Surrounded by children at an orphanage near Phnom Penh International Airport, the makers of a coming documentary critical of the US’ ban on adoptions were hard at work shooting footage on Wednesday.
Standing at the Future Light Orphanage, Scott Catamas, the movie’s director, said he hopes the documentary will help lift the ban announced by the US in 2001.
“The intention of this movie is to support change and help the children of Cambodia,” he said.
Catamas, who says he has produced various television programs about UFOs, said that 20 to 50 percent of the new documentary will focus on the case of convicted baby broker Lauryn Galindo.
To raise awareness of Galindo’s case, Daniel Susott, a longtime friend of Galindo and a sponsor of the documentary, also sponsored a boat that participated in the Water Festival in honor of his jailed friend.
“[The boat] is in honor of her because she is unjustly in prison in the United States,” he said of the Golden Arrow, which lost three out of four races.
Officials with local rights group Licadho say the prosecution of Galindo was justified, noting that she pleaded guilty in the US to the charges against her relating to her adoption activities in Cambodia.
Dan McDougal, 50, a US national who adopted two Cambodian orphans through Galindo eight years ago, was also at the orphanage, and alleged that 1,000 children have died because of the US ban.
“Instead of spending all that money on the new embassy…they could spend 200 bucks and have some people sit in a room and work out something,” so the problem could be solved, he said.
US Embassy spokesman John Daigle said the US would like to resume adoptions, but cannot do so before regulations assuring the protection of children and ruling out fraud in the adoption system are in place
“I do not believe that any children have died because of the ban,” he added. “I totally disagree with that.”
