Nog een tweeling, sextourisme en abortus; St Patrick en de Filipijnen

Sex Tourism and Abortion
By: Father Shay Cullen

Preda Foundation founder

Fr Shay Cullen is to be honoured with the Humanitarian Award at the 2009 Meteor Ireland Music Awards together with a donation of 100,000 Euro. at St Patricks Day 17th March
Fr. Shay Cullen, nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, is a Missionary priest from Dublin and a member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban who has worked tirelessly in protecting women and children and human rights in the Philippines since 1969.

He established Preda Foundation in Olongapo City in the Philippines in 1974 to promote human rights, justice and peace. He strives to eliminate child abuse and promote respect for children's rights by attempting to change the unjust economic, political and social structures and attitudes that allow such abuse.
He has developed twelve Preda which aim to educate for peace, free children from brothels and jails and give them a chance to recover in therapeutic homes and be reintegrated to have a happier life free from violence and abuse.

When he uncovered a child prostitution ring selling children to personnel at the US Naval base, Subic Bay, he initiated a successful campaign to remove the bases and convert the infrastructure into a commercial manufacturing zone. As many as a hundred thousand Filipinos now work at the converted U.S. bases in Clark and
Subic.

in 1975, a successful poverty alleviation, manufacturing and export project that lifts the poor to a life of dignity. He oversees twelve major projects at the Foundation including environmental protection and tree planting. With a present professional staff of 83 the projects are expanding.

He has received several human rights awards and has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize and other human rights awards. He has testified before the US Congress, The Philippine Senate and is a well known speaker and facilitator at numerous other international conferences. Along with being the author of
"Passion and Power" an autobiography, he writes a weekly column in The
Manila Times which is published in other newspapers and on-line. He also writes
poetry, songs and is a media commentator on the issues of trafficking of women
and children and human rights violations.

When the social workers, police from Limay, Bataan and the mother of two missing children, 13 and 14 year-olds, all from Limay, Bataan arrived in Alaminos, Nr. Pangasinan last December 2008, they expected the local police to have a squad ready to raid the “Trappers” sex bar and rescue the minors who had been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. Instead, the club was closed and the children are gone. After hours of persuasion, the Alaminos police miraculously found the children at a “bus stop” and they were then given to the Preda home for trafficked girls.

The traffickers, pimps and club operators seemingly have impunity from the law. Even the good Mayor, a former congressman apparently is unable to control the sex Mafia. Most sex bars, operate with a mayor's license. The people of Alaminos ought to come to the support of the mayor in his campaign to cancel the licenses and free the women and children.
Philippine Embassy personnel in Malaysia rescued several children, 13 and 14 years old trafficked into commercial sex clubs there and with the help of Visayan Forum, a children's rights organization, they were brought back to the Philippines.

One, Maryanne, was referred to the Preda Children's Home where she recovered and gave birth to twins. They are the love of her life now despite how she became pregnant. The other girls dote on them and never want to return to prostitution but want to marry in the future and have a family.

Had Maryanne not been rescued, she would have been dragged screaming to an abortion clinic and the babies forcibly aborted.

The sexual exploitation of children in Philippine tourism is found on both the national and international fronts.

Thousands of Europeans, North Americans and Australian sex tourists make the Philippines a destination and create a demand for commercially-sexually exploited children (CSEC.) Internal trafficking is the most common form of child sexual exploitation in Philippine tourism.

Thousands of Filipino sex tourists abuse some of the estimated 80,000 children under the age of 18. They are made available in sex bars or through pimps. Even 11 year- olds can be bought by arrangement.

Most bars, clubs, beer houses and karaoke bars are fronts for prostitution. Alongside, prostituted adult women and minors are also employed. However, their documents are fake and rarely verified by officials. It is a growing business with an estimated 1.2 million single male tourist arrivals every year in the Philippines. How many seek out minors as sexual partners is not known since it is secret underground-business worth millions of dollars.

The profits from tourism, sexual or otherwise, is allegedly of greater importance to the officials and business sector than is the protection of the children and the dignity of Filipinos. With the economic recession, more and more children will be dropping out of school and will enter the work force as impoverished families try to survive and hundreds more will be trafficked into the sex tourist business.

Besides the life long physical and mental damage to the minors, there is the ever present danger of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV-AIDS. Adjacent to the sex industry, drug trafficking and distribution is the other side of the sex tourist coin and the exploited children are vulnerable to addiction at an early age.

Worst of all is the illegal and dangerous abortions that can be arranged with back-street abortion clinics. This is the most heinous of crimes and usually they are late term abortions as we learn from the teenage victims who conceal the pregnancy from the sex bar operators as long as they can out of fear of punishment and forced abortion. They are dragged to the clinics and endure forced abortion. These clinics are well known to the pimps and club operators and even police.

The lack of moral outrage by the church, local government and citizens against the sex industry and its abortion clinics is shocking in itself. When was the last national rally or church-sponsored campaign against it? There are sex bars in every town and parish.

When will the clergy speak out against the exploitation? This silence, “see nothing, do nothing”, is tantamount to hypocritical consent.



bron: Preda foundation ; the torture and abuse of children in their own pictures.