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Tag: Child Trafficking

Black Collar Crime: Indian Pastor Gideon Jacob Arrested in Child Trafficking Investigation

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

pastor gideon jacob

Pastor Gideon Jacob, operator of the Moses Ministries Home in Tiruchirappalli, India, stands accused of child trafficking.

The Tribune India reports:

Tamil Nadu police have arrested a pastor accused of trafficking girls through a Christian-run orphanage that was taken over by authorities two years ago during an investigation into the unregistered children’s home.

Police said they arrested Pastor Gideon Jacob on Saturday after he arrived from Germany and he has been charged under trafficking and juvenile justice laws.

Denying the allegations, Jacob’s lawyer told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that his client had voluntarily appeared before the police and was cooperating with the investigation.

The Moses Ministries home in Tiruchy, run by Germany-based Christian Initiative for India that was founded by Jacob in 1989, housed 89 children, all said to have been rescued from female infanticide from Usilampatti in neighbouring Madurai.

However, the home had no proper records of the children, all of whom are now aged 18 years and above.

In December 2015, the home was taken over by the social welfare department after a court directive.

A wave of claims by people saying they were the children’s parents prompted a local court to rule that all the children should undergo DNA testing to establish their real families.

In 2016, DNA results showed at least 32 matches. None of the girls, however, have yet been reunited with their families.

“We have been counselling the girls, who have known no other life since they were babies,” said Tiruchy district head Kuppanna Gounder Rajamani.

“We have also identified the parents willing to take back their daughters and, following Saturday’s arrest, things will move faster and we are hoping to reunite the girls soon.” More than 40 per cent of human trafficking cases in India in 2015 involved children being bought, sold and exploited as modern-day slaves, according to government crime data.

There has been a recent spate of reports of the trafficking of infants and children for adoption and raising funds through charity-run child homes and private hospitals.

In Tamil Nadu, state authorities closed 500 homes between 2011 and 2016, citing mismanagement, a lack of registration and misconduct.

Rights groups have long complained that children’s homes in India are poorly regulated, not inspected often enough, and that many privately-run institutions are able to operate without a license leaving thousands of children open to abuse.

“The arrest gives us hope that there will be justice,” said A. Narayanan, the director of advocacy group Change India, who outlined the scope of the problem in a petition filed in Chennai’s High Court.

“The real worry is when and how these girls will be rehabilitated. Right now, it seems like a life sentence, where they are resigned to live in an institutional home.”

The Express UK reports:

More than 40 per cent of human trafficking cases in India in 2015 involved children being bought, sold and exploited as modern-day slaves, according to government crime data.

There has been a recent spate of reports of the trafficking of infants and children for adoption and raising funds through charity-run child homes and private hospitals.

In Tamil Nadu, state authorities closed 500 homes between 2011 and 2016, citing mismanagement, a lack of registration and misconduct.

The Gospel Herald reports:

The investigation began after two interns from Chennai-based NGO CHANGEindia visited a few unregistered children’s homes in 2015 to gather evidence for a High Court petition on illegal childcare institutions. The interns, Vikas Christy and Babi Christina, reportedly walked into Mose Ministries and spoke to the inmates for three hours.

“It was surprising; they were all around the same age,” Christy told the Hindu. “All the girls said they had been rescued from female infanticide.”

She added, “They were brought up in an unhygienic, isolated environment, without counsellors, or mentors. The older girls took care of the younger ones; they cooked, cleaned and did domestic chores. No local person, except the Pastor’s friends, ever visited. They were forcibly involved in prayer and groomed for evangelist work.”

According to Reuters, a number of people have since stepped forward claiming to be the children’s parents. In 2016, DNA results showed at least 32 matches, but none of the girls have yet been reunited with their families.

“We have been counselling the girls, who have known no other life since they were babies,” said Tiruchy district head Kuppanna Gounder Rajamani. “We have also identified the parents willing to take back their daughters and, following Saturday’s arrest, things will move faster and we are hoping to reunite the girls soon.”

Speaking to ChristianToday in 2015, Pastor Jacob claimed strongly denied the allegations, which he said were motivated by Hindu nationalists. He argued that the children had all been brought to the orphanage as an alternative to infanticide, thus explaining the lack of records.

“When you bring a baby to give her away you are committing a crime for which you can be imprisoned,” he said. “If you give away your child you aren’t going to give your telephone number.”

He added, “I don’t know what lies in the future, but God can do the impossible.”

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Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Gilbert Deya Deported to Face Child-Trafficking Charges

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments

gilbert deya

Gilbert Deya, a British/Kenyan Evangelical pastor, was deported to Kenya to face child-trafficking charges.

The BBC reports:

The UK has extradited a self-styled Kenyan pastor, who claimed he created miraculous pregnancies, to Kenya to face child-trafficking charges.

Gilbert Deya’s extradition came after he failed in his decade-long legal battle to remain in the UK.

He denied charges of stealing five children between 1999 and 2004 when he appeared in court in Nairobi.

Concerns were first raised about the conduct of Mr Deya, who ran a church in London, in a BBC investigation in 2004.

Infertile or post-menopausal women who attended the Gilbert Deya Ministries church in Peckham, south-east London, were told they could have “miracle” babies.

But the babies were always “delivered” in backstreet clinics in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

Mr Deya later moved to Scotland, and was arrested in Edinburgh in 2006 under an international arrest warrant issued by Kenya.

His Gilbert Deya Ministries is being investigated by the UK Charity Commission for alleged mismanagement.

“Our statutory inquiry into Gilbert Deya Ministries is ongoing. We are currently considering the implication of Gilbert Deya’s extradition on our investigation,” the commission said in a statement.

  • A former stonemason who moved to London from Kenya in the mid-90s
  • Set up the Gilbert Deya Ministries as a registered charity, with African and Asian branches
  • Known for his blend of charismatic, performance-style preaching
  • Had income of £652,800 ($858,000) for the financial year ending December 2015
  • Spent £609,300
  • Described by UK Labour MP David Lammy as a “modern-day snake-oil salesman”
  • Says he was consecrated as an Archbishop by a US evangelist in 1992

When the BBC asked Mr Deya during its 2014 investigation how he explained the births of children with DNA different to that of their alleged parents, the 65-year-old Mr Deya said: “The miracle babies which are happening in our ministry are beyond human imagination.

“It is not something I can say I can explain because they are of God and things of God cannot be explained by a human being.”

Kenya’s police spokesman Charles Owino told the BBC that Mr Deya had arrived in Nairobi aboard a Kenya Airways flight following his extradition.

Mr Deya had opposed his extradition, saying he feared being tortured and sentenced to death.

In 2007, his wife, Mary, was sentenced to two years in prison in Kenya after being convicted of stealing a baby.

In 2011, she was sentenced to three years in jail after being convicted of stealing another child.

Desperate women, some past the menopause and others who were infertile, were convinced that being prayed for by Mr Deya and travelling to Kenya would result in a child.

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According to Wikipedia:

Deya was born in the morning of 2 February 1952 in Juja, Kiambu County, outside of Nairobi and was the eleventh child in a family of fifteen children. He belongs to Luo tribe ans his name “Juma” means Sunday, which is the day he was born. His father, Samuel Oyanda Deya was a sisal plantations worker from Bondo working in Juja. His parents were never meant to be a couple because his mother, Monica Nono Deya, declined the arranged marriage with his father.

He attended primary school but the school preacher dropped out because of bullying and poverty. He started preaching Jinja, Kampala, in Uganda, where he beat up a woman for hitting the children of his sister and worked there as a porter.

He married his 14 year-old wife, Mary Anyango, when he was at 21 on 27 December 1958. They gave birth to fifteen children in total. He started the “Salvation of Jesus Christ Church” in 1976.

He was ordained by the United Evangelical Church of Kenya and styles himself “Archbishop”. He was an evangelist in Kenya in the late 1980s to early 1990s, but moved to the UK, establishing Gilbert Deya Ministries in 1997. The ministry now has churches in Liverpool, London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Luton, Reading, and Manchester, Sheffield and in 2006 acquired a building and planning permission in Leeds. The church claims to be “the fastest growing Ministry in the UK and worldwide”

The Gilbert Deya Ministries claim that Deya’s powers allow him to be able to cause infertile women to become pregnant. Mr Deya claims that “through the power of prayer and the Lord Jesus” he has helped sterile women give birth. In the UK, one woman is claimed to have had three children in less than a year. The women travelled to Kenya in order to “give birth”.

Deya’s wife, Eddah (also known as Mary Deya), was arrested during November 2004 in Nairobi and charged with stealing children. Ten children, none of whom had any genetic connection to the Deya family, were found at Mr Deya’s House. Twenty babies have been placed in foster care in Kenya after DNA tests showed they had no connection to their alleged mothers. Rose Atieno Kiserem, a former pastor with Deya’s ministry was jailed along with Mrs Deya. Upon her release from jail, Kiserem confessed that the ‘miracle babies’ were “a hoax created by the Deyas and their accomplices to deceive me and other God-fearing people.”

Deya has a warrant out for his arrest in Kenya for the trafficking of babies out of the country. The Kenyan police have alleged that the ministry is a baby-snatching ring, and they have petitioned for his extradition from the UK. Mr Deya is seeking political asylum from his base in Glasgow. He was arrested by police at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in 2006.

In November 2004 the High Court in the UK ruled that a ‘miracle baby’ in London was the victim of child trafficking, and that the supposed miracle displayed was a ruse in order to generate funds from a “deceived congregation”. Mr Justice Ryder ruled that in order to maintain the illusion of a genuine birth, the child’s ‘mother’ was seriously assaulted “and a live child who had been born to another family was presented to her as her child.” He also ruled that “[the baby’s] birth as described was a falsehood not a miracle.”

On 13 December 2006, Mr Deya was arrested in London by the Metropolitan Police. A police spokesman said Gilbert Deya was detained under an arrest warrant issued by Kenyan authorities, who had charged him with child abduction and trafficking. He was ordered by a court on 8 November 2007, to be extradited from the UK to Kenya to face five counts of child stealing.

Deya appealed against extradition on the grounds that he might face torture in Kenya, but in late 2008 his case was rejected by the High Court and leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused. It was reported in April 2010 that Deya was still in England and that David Lammy, Deya’s MP, had enquired of the government why he had not yet been extradited. Lammy was concerned that justice was being denied to several of his constituents who were victims of the trafficked babies fraud. The Home Office responded that it was still considering representations from Deya’s solicitors that sending him to Kenya would breach his human rights.

In September 2011, news reports indicated that all avenues of appeal had been exhausted and Deya would now be extradited to Kenya.

In December 2011, a court in Kenya cleared Mary Deya of obtaining registration for five children irregularly.

The London Evening Standard reported on 21 October 2016 that Deya had applied for a judicial review of the decision to extradite him.

On 12 July 2017, Premier Christian Media reported that the High Court had refused Deya’s application for a judicial review and that he would be extradited.

On 3rd August, 2017, Deya was extradited from the UK to Kenya to face child trafficking charges. He was immediately arraigned in court force child trafficking offences.