Letters of Abuse from Former Exchange Students

Danielle Grijalva is the Director of the Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students  

Committee Looking to Stop Abuse of Students and Looking to State Department for Assistance
 

To my left, I see a stack of handwritten letters from exchange students eager to come to the United States of America for their very first time anxious to experience American culture. 

Sadly, to my right, I see handwritten letters from previous exchange students who have already returned home. All have experienced some form of abuse and neglect during their stay in the USA. 

I have a letter from a retired parole officer, who, while supervising sex offenders, learned of five instances where sex offenders gained access to new child victims by becoming hosts of foreign students. One was convicted of molesting a 16 year-old Japanese girl. 

I found myself wondering how the letters to my left by students full of innocence, anticipation and hope, ended up being letters of heartache nearly impossible for me to read. This occurs to these precious kids in the very country in which I live. It will continue to happen if the US Department of State does not raise their standards and require student exchange organizations to perform mandatory background checks of host families and publish child protection policies and guidelines.

In Northern California, the student exchange organization Student of the World Invitation to Friendship and Travel (SWIFT) made headlines in June 4, 2005 Inside Bay Area Newspaper. "Exchange students in dire need of homes - Host families still have not been found for 150 teens bound for Bay Area." 

Students will be arriving in eleven short days. Per my recent conversation with SWIFT, they still need "well over one hundred homes." 

This article stresses that host families "do not need to provide a separate guest room" for the students. As a former Representative with the Center for Cultural Interchange, (currently known as Greenheart Exchange), I came to learn of two Korean boys found sleeping on cots in their host mother's garage.

"Exchange students still need homes" appeared in the News 8 Austin Newspaper June 7, 2005. Marilyn Bretherick of International Student Exchange (ISE) is looking for homes for 71 students for this coming school year.

"I'm really surprised I'm not finding homes for them," Hagewood with Program of Academic Exchange (PAX) said. "I'll put them anywhere." 

John Hishmeh of the Council for Standards on International Educational Travel (CSIET) worries about the financial toll that mandatory background checks would make on the industry's smaller players. Yet as their tax files via the Internet show, these are multi-million dollar agencies.

My worry is that the stack of letters to my right will continue to grow. I fear the next set of headlines will be those telling the accounts of exchange students sexually abused by their hosts. I have a stack of those headlines, too. 

Parents and teachers, please do not become involved with agencies that do not properly screen host families or produce child protection guidelines.