Fr. Shay Cullen: End Sex Tourism and Restore Filipino Dignity

By Fr. Shay Cullen

While a young girl was recovering from a horrific life of sexual abuse and trafficking, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gave the state-of-the-nation-address to the Philippine congress last week and list the many achievements of her government for the past year curtailing the trafficking of women and children is not among them. She is the most politically powerful women in the country and could deal a deadly blow to the pimps and pedophiles, the sex traffickers and foreign mafia that enslave the children in their sex bars and clubs. However the politicians behind the sex industry are powerful allies. The rich property owners that rent the buildings housing the sex dens, bars and clubs are influential. The hotel owners fill their double beds with sex tourists and the emaciated bodies of impoverished children and women have influence and the department of tourism goes along with them. Sex, even sex with children is big business and the laws are ignored and not enforced. Even police own clubs and bars.

The latest arrival in our home for trafficked children is Jennifer. When she was 13, she was recruited from Bohol with 7 other girls by a pimp who offered jobs as domestic helpers in Metro Manila. She paid their families and instead of jobs as servants they were brought to Angeles city, in the home province of the president, like thousands of young girls are trafficked every year.

Jennifer and the other children were locked up in a private house and foreign sex tourists were brought there and they were sexually abused by them. After about six months of this of this continual abuse, she and the other girls escaped and then ran away. Jennifer was picked up by a man as she wandered the streets begging for food at traffic lights and offered a meal and money. Desperate she trusted him and was brought to Metro Manila. She struggled and escaped again from the van when he tried to rape her.

Then Jennifer found a job as a domestic helper in a posh housing estate but was treated as property made work without pay and not allowed to leave the high walled compound. Again after many months, she escaped and was finally referred to the Preda children’s home and given protection, therapy and is still recovering. Soon she will start back in school and social workers are now looking for her parents in Bohol province. Her life of pain and exploitation is all too familiar.

This evil is the most serious challenge of the presidency of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who can end it with one stroke of the pen and her signature on an executive order. Protecting the most vulnerable is the duty and purpose of government. The challenge facing this powerful woman president and her government is to do battle with the crime syndicates and the sex mafia and crush them. Not to comfort and coddle them.

Charities like Preda are ready to help, protect and empower the rescued teenage victims so they can testify against their traffickers and abusers. But few are rescued and without witnesses there are no convictions. Immigration commissioner Marcelino C. Libanan has shown determination and commitment to investigate the suspected foreign abusers and traffickers. The local and foreign suspects must be investigated and not allowed to get away with insulting Filipinos through their obnoxious web sites that degrade the Philippines and advertise it as a sex tourist destination - a Disneyland of child sex for a small fee. When will Filipino pride awake and see how degrading this business for the image of a proud nation and president striving to be respected worldwide as a developed nation.

According to the Trafficking of Persons report of the US State Department there is rampant trafficking of persons from the Philippines to other countries for sexual enslavement but also in the Philippines itself and much too few convictions. It says: “However, the (Philippine) government demonstrated weak efforts to prosecute trafficking cases and convict trafficking offenders.” The President has much to do and we are ready and waiting to help. END

Visit www.preda.org for more related articles.

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Contact Fr. Shay Cullen at the Preda Center, Upper Kalaklan, Olongapo City, Philippines.
e-mail: preda@info.com.ph
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PREDA Information Office
PREDA Foundation, Inc.
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www.preda.org