racket involving an orphanage here after 23 Nepalese children were found in their custody under the guise of orphans has become murkier. The Child Welfare Committee probing into the institution has identified and sent 46 more children to their rightful parents so far.

More such cases are expected to crop up in the coming days claimed officials involved in the process. Majority of these children were from Assam and Bihar. Even though they were not orphans, they were lodged at Michael Job Centre for Orphan Girls in Sulur.”

Head of Orphanage Not Cooperating

“The chairman of the institution Dr PP Job, a famous evangelist based out of New Delhi was also asked to appear before the Child Welfare Committee but has not complied with the order so far. He had sent a deputy to represent him before the committee on October 11.The committee along with the Social Welfare Department are now engaged in trying to confirm the exact number of such children being lodged at the centre and trying to rehabilitate them with their natural parents.

“We had asked Dr Job to appear before the committee but he has not done so yet. We have been contacted by some parents after they heard about the incident involving Nepalese children and we have identified 46 more children who were not orphans at the centre,” said Dr D Rajan, Chairman, Child Welfare Committee, Coimbatore.”

License Cancelled

“The officials have also cancelled the license of the centre. As of now 485 children reside there and are given a formal education. Officials say they are proceeding cautiously, as the future of the children is at stake. Their main priority is children below eighteen years of age. The centre was initially given 15 days to furnish their documents and records. It is believed that majority of the children at the centre are from the North Eastern States, Bihar and also some parts of TN.

Meanwhile, officials at the Michael Job centre dismissed the entire issue and claimed that they have filed a legal appeal with the Tamil Nadu government challenging the district collector’s order to withdraw the license of the centre.

“We have filed an appeal challenging the withdrawal of the license of the centre on October 3. I cannot divulge much about the matter at this point of time,” said CV Francis, a Delhi based advocate representing the orphanage.”

Tanzania to Kenya Story Involving Promise of Education, but Using Child as House Help

Standard Media on November 1, 2011 published Child Traffickers Using Church by Kenan Miruka and Nick Oluoch.

“The pastor who operates a church in Kenya and another branch in Tanzania was involved in the trafficking of an 11-year-old girl from Tanzania.

Children’s officers rescued the girl from a residential house in Ogembo town where she was working as a house help. Two people including a teacher recorded statements over the matter.

The child was reportedly trafficked from Ukeleni District, Tanzania into Kenya on August 30 and taken to the pastor’s home in Kenyenya District.

On interrogation, the pastor claimed that he was given the child by her uncle in Tanzania who wanted her to pursue education in Kenya.

Illegal entry

A teacher in whose house the child was found claimed the Tanzanian national was brought by his wife to keep company to her school going child.

Investigations by police officers and the Children’s Department revealed the child was in the country illegally.

Gucha District Children’s Officer Caleb Makatiani took the child to a Child Protection Unit at Ogembo Police Station as investigations continued.

The pastor claimed he handed over the child to the teacher so that she could be taken to school next year.

“This is the second child I have brought from that country as I have another boy in form one,” argued the pastor.

The pastor had no documents allowing the child to stay in Kenya. “Investigations indicate this could be part of a syndicate of cross border child trafficking,” said Makatiani.


The clergyman was released on bond and directed to produce the child’s parents to explain how she left the country ending up in Kenya.

A week later, the child’s father Ayub Mtalime appeared in court where children’s officers obtained a repatriation order directing him to take the child back home.

“In the event that the parents have the desire for the child to school in Kenya, proper legal procedures should be followed,” the court ordered.

Investigations by The Underworld reveal the church has previously been involved in trafficking children from Tanzania to Kenya and handing them over to homes to work as house helps or farmhands.


Through church faithful, vulnerable children are identified and promised good education once they arrive in Kenya only to be handed over to families seeking house helps.

Cross border child trafficking is rampant along the Kenya-Tanzania border.

Early this year, police and the Children Department in Kuria West District in Migori County had to launch a man-hunt for a man suspected to have hatched a plan to sell his albino daughter in Tanzania for Sh1 million.

According to the Kuria West District children’s officer John Langat, his office had received reports that the man was trying to sell his two-year-old daughter who had been born with albinism.”

REFORM Puzzle Piece