Bruce Harris
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Bruce Harris (born 1955 in Scotland, United Kingdom) is the disgraced former executive director of Casa Alianza, from 1989 to September 2004. He was dismissed from this post after admitting he had paid a young man, who had earlier been in the care of Casa Alianza, for sex. Harris had previously presented as a "Christian Family" man and as such this act was considered especially shocking by his constituency of supporters.
The Casa Alianza organization claims to advocate on behalf of Central American children, as well as providing them with food, shelter, and other services. As its leader, Harris had received a number of prizes and honours. As head of Casa Alianza, he received the fifty-thousand-dollar Olof Palme prize in 1996 and in 2004 the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, worth 1.5 million dollars US. In 2001, he was made an Officer of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. One of his most notable campaigns was to attempt to end the alleged torture and murder of street children by Guatemalan police. Under his leadership, Casa Alianza brought over 400 cases alleging these offenses. He has testified regarding children's rights several times before international bodies, in one instance helping to achieve a ruling against Guatemala by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
[edit] Controversy
Harris was involved in several major disputes due to his antagonistic style and hatred of Central American authorities. In 2000, Costa Rican president Miguel Angel Rodríguez accused him of plotting to damage Costa Rica's reputation in regard to its alleged child sex trade. In 2004, he was tried and acquitted for the serious offence of defaming the character of the spouse of a Guatemalan Supreme Court member. Harris had accused her of participating in a scheme to have poor mothers put their babies up for adoption without asking compensation. According to Harris, the children would then be provided to U.S. families for $20,000.
[edit] Sex scandal
Bruce Harris was dismissed by Casa Alianza after it was discovered that he had paid a nineteen-year-old Honduran man for sex. This young man had previously been a resident of Casa Alianza when a child. Bruce Harris acknowledged he had had sex with this young man while trying to trivialize his own behaviour, and there was a general concern that this might have been part of a pattern of sexual abuse of children in his care. The Honduran special prosecutor's office for crimes against children investigated the claim but it eventually dropped the case, unable to ascertain whether Harris had committed a crime. Following the allegation, Harris wrote a letter to the Associated Press saying he had resigned and that he did so to spend more time with his family. However, Casa Alianza stated that they had fired him, and said Harris had admitted wrongdoing.
Rosalía Gil, Costa Rica's minister for children, said, "This is causing a type of shock in the community that works in favour of the children, because Bruce has been characterized by his denunciations of abuse against children."[1]
