What Wrong with Niños de México?: Common Questions and Answers.

Niños Graduation 2022

1.) How did this start?

     During my three month internship in 2014, I came to better understand the ways in which my perception of the organization via the short-term trips I had taken differed from reality. I also came to have a healthy understanding of the flaws in the ministry. However, I reasoned that every ministry has flaws and was committed to being an advocate for the children from the inside. 

     Some time after my internship, a young man who grew up at Niños, sent out a number of correspondences which were designed to raise attention to the behavior and character of the field director at the time. He joined a chorus of quieter voices who had been doing the same thing since the field director had arrived. 

     In 2018, I called out a houseparent for sexual abuse. This was for me the final straw and in a spirit of advocating for the children from the inside, I privately sent the executive director of the ministry a document detailing everything I had seen over the years that was of major concern. Though the document was well-received, but I had quietly decided to not return to Niños due to the growing concerns I had (I did return after the pandemic in 2022 for the graduation ceremony of one of the young men I sponsored, in addition to trip to see many friends who had grown up at Niños but were no longer living on the inside). 

     At the International Conference on Missions 2022, I spoke with the ministry's development director who told me that the chief psychologist and the field director had resigned and that they were going to be forced to resigned "because of the houseparent at Bethel."

     Over the next several weeks, after connecting with people in Mexico and hearing stories firsthand, I began putting the pieces together of experiences I had and things I had heard and seen from years back which established a clear pattern of failing to report sexual abuse on the part of the leadership of the children's home. I understood that these were not one-off issues, but part of an established system of corruption and wrongdoing.

2.) Who did you first contact and why did you eventually decide to go public?

     I first contacted no less than three board members either by email or cell phone, two of which with a document I wrote with the information I had at the time. This was around Thanksgiving of 2022, only a few weeks after ICOM. 

     I received a definitive response from the board in January of 2023. I took the letter from the board as them saying they had already known everything, had taken of care of everything, and had no interest in outside help. However, what they did not know is that I had already spoken extensively to a former member of the board who did not know of the vast majority of the things I had mentioned in my letter which had taken place during their tenure on the board. 

     It was at this point I realized the board had chosen to circle the wagons around the executive director and others, and that I no longer had any recourse but to go public.  

3.) What happened at the Bethel House?

      In March of 2022, a minister and former staff member at the Niños de Mexico was arrested for child sexual abuse, having sexually abused the girls in the home where he and his wife were acting as houseparents. Despite the girls bringing the abuse to the attention of the leadership of Niños de Mexico, this information was not passed to the proper authorities in Mexico, leaving the girls in the care of their abuser at the Niños de Mexico home.  

4.) According to you, how many staff members (current or former) are implicated in sexually abusing children in Niños custody?

     Eight. Just that I know of. Just in the tenure of the current executive director. 

5.) Where are you getting your information?

     Various sources, including current and former staff members, victims and witnesses of crimes, and others with firsthand experiences.  

6.) Why are you not going after the abusers?

     The path to holding the abusers accountable is the legal system in Mexico, which involves the victims, lawyers, judges, and trials, some of which are currently underway. This is not a role I am qualified or have been asked to fill. 

     My role is to make sure that the U.S. side of the equation is made aware of the ongoing situation, be they supporters or the proper authorities, so that the American entity Children of Mexico, Inc. can be held accountable on this side of the border.  

7.) What do you hope to accomplish?

a. -- We are asking the institution to work with a competent law firm to launch a full-scale independent investigation into the sexual abuse crimes and failure to report that has gone on inside the organization during the tenure of the current executive director.

b. -- We are asking for the removal of all staff members who failed to properly report any sexual abuse to the proper authorities.

c. -- We are asking the institution to start a victim fund so that no victim will have to find a way to finance their own psychiatric and therapeutic care to heal the wounds of the revictimization they suffered inside the organization.

8.) Isn't there already an ongoing investigation?

     The Mexican authorities are investigating cases as individual victims come before them. This is insufficient because many victims are afraid to go before the authorities to tell their stories. It is also economically prohibitive because it involved getting off of work and making several trips to the municipality where the abuse took place to make the proper reports and filings. In addition, many ex-employees and witnesses with important information have not been contacted, especially on this side of the border. 

9.) Why didn't you do this in 2018 or earlier?

     Until 2022, I believed the problems were not systemic and that the executive director of the ministry was a part of the solution to the problem. It was not until I no longer believed those things that I was prepared to do what I am doing today. 

10.) What do you want supporters to do?

     Contact the board of directors and inform them that until there is an open and independent stateside investigation, comprehensive in scope, they can no longer count on your financial support. Your donations are the only leverage to effect real change. 

11.) Isn't this all old news?

     No. New lawsuits have been started and are being started against abusers. Furthermore, any failure on the part of the leadership of Niños de Mexico to report abuse, especially systemically, is not "old news" until such criminal omission has been dealt with openly and honestly, which has yet to happen. 

12.) How many kids have been affected by staff member abuse?

     Of the abusers and victims I have knowledge of (within the tenure of the current executive director), approximately two dozen. 

13.) What about the changes the institution has made?

     Changes are only as good as the people and places implementing them, otherwise they are only window-dressing. The superficial changes that have been made, many of which should have been the bare minimum from the first (like background checks and security cameras), without an acknowledgement of the systems of abuse inside the organization cannot safeguard the lives of the children at Niños. 

14.) What about the institution's claim that only one case in 2015 was not reported?

     Anyone who claims that only one case of sexual abuse was not reported to the authorities in keeping with the mandated reporter obligations of the institution is either repeating misinformation that the were given or is purposely spreading misinformation. 

     Furthermore, the defense given by the executive director that he did not know he had to report abuse to the authorities for investigation is on its face incredible. 

15.) Is it just you doing all this?

     I am indebted to a band of people in the U.S. and Mexico who are working to bring light to these issues. I am, however, one of the few (and the only one in the States) who has opted to do so publicly. 

16.) What will happen to the kids if the organization is shut down?

     I hold out the hope that through a series of changes of personnel and leadership the organization, the ministry of Niños can be saved or transformed. However, if the ministry was closed, the most likely scenario is that child services of the various states in Mexico will receive "their" children into the custody of their relative state authorities. Some children and sibling groups may be eligible for adoption.   

17.) Isn't this the worst of the two options?

     This is the most common line that has been used by people, some well-meaning, to object to Niños being held accountable by external authorities for its crimes. I cannot tell you which is worse. I can only tell you that this consideration must not be given veto power over whether the crimes committed at and by Niños are dealt with according to the law.  

     Anyone who is concerned with the ministry being closed due to misconduct should put pressure on the leadership to admit to what has gone on and take every step to make right their wrongs. 

18.) What about the kids who have not been abused?

     Of course, not every kid at Niños has suffered abuse. However, this does not negate the experience of the dozens of children who have suffered peer sexual abuse, adult sexual abuse, and physical abuse inside the institution just in the tenure of the current executive director. 

     Apply this scenario to a daycare and ask  whether the same line of questioning makes sense. 

19.) What about the jobs of the rest of the employees of the organization?

     If your child was one of several children molested at a daycare, would your first concern be about the employment of the daycare workers or the safety of the children? Many wonderful people work at Niños. However, the ministry has deep and abiding problems that every single day pose a risk to the safety of the kids in their custody. Putting the jobs of caretakers over the safety of those being taken care of is putting the cart before the horse.

20.) Isn't there a better way of handling this? Why didn't you go directly to the executive director?

     I went directly to the executive director in 2018 when I denounced a houseparent who had abused a minor in the institution. I also sent him a letter with all the things I had seen during the time I had been associated with the institution. 

     I also went to him in 2019 after young man told me he had been raped by an older boy in his house and that he told the executive director and two other staff members, but nothing was done. 

     In 2022, I privately to the board of directors upon realizing the gravity and systemic nature of the situation. 

     They didn't listen. 

Now I am coming to you.