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Each year thousands of children:
- Are incarcerated
- Are not given due process
- Lose their basic human rights
- Lose contact with the outside world
- Are humiliated
- Are abused
How does this happen?
- Some parents and their teens or pre-teens
agreed an experience away from home would be fun and educational
- Some were straight A students who had never
been in trouble and who were happy and well-adjusted
- Others needed help with self-esteem issues
- They found programs that promised horse back
riding, hiking, skiing, and more
- Some were distraught parents of troubled teens
and pre-teens involved in gangs, sex, drugs, and alcohol
- Some children struggled with ADD, ADHD,
oppositional defiance, gay issues, depression, bulimia, and more
- Many parents felt they had no where to turn
- Parents were lured by convincing websites,
smooth-talking businessmen, glossy brochures, and marketing teams to
send their child to their programs
- In their haste and desperation, parents
relinquished their children to strangers and sometimes unknowingly
sign away their parental rights
- Parents were defrauded by people who promised
to cure their child and to provide their child with the education
and therapy they needed
- They were convinced that if they did not put
their child in a program, their child would most likely die
 While children slept
...
They were abducted from their beds by teen escort
services hired by their parents …
Private abductions …
Many parents are convinced by program staff
they should hire "teen escort" services to transport their children
- some as young as seven - to their facilities located in remote
rural areas
Though some transport services are licensed
and hire caring staff, most are not licensed or regulated
Many youth are unjustifiably hand-cuffed,
restrained, or pepper-sprayed in the process
The trauma of such abductions can last a
lifetime
Parents were duped by…
- Glossy brochures
- An endless number of convincing websites
- Smooth-talking businessmen or their agents
who preyed on their desperation
Parents were talked into …
- Refinancing their homes
- Drawing from their retirement
- Spending their child's college money
- Taking out long-term loans
Parents are convinced …
- To give strangers Power of Attorney over their
teens and pre-teens
- Some children are as young as seven
Where did children end up?
In the hands of people who convinced parents they
would save their child … in reality many of these children have been
abused and neglected
Dangerous and unfair forms of
punishment:
- Untrained staff perform dangerous restraints
resulting in physical harm and all too often in the death of a child
- Many programs operate on a points-based
system. The youth lose hard-earned points for small infractions such
as dropping a fork on the floor or belching. In some facilities,
children are severely punished for looking out the window, as they
are considered a runaway threat
Over the years, thousands of children have ended up
at WWASP’s Tranquility Bay Facility in Jamaica where reports and
articles have shown, and victims have alleged…
click here for more information
on Tranquility Bay
- There are no laws to protect the children
- The facility is not licensed and there is no
oversight
- Children lose their basic human rights
- Many have no privacy to use the restroom or
shower
- Children lose contact with the outside world
- Once phone calls with parents are finally
allowed, usually 3-6 months after the child enters the program, they
are censored; children lose all other verbal contact with the
outside world
- Children’s letters to extended family and
friends are usually not delivered, and mail is censored
- Many have spent months on their faces in
isolation
A picture says a 1,000 words …
The Hobbit - WWASP’s
Spring Creek Lodge in Montana
John France, an Educational and Forensic Psychologist,
testified about his son’s stay at WWASP facility Spring Creek
Lodge in Utah.
He stated his son spent nearly nine months in “The Hobbit”, a small
structure that was no more than two shelves on top of one another,
his body barely able to fit.
It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. So cold, his orange
he stored away at night was frozen by morning. He was forced to
sleep on a small shelf and to urinate in his drinking cup during
the night. He etched the words “Let Freedom Ring” on one
of the shelves.
(taken from the WWASP v. Scheff trial transcript)
WWASP’s High Impact, Mexico
•
Some bathrooms are atrocious
Child tied down in dog cages
•
Some jurors cried when they
saw video clips of
the “Box,” where American children were reportedly hog-tied, hand-cuffed,
duct-taped, starved, and slugged by staff
•
There is absolutely no privacy of any kind when showering
or using the restroom
Video clips were shown of children who were locked in dog cages in the hot Mexican sun at WWASP’s High Impact program in Mexico, sometimes for days at a time.
High Impact was shut down by the Mexican government for allegations of child neglect and abuse. Although Robert Lichfield, Ken
Kay, and Karr Farnsworth will claim High Impact is not a WWASP program, former employees and parents testified they were.
Employees testified they were asked not to divulge the program’s association with WWASP – one employee testified she traveled to High Impact with Ken Kay, president of WWASP,
who specifically warned her against divulging its association with WWASP.
•
One WWASP victim who had been trafficked by WWASP through
5 of their programs sobbed in court as video clips of children
in dog
cages were shown
• This is a picture of a child whose hands were tied to the
corners of the cage, in the scorching Mexico sun
• One boy went down to 80 pounds during his confinement at
WWASP’s Paradise Cove
• He was hidden from television reporters
• His confinement within the WWASP Empire of children’s
programs ended 4 ˝ years later with his removal from the cages at High
Impact
• WWASP, the largest corporation in the industry, continues
to keep some 2,400 or more children from all over the United States in
its programs each year
• President Ken Kay and founder Robert Lichfield say their
numbers are growing with today's social problems
• They deny all allegations of fraud, child abuse and
neglect
• The company admitted to annual revenue in excess of
$90,000,000 from all its corporate shells – that was in 2004 and the
numbers continue to grow
Four separate countries, all with
limited child protection laws, have shut
WWASP facilities down for suspected child abuse and neglect
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Casa by the Sea in Mexico
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Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica
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Morava in Czech Republic
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Paradise Cove in Western Samoa
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Sunrise Beach, Mexico
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High Impact, Mexico
Something to ask ourselves …
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Can we believe all of these allegations are false?
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Coming from poverty-stricken nations who would normally
welcome American money?
© 2006
Permission for this article to be reproduced for educational purposes
only
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