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[People] Human Trafficking: A Scourge on Humanity -by Shay Cullen

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

#HumanRights Human Trafficking: A Scourge on Humanity
Shay Cullen
20 November 2020

Human trafficking and child sexual abuse is still alive and thriving in the Philippines. Online sexual abuse of children is everywhere, it seems, and more has to be done by the telecommunication corporations to stop it. That’s why this heinous crime against small children to satisfy the sexual lust of foreign pedophiles is so abhorrent. Shame on all who allow it to happen with impunity. The Philippines has become the hub for such crimes. The National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) in Olongapo and from Manila has rescued 18 women and children and arrested three human traffickers recently.

In Angeles City this week, two children were rescued and two pimps, both minors, were arrested and turned over to the social workers of Angeles City. A US national, Nicholas Pyant, was arrested by the Philippine National Police in a room with children and should be charged with sexual assault and rape of young children. Pyrant was under surveillance for weeks and is allegedly a known child predator.

In Barrio Baretto, Olongapo City minors are brought to sex hotels to be sold as sex slaves to customers. They are a hub for spreading the coronavirus and human trafficking. The sex industry exists for the sexual gratification of foreign sex tourists and rich locals and earns huge profits for the foreign and local owners of the sex bars and hotels.

The social workers of the Preda Foundation are very active in intelligence gathering and provided vital information and assisted in the recent rescue of the trafficked women and minors in the Barretto night club district. The four minors were referred to the Preda Home for Girls where they are safe from the sex mafia and the families of the human traffickers. At the Preda home, they receive full support, affirmation, counselling, emotional release therapy and education and value formation to prepare them to have a normal, happy life. You can view life in the Preda Homes on Preda Foundation Youtube channel https://youtu.be/G0fFNmHSYic

The Preda home will assist the minors in bringing charges against their abusers and traffickers. Together, we win several convictions of traffickers and child rapists every year. In 2018, we had 18 convictions. In 2019 we helped the children win 20 convictions leading to life sentences. This year 2020, 13 convictions have been won so far. There would be more but due to the pandemic the courts were closed.

Fighting for justice is a very important healing therapy for the children to get justice and to testify in court what the abusers did to them. Most victims/survivors are teenagers. Some are only three years old and six-year-old. They can then have a happy, secure life knowing that their traffickers and rapists are behind bars and can abuse no more children. Some of the teenage children victims of human trafficking also want to be advocates for children’s rights and to speak out as is their right of free expression. They volunteer and sign on to be child rights advocates, a brave and courageous action to take. While we adults do everything to protect their identity, we cannot stop them from exercising their human and civil rights to speak out against human trafficking and advocate children’s rights.The #MeToo movement is a way for women and children to experience freedom from abuse and to fight for justice and many young survivors want to be part of it.

It is adults that allow the sexual exploitation of children in the first place.The horrific child sex abuse business that is a scourge today in the Philippines is due to the former presence of the US Naval Base at Subic Bay, Olongapo City. Thousands of women and children were exploited and abused in hundreds of sex bars catering to the US Navy personnel. It was a wonderland of sex fantasy and abuse. Pedophiles flocked there and the sex mafia systematically and efficiently allowed them to sexually exploit, rape and abuse children. The government allowed and promoted it and the rich made millions of dollars.

In 1983, I discovered a child sex abuse syndicate selling children as young as nine years old to US sailors. I broke that story in the media and instead of being recognized for taking a stand for justice and truth and child protection, I was vilified by local government officials at the time and I was brought to trial at the Bureau of Immigration to be deported. The charge was that my child protection work and writing was bringing Olongapo City and its officials into disrepute. They felt I was blaming them for the child sex industry. They denied all responsibility despite a high profile military court case in Guam that brought a US officer to trial for child sexual abuse in Olongapo City. A sad state of affairs indeed.

That’s how journalists and child rights campaigners fighting for the dignity of the Filipinos were dealt with. However, I won my case, was found innocent and continued my work protecting human rights from my base in the Preda Foundation. When the city officials said they would close the Preda home for children, I said it would be better to close the US Naval Base. An idea was born and I started a “Life after the Bases” campaign to close the US military bases and convert them to civilian economic zones. It was amazing then how many people, in the Catholic Philippines, were hostile and negative to that vision of hope and help.

However, against all opposition, I promoted that idea and it caught on and a coalition of civil society members was formed that eventually persuaded the Philippine Senate to vote against the continuation of the US military bases. The conversion plan I formulated was eventually implemented and Subic Bay is now a thriving industrial area giving jobs with dignity to thousands of Filipinos. Human trafficking never really ceased and years later it began to make a comeback as tourism was promoted. So, today we are still fighting this scourge against humanity and protecting Filipino children.

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People

[People] US Military Bases Disguised as Philippine Bases are Here Again -by Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

US Military Bases Disguised as Philippine Bases are Here Again
by Fr. Shay Cullen
20 April 2018

Last 17 April 2018, the first US-built military facility was begun with a groundbreaking ceremony by Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and the US Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim. This is being done under an agreement signed in 2014 known as the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).The first US-funded building is at Basa Airforce Base in Pampanga.

The EDCA that allows these facilities inside Philippine military bases was made by President Benigno Aquino III and is not a treaty approved by the Philippine Senate as demanded by the constitution but is an executive agreement. Several legal authorities question the legality of that executive agreement when the approval of foreign bases is the sole prerogative of the Philippine Senate. That may be likely the reason that its implementation has been held in abeyance until this week.

Why President Rodrigo Duterte, a staunch critic of the United States and close friend of their adversary China, has allowed the implementation of this agreement made by the previous president has yet to be seen. The ultimate and real purpose of the new US bases within Philippine bases remains unclear. The primer explaining the EDCA distributed at the time of the signing of the agreement goes to great lengths to stress that the facilities are to enhance the ability of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to defend the county from external threats. They are to “promote between the Philippines and its defense treaty ally the United States the following:

• Interoperability
• Capacity-building towards AFP modernization
• Strengthening AFP for external defense
• Maritime security
• Maritime domain awareness
• Humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR)

However, the recently announced agreement between President Duterte and President Xi of China to cooperate and develop the natural resources of the West Philippine Sea claimed by China precludes any US intervention. Even if China has constructed military facilities on several reefs and islands including airstrips, no US assistance has been called for. The UN Arbitration on the Law of the Sea has ruled in favor of the Philippines to the disputed territory.

The stated purpose of the EDCA is in part to ensure “maritime security and maritime domain awareness.” So that has been rendered moot. Again, another stated objective is the “strengthening (of the) AFP for external defense.” Is the Armed Forces of the Philippines facing any external threat, a possible invasion or attack, occupation perhaps? No, there is none. So the implementation of the bases agreement under EDCA must have another purpose, which President Dutere in his wisdom, has allowed but about which he has remained silent.

The facilities are to enhance training and capacity-building of the AFP, the primer states. But these annual training exercises have continued for the past 25 years without the presence of US Bases. Why so many US bases within bases? Most AFP camps will have US troops and war material stored there.

The only single reason for these facilities is to support humanitarian aid in times of disasters. That alone is insufficient to justify massive expenditure on so many facilities when the Philippine Red Cross has stated that supposedly it has expanded its capability to deal with disasters. It is tasked with that duty and claims it can do it without foreign aid in most cases. There are few natural disasters of such magnitude that foreign US aid is required.

The only threat that the Philippines is facing is internal: the New People’s Army (NPA), the threat from ISIS and the recent occupation of Marawi by a rebel group. The need for prepositioned war material and US assistance was seen in the subsequent battle and destruction by aerial bombardment with the alleged help of US advisors and surveillance planes. Their involvement is as yet unconfirmed. These would be the only use of prepositioned US troops and war material, ammunition and supplies. Such material could also be available to support other US war action in Southeast Asia or Afghanistan.

There is no confirmed number of US troops that will be assigned to these US bases within Philippine bases. It is stated they are assigned there but will be on rotation. How long will they stay is unknown.

So twenty-five years after the US bases were closed down and the facilities were converted to civilian commercial use and Clark and Subic Naval Base became boom cities boasting hundreds of factories, hotels and malls, the bases are back. They are hiding behind a fig leaf claiming that they are not US bases but within Philippine military bases. It’s just a charade. The US troops stationed there will be likely out and about looking for recreational entertainment with sex and will join the already thriving mob of sex tourists that are abusing our young women and children with impunity.

The fact that the sex industry with its sex bars and clubs that are fronts for prostitution of women and children is licensed and given mayor’s permits shows local government complicity. The US bases to be reestablished are complicit, not only in violating the spirit of the constitution but violating our women and children that are victims of human trafficking- yet again.
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People

[People] The Resurrection of Jessica -by Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

The Resurrection of Jessica
by Fr. Shay Cullen
29 March 2018

Jessica was a lost child wandering the streets of a Philippine city, picked up by a human trafficker and brought to different places where she was sold as a commodity to foreign sex tourists to be abused. She didn’t know what was happening to her at 14-years of age. She was raped, exploited and robbed of her virginity. She became angry at the world and felt she was nothing and had nothing. She felt she has no future, no present and no past life. All was hopeless and when rescued and placed in government shelters, she escaped several times and rebelled as an aggressive and angry young, uneducated teenager filled with hatred and pain.

In desperation, the social workers brought her to the Preda girls home, an open home where there are no guards, fences or high walls. The children are free to leave but almost all choose to stay and try a life in a happy community. So Jessica stayed by her free choice because she was given that free human choice with respect, affirmation, dignity and the importance and rights that are her due. She found hope, encouragement and support.

Then she volunteered for Emotional Expression Therapy and there in the cushioned room, she cried and shouted out all the pain, hurt, frustration and hatred she carried deep within her since early childhood and when she was cruelly raped and abused.

Then, after weeks she began to change in self-awareness and self-knowledge and grew self-confident and found within herself the courage to file charges against her abusers and find justice. She was by then a strong and empowered young lady. It was suffering, death to the past life and the beginning of new life. It was a kind of resurrection for Jessica, a coming to life from a dark, pain-filled existence to a bright, hope-filled future with exciting new possibilities of friendship and education and a life of fulfillment.

So it is with hope that change is possible and that change can be in individual lives like that of Jessica and so with thousands of lives in society. From the darkness of social evil, injustice and all the pain and suffering, hope brings change and makes healing possible. The cruel dictator can be thrown down from his thrown of arrogance and the trampled upon can recover and stand up to live again.

That is the message of the Gospel story of the man from Nazareth that was so rejected by the leaders, the elders and the mob that he, a good person of absolute integrity, was falsely accused, framed up, charged, and made to suffer the death penalty. He spoke about truth, justice, human dignity and the rights of all and especially of children and women. He preached equality and sharing and he denounced hypocrisy, exploitation and oppression and he called for change and injustice to end. Yet having lived a good life caring for others, healing and supporting the weak and the poor and the needy, forgiving those who needed forgiveness, he was judged and condemned as a criminal and nailed to an instrument of cruel barbaric death.

But after such apparent total failure of his work, the scattering of his followers, the collapse of his mission, then what appeared to all to be an end of change in the world, hope lived on. He was alive and lived on in the thoughts, imaginations, feelings and in the belief of his followers. His powerful intoxicating words promising a happier life if we loved each other instead of killing, maiming and hurting each other was possible. A life of equality and dignity for all was still possible like snowdrops emerging in the depth of winter.

Jessica shared in that same hope and experienced that new life because she came to believe in herself because others inspired by the values of the Man from Nazareth gave her courage, support, care, friendship and comfort in her darkest hours.
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People

[From the web] Philippine Military Owes UN’s Beyani More than an Apology By Carlos H. Conde

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Dispatches: Philippine Military Owes UN’s Beyani More than an Apology
By Carlos H. Conde
Researcher, Asia Division
@condeHRW

Chaloka Beyani, the United Nations special expert on internally displaced people, had harsh words for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Beyani, who was investigating the plight of hundreds of internally displaced members of the Lumad ethnic minority group, castigated the AFP for attributing to him an assessment of the situation that was “incorrect, unacceptable, and … a gross distortion of my views.” He was in the Philippines from July 21 to July 31 at the invitation of the government.

The AFP alleged that Beyani had declared that the 700 Lumad who had taken shelter in a church compound in Davao City on southern Mindanao island were victims of “human trafficking.” Beyani said he was “appalled” by the AFP’s misrepresentation of his views.

“The indigenous peoples whom I interviewed informed me that they relocated to this facility freely and in response to the militarization of their lands and territories and forced recruitment into paramilitary groups operating under the auspices of the AFP,” he said in astatement.

This illustrates the yawning gap between the AFP’s rhetoric on respect for human rights and the far more abusive reality. The AFP has a well-documented track record of trying to create the illusion of being a rights-respecting entity while ignoring serious rights abuseswithin its ranks. Those efforts, which include the operations of the AFP’s Human Rights Office, paint a veneer of proactive concern about rights abuses to hide the military abuses that local activists – and UN officials like Beyani – routinely expose.

A spokesman for the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command has apologized and resigned over the Beyani statement fiasco. But the AFP owe Beyani and the Philippine people accountability, not just an apology. This episode highlights the urgent need for AFP chief Gen. Hernando Iriberri to address the rot within its ranks and get serious about tackling human rights abuses. One important place to look would be a thorough and transparent inquiry into the role played by the military and paramilitary groups in the displacement of Filipinos, particularly vulnerable ethnic minority groups, in conflict zones in Mindanao.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/08/13/dispatches-busting-gross-distortions-philippine-military

From the web

[Press Release] Iloilo Cyclists as Modern Day Heroes, Rode for a Human Trafficking Free Philippines -DAKILA

Posted on June 13, 2015 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Iloilo Cyclists as Modern Day Heroes, Rode for Freedom on Independence Day
Pedal Power for a Human Trafficking Free Philippines

In line of the celebration of Independence Day, DAKILA, in partnership with Centralian Cruisers Cycling Club (C4) gathered cyclists and advocates for the Independence Day Freedom Ride in Iloilo City.

Iloilo hosted the 117th celebration of Independence Day in the historic town of Sta. Barbara, where the Philippine Flag was first raised outside Luzon by the revolutionary government of Visayas and became the base of the revolutionary forces against Spanish colonizers led by General Martin Delgado.

The event which is a part of Dakila’s ‘Stop. Look. Listen’ campaign in support of the Anti-Trafficking efforts benchmarks the campaign against human trafficking and the promotion of road sharing by organizing a bike tour that would run around Iloilo’s six district plazas and will start at Iloilo’s Provincial Capitol Grounds.

This year, Iloilo celebrates its 117th year of freedom since the official surrender of the Spanish government in 1898. Back in the colonial rule, Iloilo had served as a home for old Spanish families and was even awarded ‘La Muy Leal Y Noble Ciuded de Iloilo’, the most loyal and noble of the cities in the Philippines.

“We believe that while it is important to celebrate our freedom from colonial rule, it is also important for us to realize that many Filipinos are still enslaved. We want to celebrate our 117th year of independence by continuing the fight for the freedom of others,” Allyn May Canja, spokesperson of Dakila-Iloilo said.

According to the United Nation’s International Labour Organization (ILO), there is an estimate of 21 million victims of modern slavery to count. Asia in particular shares half of the estimates of ILO because of the number of its population, working force and its poor labor conditions. In the Philippines, hotspots for human trafficking include the NCR Region, Tarlac, Laguna, Batangas, Samar, Cebu, Maguindanao, Zamboanga and Iloilo.

“Human trafficking is a serious problem especially in our country because we offer cheap labor. A lot of times we only see women being trafficked for sexual exploitation but in fact, human trafficking can happen to both men and women and for different reasons other than sexual exploitation, such as forced labor. There are even cases of professionals such as doctors who experienced being trafficked,”Canja added.

The first Independence Day Freedom Ride in Iloilo last 2013 gathered cyclists and advocates to share a road that leads to a Philippines that is free from any form of human trafficking and to promote Iloilo as a bike-friendly city that supports alternative forms of public transportation.

“We are enthusiastic about this event because aside from raising awareness on human trafficking, we also get to promote our cause which is road sharing and to transform Iloilo City into a more bike friendly city. We will be riding our bikes for freedom from human trafficking. In a way we feel like we are using our own advocacy, to promote another advocacy”, Biking advocate Daniella Caro said.

“We cruise for a human trafficking free Philippines this Independence day,” David de Leon, President of Centralian Cruisers Cycling Club also said.

DAKILA, an art and advocacy collective, initiated the Freedom Ride in 2013 to raise the call against human trafficking and encouraged freedom warriors to come out and pedal for a human trafficking free Philippines. It mobilized around 10,000 cyclists in Metro Manila, Iloilo, Dumaguete and Zamboanga as freedom warriors.

Musician Nityalila Saulo of Dakila in her send off speech before this year’s ride said, “In 1898, it is in this very soil that the Spanish Government surrendered. It is in Iloilo that the Philippines were granted its freedom from the 333 years of Spain’s regime. It is no wonder Iloilo is a land of freedom and that Ilonggos are by nature, freedom warriors. But even if we are celebrating this historic event and wearing our best independent suits we are far from being free from modern day slavery.”

The 1956 UN supplementary convention defines slavery as “debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage” and as times change, new forms of slavery evolve and emerge; bonded and forced labor, descent-based and child slavery, early and forced marriage and human trafficking, which is in context is the “transport or trade of people from one area to another into conditions of slavery.”

Nityalila, in her speech, further added, “Every year around 300,000 to 400,000 Filipinos fall prey to human trafficking in their own country and abroad. 117 years and we are still slaves, not from colonial rule, but from the everyday acts like sexual exploitation and forced labor; acts that deny freedom. The fight against modern slavery seems like a never-ending battle, it is hidden in plain sight, but it happens every single day and it takes a lot of organized effort to put a stop to it.

But the last years had proven that we could actually start and make a difference. Today we are all gathered here as modern day heroes bearing one thing in mind: fighting modern day slavery by using our pedal power. Today we are not just cycling our way to a traffic free Philippines; we are paving our road to national progress, together.”

A part of Dakila’s Project Freedom Campaign, the Freedom Ride aims for public awareness on human trafficking and the empowerment of advocates and citizens in becoming watchdogs and freedom warriors to their own community. It ensures that through unity and organized effort, one can make their way to one road as a nation free from the bonds of slavery.

The Iloilo Freedom Ride started at 3:00 PM from the Iloilo Provincial Capitol Grounds, toured through the six plazas representing the six districts of Iloilo, and ended at the Provincial Capitol where a short program was held to celebrate the Independence Day. Hundreds of Iloilo cyclists clad in Independence Day themed costumes, wearing face paints, and carrying Philippine flags participated.

Nityalila send off speech ended with the singing of her composition “Laya” as she paid homage to the Freedom Warriors of Iloilo, “Ilonggos took a giant leap this 117th Independence Day by answering the call to be warriors of freedom. It is because of this heroic act of Ilonggos who participated in the 1898 Philippine revolution and our own revolution today against modern-day slavery, that we can all look forward to a better Philippines in the future.”#

For more info, contact Dakila through Karen Bermejo, 0915-5410368 or Allyn May Canja, 0917-6113381

[Press Release] Thousands of cyclists and advocates to ride for freedom on June 12 -DAKILA

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Thousands of cyclists and advocates to ride for freedom on June 12

All roads will lead to Iloilo Provincial Capitol Grounds on June 12, as hundreds of cyclists and advocates raise the flag of freedom on Independence Day to stop human trafficking and promote road sharing.

The Independence Day Freedom Ride is a bike ride event organized by advocate group Dakila, in partnership with Centralian Cruisers Cycling Club (C4) which aims to raise awareness on human trafficking and to promote road sharing in Iloilo with the tour of the six district plazas.

The first Independence Day ride in Iloilo was held on June 12, 2013 and participated by more than 500 cyclists.

Freedom Ride is meanwhile part of the “Stop. Look. Listen” campaign of Dakila to popularize the 1343 Anti-Trafficking Hotline. It was launched in Iloilo on April 20, 2013.

Every year around 300,000 to 400,000 Filipinos fall prey to human trafficking in their own country and abroad.

The Freedom Ride is part of the Project Freedom Campaign of Dakila, which aims to raise public awareness on Human Trafficking and empower advocates and citizens to become watchdogs in their own communities by driving them into action through grassroots involvement and amplified action through mainstream and digital media.

The Freedom Ride is free and open to the public. This year’s Independence Day Freedom Ride will start at 3:00 p.m. from the Iloilo Provincial Capitol Grounds and will pass through the six plazas representing the six districts of Iloilo City.

The ride will end at Iloilo Provincial Capitol for a short program to commemorate the Independence Day.

PRESS RELEASE
Dakila-Iloilo
09 June 2015
For more information, contact:
Karen Bermejo, 0915-5410368
Allyn May Canja, 0917-6113381

Press Release

[Press Release] Tourists flee Olongapo sex bars in fear of arrest -PREDA

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Tourists flee Olongapo sex bars in fear of arrest.
Preda news Reporter
18 may 2015

Photo by PREDA

During a presentation at the Iowa State University Father Shay Cullen told a audience of 600 professors, clergy, human rights activists and students that following the undercover work of retired Australian police and US ICE agents sex tourists are leaving Olongapo and Subic sex tourist areas.

“The wave of human slavery is increasing in the world and the young women and children are the most vulnerable victims. It is not only in poor countries but in developed nations also.” Fr.Shay told the audience.

Marlyn Capio- Richter ,A Preda social worker and Paralegal officer told her life story as a child sexually abused by step-father ,ran away and was lured by a human trafficker to Boracay island where she was forced and turned into a commercial sexually exploited child and forced to work in a sex bar when only 12 years old. Later with an other child she was rescued and brought to Preda by Father Shay Cullen and became a college graduate and is presently helping other victims of human trafficking.

In his presentation Fr.Shay said that in America alone as many as 35,000 children go missing every year as many are children who run away from sexual abuse in the home and neighborhood .Others are abducted and made sexual slaves and forced prostitution by human traffickers.

Fr.Shay reminded the audience that as many as 13 million unfortunate Africans ,men ,Women and children were kidnapped, abducted, captured and sold into slavery in North and South America over a period of 300 years upon which the early wealth of the nation in part was taken.’

“However today” ,Fr.Shay said , “more than 4.5 million women and children and poor working men are trafficked into slavery every year, most never escape and are forced into fishing boats , brothels and sex dens and made have forced abortions.

The demand is growing around the world with the power of the Internet. This is aided and abetted by the refusal of the Internet Server Providers in the Philippines and elsewhere to install filtering software and stop the proliferation of the child pornography.It is increasing the demand for child sex.When the sex tourists return to American,he said, the sex tourists are addicted to underage sex and are abusing American children daily.

He told the audience a big anti-trafficking success for Preda was when the Preda social workers rescued young women and children in 2013 from Sex bars in Calapadayan,Subic Town.This was helped by retired Australian police and active US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and Philippine police investigators .They went undercover into the sex bars poising as sex tourist customers.

They identified the minors and the sex customers and traffickers. Arrests were made and the court cases are still going on in Olongapo City with a jailed US national on trial. Sex tourists are deserting Subic and Olongapo bars and clubs as a result out of fear of being identified by the undercover retired police officers.

Father Shay said and as many as 12 sex bars have now closed and others denied a Mayors permit down. The chilling effect has been seen in the Olongapo area he said as sex tourists of many nationalities have a fear of being under surveillance and in danger of arrest in such bars.

Sex tourism is also a growing scourge that abuses and enslaves the children and women in developing countries and in Europe also where thousands of young girls are trafficked Germany and Austria every year where prostitution is legal.

However while it may protect German and Austrian sex workers the many trafficked children and girls are from the Ukraine and Belarus and eastern European countriews.These girls he said are deprived of their passport and documents and are held against their will in brothels and are threatened if they try to escape.

In the Philippines he said the most sex tourists come from South Korea, Japan and Australia and North America.The campaign to stop this and free the victims must go on. Fr.Shay illustrated hsi lecture with slides on the work of Preda.He showed the beautiful building in the countryside where rescued children are helped in a “best practice” therapeutic center and home for girls.

The visit and speech was on the invitation of the University Of Iowa ,organized with their help of Columban Father Bill Brunner,SSC and John Burke both are active in combating human trafficking in Iowa and works with the anti-human trafficking network who presented Preda with the award.

The plaque has the inscription:

OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO THE WELFARE OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH AWARD.

Presented BY. The Central Iowa Service Network Against Human Trafficking and Youth and Shelter Services April 23, 2015.

Following the lecture in Iowa Ft.shay and Marlyn travelled to Minneapolis -St.paul and made presentation there also and later went to El Paso and Los Angeles to continue the lecture tour in the United States. They returned to Preda on 3rd. may 2015.

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Press Release

[Press Release] Indonesia: grant Mary Jane Veloso permanent reprieve from execution and abolish death penalty – ICJ

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Indonesia: grant Mary Jane Veloso permanent reprieve from execution and abolish death penalty – ICJ

Bangkok, Thailand / Geneva, Switzerland – In a letter sent this week, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) urged President Joko Widodo to grant Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino national on death row in Indonesia, a permanent reprieve from execution and to impose a moratorium on executions, with a view of abolishing death penalty in the near future.

en.wikipedia.org

In its letter, the ICJ clarifies that executing Mary Jane Veloso for drug trafficking would violate Indonesia’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and, in the circumstances of this case, appear to be inconsistent with Indonesia’s laws on trafficking in human beings.

Indonesia’s domestic law on criminalizing trafficking of persons provides that “a victim who commits a crime under coercion of by offender of the criminal act of trafficking in persons shall not be liable to criminal charges.”

The ICJ points out there are allegations that Mary Jane Veloso is a victim of trafficking, and that the crime she was convicted of resulted from such crimes against her.

“Rather than being identified and treated as victims of serious crimes, trafficked persons are often arrested, detained, charged and even prosecuted for being involved in criminal activities committed as a consequence of their situation of having been trafficked,” said Wilder Tayler, ICJ’s Secretary General.

Criminalization of victims of trafficking is directly connected to the fact that governments often fail to identify the victims correctly, the ICJ says.

“What is essential to combating trafficking is the timely identification of victims. The Indonesian government therefore must undertake prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation on the allegations that Mary Jane Veloso is a victim of trafficking,” Tayler added.

The ICJ notes that there is a growing recognition that victims of trafficking should not be prosecuted for offenses relating to their status as trafficking victims.

“Criminalizing victims like Mary Jane Veloso would compound the harm they have already experienced. It would also deny them the rights to which they are entitled,” Tayler said.

The ICJ urges Indonesia to impose a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing death penalty in the near future.

By resuming executions in 2013 after a four-year de facto moratorium, Indonesia is defying the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty and the establishment of a moratorium on execution.

Furthermore, imposing the death penalty for drug-related offenses contravenes Indonesia’s obligations as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and other international standards, which clarify that states retaining the death penalty must ensure that its application is limited to “the most serious crimes”, the ICJ says.

The ICJ emphasizes that the imposition of the death penalty is a violation of the right to life and the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Background:

Mary Jane Veloso was allegedly unlawfully and fraudulently recruited in the Philippines to work as a domestic helper in Malaysia.

Upon her arrival in Malaysia, she allegedly was told by her ‘recruiter’ that she needed to go on an errand and meet the ‘recruiter’s’ friend in Indonesia.

It is alleged that the recruiter gave Mary Jane Veloso the luggage for her to pack her clothes in for her trip to Indonesia.

On 25 April 2010, Mary Jane Veloso was arrested upon her arrival at the airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for possessing 2.6 kilograms of heroin that were found in the seams of the luggage she carried.

Two of Mary Jane Veloso’s alleged traffickers are now in the custody of Philippine authorities and are set to face trial in the Philippines.

Contact:

Sam Zarifi, ICJ Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, t: +66 80 781 9002 ; e: sam.zarifi@icj.org

FOR IMMEDIATE USE: 19 MAY 2015

Press Release

[People] The human trafficking that is slavery. By Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

The human trafficking that is slavery
by Fr. Shay Cullen

It is a cruel and hideous crime to capture and enslave an innocent human for any reason whatsoever. But to make money and indulge greed and avarice in forcing the poor and vulnerable through force and intimidation, threats and debts, to work for little or no payment, then that is slavery. To buy or use products made with such labor is morally wrong. The people who recruit the poor, the hungry and jobless, many of them children, are the human traffickers. There are more than twenty million people throughout the world who are captive, victims of traffickers and slavers according to the 2014 US State Department – Trafficking in Persons Report out this June. This shows how widespread the crime is.

It is not an evil trade confined to the poorest of Asian, South American and African countries but it is common in developed nations too. In Europe and the United States, millions are trapped in bonded labor by debts, threats and intimidation. They work on farms, in factories and brothels. Many are trafficked into the European Union countries from Eastern Europe and are easily lured with the promises of good, high paying jobs but are thrown into brothels as sex slaves.

The huge mega-brothels conveniently situated near European international airports have hundreds of young girls trapped as prostitutes. Prostitution has been legalized in most European countries. While this protects EU women who have freely chosen to be sex workers from harassment and abuse and gives them rights, the EU gives little or no protection, medical help, or human rights guarantees to undocumented illegal migrants. That’s the status of the victims of human trafficking. Their passports and identity documents are taken from them by the traffickers who can then control and intimidate and threaten them.

This scenario goes on all over the world. In the Philippines, it is much the same. Trafficking in persons is so rampant; corruption is widespread so the suspects seldom get arrested or convicted due to incompetent or corrupt prosecutors and judges and police. While most of the judiciary can be said to be fairly just and honest, not all prosecute or convict because of bribery. Despite the brave face of government claiming to have an increase in conviction, it is dismal. That is why the Philippines is still on the 2nd level of notoriety of the US Trafficking in Persons report. The sex industry depends on traffickers to supply the young girls. We need to curb demand, and end the sex industry. Do the right thing, protect the victims and give them a life of dignity.

Human traffickers are wealthy people and they are a big source of income for the corrupt officials so it pays to let them go free. Then, they will keep on paying to stay free and be able to sexually abuse and exploit more children with impunity.

The Philippines in on the second level of notoriety of the Trafficking in Persons annual report this 2014, just above the more notorious modern slavery nations. It is an index prepared and maintained by the US Department of State. For all its faults over the past years, the US government under the Obama administration has declared a strong, no compromise policy against traffickers and slavers and those who enable and permit them to exploit and abuse the weak and the vulnerable.

With President Obama in the White House that was built by slaves, he, being the first black President of the United States, and his wife Michele, a descendant of slaves, it is no wonder that they would be strongly promoting the end to trafficking of persons and modern slavery.

Philippine local officials issue licenses and operating permits to sex bars and girly clubs. This is where thousands of young Filipinos, many underage minors who are victims of trafficking and sexual slavery, are bought and sold. It’s the meat market of minors. That’s why the country is on the second, worst level of the TIP report. It is accused of condoning such heinous crimes by its inaction, pitiful arrest record and almost non-conviction rate and allegedly corrupt judicial system. True or not as that may be, and I am not to judge, nevertheless, I have experienced the apathy riddled courts where the only swift decision is when the judge orders a coffee and donut.

What is significant in US policy is that anti-trafficking is now being integrated into the United States diplomatic and development work and more importantly, the US policy is to insist on the rule of law in protecting the victims and bringing the abusers and exploiters to justice. From this point, advocates are urging the US to develop an immigration rule whereby the US will be listing the corrupt police, prosecutors and judges and barring them and their relatives from entering the United States.

In his remarks launching the 2014 TIP report, John Kerry said the following; they are words worth reading. “Wherever rule of law is weak, where corruption is most ingrained, and where populations can’t count on the protection of governments and of law enforcement, there you find zones of vulnerability to trafficking. But wherever rule of law is strong, where individuals are willing to speak out and governments willing to listen, we find zones of protection against
trafficking. shaycullen@preda.org, http://www.preda.org

(Fr. Shay’s columns are published in The Manila Times, in publications in Ireland, the UK, Hong Kong, and on-line.)

People

[In the news] Rising number of trafficked fishermen alarms Tawi-Tawi authorities -InterAksyon.com

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Rising number of trafficked fishermen alarms Tawi-Tawi authorities
By: Jake Soriano, VERA Files, InterAksyon.com
April 20, 2014

BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi—Tawi-Tawi authorities are alarmed at the growing number of fishermen from the Visayas who end up here after being recruited by human trafficking syndicates to engage in dangerous compressor diving.

The latest case involves 13 fishermen rescued from a fishing village here on March 15 by a team composed of the Tawi-Tawi Provincial Police Office (PPO), Philippine Marines and the Bongao Inter-agency Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons (BIATFAT).

The case is the eighth recorded by BIATFAT since December 2012, and brings the total number of rescued fishermen to 80, all of them from Cebu and Bohol.

“They have taken a huge risk in accepting compressor diving work here,” said Inspector Elmira Relox, chief of the Tawi-Tawi PPO Women and Children Protection Desk, who led the rescue.

Read full article @www.interaksyon.com

In the News

[People] Trafficking in Innocence after the storm. By Fr. Shay Cullen, SSC

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Trafficking in Innocence after the storm
By Fr. Shay Cullen, SSC

Social worker Marlyn received a message that a 14-year-old girl named “Princess” had been trafficked and sold to a sex bar here in the Philippines. Marlyn alerted me and we began planning to rescue the child, just one of thousands of children trafficked for sexual abuse each year in the Philippines.and many more around the world. It is a problem of global reach and the recent agreement signed by the heads and representatives of the major religions to fight it is a positive encouragement. Its almost six months since the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) and many more children will fall victim to sexual predators as the poverty grows and young people and parents become desperate to get jobs and money.It all to common.

Marlyn, who herself was rescued from sex-trade traffickers, works with me in the Preda Foundation organization I founded 40 years ago that actively responds to and rescues victims, and then helps them get an education and start new lives of dignity.

This time, we organized a police raid on the sex bar, called the Crowbar, and rescued Princess and five other underage girls who had been entrapped there through debts and fear of retaliation against their families. The operator of the sex bar, a U.S. national, was arrested, and during his arraignment, Princess whispered to her social worker: “I never thought this could happen; he’s rich and connected. I can’t believe we got out.”

Princess was rescued and was helped at the Preda Home for Children. Over the years we have rescued thousands of children and youths from the scourge of “sex tourism,” even as the sex industry continues to spread and grow with impunity.

This has all been exacerbated by the recent natural disasters in the Philippines.Another Typhoon is lashing Southern Mindanao as I write. But with Yolanda last November 2013 it was the worst ever. I have been through ferocious typhoons during my 44 years in this Southeast
Asian nation, but have never seen anything like the sheer savagery of Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Typhoon Yolanda. After this super storm hit the Philippines , bringing winds of up to 150 miles an hour, torrential rain, flooding and landslides, I flew to visit the northern towns on Cebu Island to assess the damage with two Preda staff members. Our goals were to deliver aid directly to the people who most needed it and, equally important, to protect orphaned children from would-be abductors and traffickers posing as relatives. Now months later much has been done to get electricity back and people fed ,but hundreds of thousands of houses have yet to be repaired.and jobs created.

Horrible as the prospect of such exploitation is, it has been a cruel reality in times of natural disasters, and Haiyan was the most devastating typhoon known to humankind: as many as 6,500 or more were killed, countless injured and made homeless. And the orphaned children remain the most vulnerable. Their towns and villages and homes are gone and their parents are dead. They face the threat of hunger, malnutrition, abduction and forced degradation in the sex trade and as slave labor.

These children need our attention and direct intervention to rescue them from child traffickers and pedophiles and Preda social workers have been giving training to workers to help find them and given help. Under the pretext of saving the children, traffickers abduct them and may sell them as “brides” to pedophiles, or earn hundreds of thousands of dollars by providing these children for illegal adoption, organ transplants, sexual abuse and exploitation in
brothels and as forced labor.

Poverty often makes exploitation easy. Reggie is a clear example. The 17-year-old jobless youth and his family lived on the edge of severe poverty even before Typhoon Haiyan pushed them into absolute poverty and left them with nothing. In the midst of the chaos and destruction, human traffickers forced him and six other youth from Cebu into unpaid labor on a fishing boat, only to abandon them hungry and unpaid. Then, Reggie’s freedom and human rights were taken from him when local authorities jailed him for being a vagrant. He was recently rescued from illegal imprisonment and is recovering and rebuilding his life back in his home village. We can all continue to do mor e and to help the people in greatest need.

Though the work goes on, it never gets any easier to stomach. shaycullen @preda.org .www.preda.org

People

[People] The ISPs Must Obey The Anti-Child Porn. Law By Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

The ISPs Must Obey The Anti-Child Porn Law
By Fr. Shay Cullen

Child pornography and cyber-sex involving minors is a serious crime against the person and dignity of the child. The Philippines is becoming a leading source of these illegal images and children are being abused in the making and distribution of them. The child porn images are spread around the world through the Internet and the Internet service providers in every country that do not have filters and blocking technology are aiding and abetting these crimes against children.

The telephone companies are violating the law by not having these filters in place as demanded by the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009 otherwise known as RA 9775. They have seemingly placed themselves above it and seem to have some government officials in their pockets. In addition to the anti-child pornography law they are also allegedly violating with impunity the Public Telecommunications Policy Act of 1995 or RA 7925 and Executive Order No. 546 issued in 1979.

This strongest law RA 9775 was passed in 2009 explicitly ordering the ISP’s to install software to block the transmission of child porn images and cyber-sex where children are forced to do sexual acts live on camera sent through the Internet to paying customers in other cities or countries. But they have allegedly ignored it or persuaded law enforcers to look the other way and allow them to pay a “fine.”

It is alleged too that some officials of government telecommunication agencies and law enforcement agencies have been allegedly captured or bought off so they will not enforce the law. The critics of these big telephone nd Internet companies accuse them of making money out of the dirty business of child abuse. They have not been charged or found guilty of any crime. This is amazing since the law was passed in 2009.

Last August 2013 I wrote in this column on this very subject the following: ” Agencies in the Philippines such as the National Telecommunications Commission is mandated under RA 9775 (section 9) to enforce the law but seems to be looking the other away. The Anti-Child Porn Alliance (ACPA) is struggling against public and government apathy, inaction and indifference.”

But last January 30, 2014 the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued a memorandum circular ordering the ISPs to comply with the law. But the memorandum does not come into effect until it is published and it is now April and they have failed to publish it. The memorandum or order tells all ISPs to “install available technology, program or software that will block access or filter all web sites carrying child pornography materials.” The telephone companies such as PLDT, Globe, Smart, Suncellular and BayanTel have until June 2014 to actually install the software or hire companies like NetClean or many others to do it for them. But they should have done in 2009.

If they want to get expert help to start blocking right away they only have to contact Internet Watch Foundation of the UK (http://www.preda.org/mailings/mail.cgi/r/preda/629918525476/hronlineph/gmail.com/) The foundation works with ISP’s, the public, law enforcement and can identify and remove child pornography websites and help bring the perpetrators to justice.

The Internet is a service but it is not a child-safe product because it can so easily harm children and it is used for crime.

In an on-going court case, a German national is accused in Butuan City, Northern Mindanao of sexually abusing and performing acts of sodomy on small Filipino boys. There is strong evidence against him. If he is allowed to go free it will be a travesty of justice and a cause for non-stop outrage and protest. But thousands of child defenders believe that the judge will rule on the evidence and the law and not on the defence’s claims that such acts do no harm to the children who they claim consent to it. This is a useless defense because no child under 18 can legally consent to illegal acts of abuse against him or herself. Besides the victims were 12 years and younger.

The evidence is not only the testimony of the child victims but also photographs found on the German national’s laptop of the shocking and depraved acts of sexual abuse of the children. It’s a case of trafficking also because the man allegedly brought the children from Gingoog City to Butuan.

In general the practice of paedophiles of all nationalities are sexually abusing children and making digital pictures and videos of their evil acts to view them, share and trade them with other paedophiles. They are also uploading them to websites on the Internet where others can see them and the child is continually being virtually abused. Every image is evidence of the abuse and to have and hold them in one’s possession is to be an accessory or is consenting to the crime. When one possesses child porn images, it is highly likely he or she will abuse children. That’s why possession is illegal. The authorities must not wait until he has raped a child and then arrest him. The deadline of June 2014 to install the filters should not be necessary since the ISP’s should have done it in 2009. We must challenge government of all countries to protect children from the abusers. shaycullen@preda.org; http://www.preda.org

People

[People] Religions unite against trafficking of persons. By Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Religions unite against trafficking of persons
By Fr. Shay Cullen

It was a solemn moment in the great meeting hall in the Vatican where the joint agreement and statement was to be signed by the representatives of the great world religions. It was not some lofty, irrelevant declaration to work for mutual respect for different faiths but to launch the “Global Freedom Network.” Its goal is to eradicate modern forms of slavery and human trafficking.

The agreement to work together was because they shared abhorrence at the growing numbers of victims and the “searing personal destructiveness of modern slavery and human trafficking.” The statement calls for “urgent action by all other Christian Churches and global faiths.” This is a historical cooperation agreement and gives hope to many that people of faith will work together to stop it or reduce it significantly.

Pope Francis was represented by Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences. Present too were Mahmoud Azab, on behalf of the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Egypt, Rev. Sir John Moxon, on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, and Andrew Forrest, founder of the Walk Free Foundation. It is an important undertaking and a major change in church policy and practice. In the past, it was generally ignored, now it is taking center stage.

This modern form of slavery comes as bonded labor where people are enslaved to pay a debt, or pressured and threatened if they don’t work as unpaid labor and worst, trafficked into sex slavery. The International Labour Organization estimates that women and girls represent the largest share of forced labor victims with 11.4 million trafficked victims (55 percent) compared to 9.5 million (45 percent) men. Most of the girls and women are forced into sex bars and clubs and brothels that are operated with local government permits in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Thousands of young teenage children, mostly girls are lured away from their families and villages with offers of fine jobs and are sold into brothels from where they have no escape. There is an estimated 25 million people in slavery today, an illegal business that generates as much as US$34 billion a year. It is estimated that US$15 billion is generated in the developed countries.

The trafficking of children and rape even in a police station is shocking but all too frequent. Take the case of the latest child victim at the Preda center for abused children. Jezebel was only 13 years old when her stepfather tried to rape her but she was quick and agile enough to escape his clutches and ran away. She found a job in a store in Limay, Bataan but was accused of stealing and was brought to the Limay police station.

There, after a while, she was forced into an empty cell by a prisoner trustee and was raped. The police officer on duty saw her being raped and ignored it. Some days later, Jezebel with her trusted aunt, went back to the police station to file a charge of rape but the female police officer did not give them a certificate to have a medico-legal examination and they were advised to forget it. A case was filed but after several months, the prosecutor in Balanga, Bataan has not acted on it. That’s the state of justice and the Church and human rights advocates ought to take up this case and go write to the media, the Secretary of Justice and the Secretary of Interior and Local Government about this case.

The Vatican press statement underlined just how important this move is where millions of children are raped every year like Jezebel. According to the Joint Statement, “Modern slavery and human trafficking are crimes against humanity. The physical, economic, and sexual exploitation of men, women and children condemns 30 million people to dehumanization and degradation. Every day we let this tragic situation continue is a grievous assault on our common humanity and a shameful affront to the consciences of all peoples. Any indifference to those suffering and exploitation must cease. We call to action all people of faith and their leaders, all governments and people of goodwill, to join the movement against modern slavery and human trafficking and support the Global Freedom Network.”

This is such a serious and growing problem that group action of protest and demanding government to fight it, not support it. That seems to be case at present. We have to take a stand and speak out. Silence can even be misunderstood as consent. The faith that does not flow over into action for justice is dead, says Saint James. We cannot be the walking dead, we need to be filled with the spirit and have compassion and concern and take action. Faith is at its highest point when we become disciples of Jesus and go imitate the good done by the Samaritan.

There is an important challenge to all of us in this statement and initiative. Taking action to save the victims of abuse and exploitation is what Jesus of Nazareth did and expect the same from his followers. (shaycullen@preda.org, http://www.preda.org)

People

[People] Reggie’s flight to freedom. Fr.Shay Cullen

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Reggie’s flight to freedom.
Fr.Shay Cullen

As if the upheaval,death and destruction of Typhoon Haiyan(Yolanda)was not enough suffering for up to a million survivors human disasters are still ongoing and we are trying to protect children and orphans from exploiters and traffickers. We sounded the alarm months ago and we are still very active in preventing hurt and healing the victims.

Reggie, 17, a victim of human trafficking from a remote village in Bogo, Northern Cebu, one of the towns badly affected by the most powerful typhoon (Haiyan/Yolanda) in history to hit land. Desperate for a job to get food for his hungry family and grandmother, he was lured by criminal human traffickers to join a large fishing boat with six other victims.

After many days of hard work day and night, the fishing boat made land in Batangas port on Southern Luzon Island to sell the big catch. They helped off- load the fish. To their shock the boys,several of them minors, were not paid but ordered back to the boat. They refused and ran away from these harsh conditions.

Reggie found his way to Metro Manila after walking for almost two days carrying his few pieces of old clothes in a yellow plastic bucket that was his only possession. He begged for food along the way.

Arriving in Manila, instead of getting help and protection from the authorities, he received additional misery and hardship when he was taken off the street for being a vagrant and was put into a youth detention prison in Pasay, Metro Manila. There Preda social workers ,rescuing other children, found him behind bars malnourished,hungry and forced to sleep on the concrete floor in an mosquito infested cell that was as hot as a boiler room.

He was left there and forgotten without a legal complaint or charge made against him or a court hearing. Thats the plight and injustice suffered by thousands of children around the country. Our campaign to change the system is meeting stiff resistance.

There was no one to listen to Reggie’s story or help him. He was left in the jail with other youth,some as young ten years of age in sub-human conditions. Every day, he survived on only a handful of rice and a spoon of vegetables as his daily food.

He felt abandoned, lost and very frightened and threatened by the bigger boys who controlled life in the cells and took most of the food for themselves and made the younger ones wash their shorts and T-shirts and forced them to sexually comfort them.

His day of release was a happy one for him. He almost cried when brought out from detention by Preda social worker Emmanuel Drewery and father Shay and was taken immediately to a restaurant for a good meal as he was famished, malnourished, weak and depressed.

This is the first time I have ever eaten in a restaurant², he told them.
He grew up in an impoverished village in the remote part of Northern Cebu island which was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan(Yolanda). It was that extreme poverty that drove him to look for work on the fishing boat where he was put into forced, unpaid labor.

After his rescue, he asked to stay at the Preda Boy¹s home where he was happy and recovered his physical and emotional strength. He joined the other lucky forty youths who were also released from horrific unhygienic and psychologically damaging conditions of bare jails and prisons by the Preda Foundation workers. They got a court transfer order by writing to the judge.

They were jailed by police without charges or for what amounts to a misdemeanor like stealing food but greatly exaggerated and made appear to be robbery so the policeman could meet his quota or get a promotion.

Reggie was free and loved to play basketball and go swimming with the other boys there in the no-gates ,no-guards open living home staffed by nursers and social workers. Troubled youths don’t rebel when they are respected and properly cared for. Reggie was free of the traffickers but had suffered greatly because of them and the uncaring authorities.

After several months of recovery and rest at the Preda Home for Boys, he was ready to travel home and experience his first ever airplane flight which was a great thrill for him. He went with Mr. Francis Bermido, the Preda Executive director and his assistant director Emmanuel Drewery. Besides attending to the administration of all the Preda projects, they frequently join in the field work and direct and supervise the Preda relief and anti-trafficking training seminars in Tacloban and Palo.

There the Preda education and psycho-therapy team are helping hundreds of traumatized survivors cope with the greatest natural disaster to hit the Philippines.

They also distribute thousands of packets of vegetable seeds. to help the small farmers grow food. The greater unnatural disaster is the slew of politicians that are plundering the treasury and stealing the money that could be used to help the victims.

Reggie was thrilled when together, they took a low cost flight on Air Asia and landed in Cebu. Within a few hours of travel through the wrecked countryside of torn up coconut trees and shattered houses Reggie was happily and tearfully reunited with his family.In the middle of such widespread disaster from the typhoon where the trafficking of children and youth is spreading this is one of several happy endings.

Preda Foundation will provide more help to the family of Reggie to help them recover from the losses to their livelihood and the near destruction of their little house. Thanks to the supporters and donors,better times lie ahead with a scholarship for Reggie to finish his education and get good employment. St.Columban’s ,Solihull. B93 9AB shaycullen@preda.org http://www.preda.org

People

[People] The capture of the children and the nation. By Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

The capture of the children and the nation
By Fr. Shay Cullen

The story of the rescue of Rosemary is heartening and encouraging. When we read about such stories of young children like that of Rosemary being helped and rescued from the clutches of depraved people who are arrested, we rejoice. But we may not know that hundreds of thousands are not rescued, they suffer abuse like Rosemary who was trafficked and sold at 14 years old into sex slavery and bondage. She was rescued, sheltered and healed while many others are not. A charity like Preda Foundation with limited funds can do only so much.

When children are saved by government social workers, police and charity workers, we applaud and approve and our admiration of good organized government services increases. Government is elected by the people, given public trust and paid through taxes on everything to serve the common good. In developing countries like the Philippines, government agencies, one by one have been captured by the rich to serve them rather than the poor. That’s why human trafficking and exploitation is on the increase.

It’s been going on for the past many years. President Aquino says he is trying to root it out. Hundreds of thousands are barely surviving dire poverty and hunger; the children are the most at risk. They totter on the edge of abject poverty. This is now seen in all its shame by the fury of typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan). It bared the sprawling slums and stripped away the fragile fabric of the hovels of the teeming poor. Dire poverty was laid embarrassingly naked.

Such poverty and social injustice causes unrest, malnutrition, disease and illness. Economists say the Philippines has a strongly growing economy, creating wealth, but for whom? Little of it is reaching the poor. A cheap hungry labor force benefits the rich.

The Social Weather Station (SWS) survey showed that 21 percent of the population, that’s 4.3 million people, went hungry at least once in the second half of 2013. In Metro Manila, there was a 10 point increase in hunger up to 26%, that’s 738,000 people who went hungry. The poverty rate has not gone down and it is higher since 2005. Meaning the poor still have nothing much in the world and live from meal to meal.

As little as one percent of the population are super rich and own as much as 70% to 90% of the national wealth. They use their wealth as bribes and infiltrate the bureaucracy, police, military and congress and “capture” government agencies and bend them all to support their own interests. Government appears to serve the interests of the rich more than those of the people. Corruption is epidemic. President Aquino, considered clean of corruption himself, has made its elimination the goal of his presidency.

Rosemary was a child of poverty. When her mother died of tuberculoses, Rosemary was taken by a pimp and trafficker who later became a manager of a sex bar frequented by international and local sex tourists. Rosemary was brought up as a sex worker, one of many thousands in the brothels and sex bars of the Philippines into which they are trafficked as human slaves trapped by debt.

This is one of the greatest and most shameful failures of local and national government. The mayor and officials are seemingly “captured” by favors and services, perhaps of the industry and they allow sex industry to thrive. The collusion is sickening. HIV/Aids is spreading again as a result. There is no media or public outcry; there is national collusion it seems to allow sex tourism.

In this beautiful country, the resilient, kind, patient and friendly people are exploited and most don’t know it. They are manipulated and conditioned into believing the rich deserve everything they have got and sexual exploitation of even minors is acceptable. 60 years old folk singers can co-habitate with 16 year-old girls and it is judged okay. Mass media re-enforces this. Social media exults in it. Some justify it since they make money. They don’t see the forced abortions and the daily abuse and human rights violations. The victims seldom earn money, as most trafficked victims are “captured”, by personal debt to the bar owners and cannot escape.

Much like the nation itself, the Philippines is imprisoned by foreign debt on loans that benefit the rich and the poor are paying the interest on that national debt.

The huge increase in electricity charges in Metro Manila last December illustrates the capture of government by the rich elite. The electric power producers took over the national industry through privatization and sweetheart deals with friends in government. Most public utilities are now privatized and owned by the profit-driven wealthy elite. The electricity producers, Aboitiz, Malampaya and a few others with Meralco, mostly using filthy coal plants also approved by their friends in government, allegedly form a monopoly, a price fixing cartel and allegedly colluded to create a false electrical shortage to justify the price increase and thus maximize their obscene profits. They deny all wrong doing.

Besides that, corruption knows no end. Every day, new revelations emerge of one huge scam by government officials in cahoots with the barons of business. Rights advocates are taking a stand and opposing it. Media has the courage and freedom to reveal the truth but many journalists are assassinated as a result. The dark forces strike back.

Silence is approval in the face of evil. We must oppose all human trafficking, child abuse and price fixing especially that which hurts the poor. We must speak out, protest and declare what is true and right, come what may. [shaycullen@preda.org, http://www.preda.org]

People

[People] Searching for abused children and Yolanda orphans. By Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Human Rights Online Philippines One comment

Searching for abused children and Yolanda orphans
By Fr. Shay Cullen
Mobile No: Sun +639228768621, Globe +63 917 627 4910

Immediately after the typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), the strongest typhoon ever to hit land on 8 November this year, I wrote an article titled “The Lost Orphans of Yolanda” on 12 November in the knowledge that the children without parents are the most vulnerable to abuse, abduction, malnutrition and human trafficking. Hungry children go wandering off in search of food their parents cannot provide and you see them at city street corners begging and asking strangers for money.

That article on the orphans was based on the initial report that as many as ten thousand people had been killed by the storm surge and high winds and flying debris. The confirmed death toll has reached 6,500 dead and more bodies are uncovered as the debris is gradually removed. It was expected that there would be many homeless, hungry and orphaned children. They tend to be overlooked in the chaos that follows a great storm or disaster.

It was published in several newspapers and online and flew around the world via the internet and seemingly had its desired effect to alert the agencies, government and non-government agencies helping children in the disaster area of Yolanda to be on the lookout for homeless and abandoned orphaned children. Preda Foundation cares for almost 90 children in residential care and fifty in after care and did not have the resources for an immediate relief response until donations began arriving. Then we immediately set off to the disaster areas to assess the damage and the needs of children and learn how best we could help.

The article seemed to ignite a flurry of concern and press releases and stories about the dangers these vulnerable children faced. This may have had a preventive educational impact, I hope so. According to the DSWD Regional Director Bonoan, no orphaned children have been found, and none came into her Manila based evacuation centers. Preda social workers worked there and did not find any orphans there either. However, there are three posters appealing for information about missing children, one as young as 3 years old. Likewise in the Cebu evacuation center which we also visited, none were found according to the officer in charge. In Tacloban, reportedly there were none either, other than one family of five taken by the Council for Inter-county Adoption to an orphanage in Quezon City.

However, with 6500 people dead, it’s highly unusual that no children have been found homeless and orphaned. Perhaps relatives have taken them into their care already as informal fostering and undocumented adoption is customary. Perhaps, the fact that local government is so overwhelmed with so many other problems, they cannot cope or even know if there are orphaned children being sheltered by other families. The greatest concern is the vulnerability of boys and girls to local pimps and recruiters and foreign paedophiles disguised as government officials or charity workers.

Kandy is a 15 year-old victim of human trafficking from Samar. Before the typhoon, her parents fled the poverty and brought her and her sister, 20 years old, to Metro Manila but left them with an auntie and returned to Samar. Her sister Karina was lured to Limay, Bataan, a port, and she was ensnared in a videoke sex bar. The recruiter trafficker then texted Kandy inviting her to come and work in a bakery, she was given advance money and then to pay it off, she was forced to work in another sex videoke bar at Pexsite. Intimidated and scared, she went and was offered as a live-partner to a Korean. She ran away from this sex-slavery but because of debts, she had to go back to another videoke bar. A concerned citizen texted Preda’s hot line and within two days, Preda social workers and legal officer rescued her. She is finding a new life of dignity now at Preda home for trafficked girls. The Preda legal officer filed the criminal charges. The trafficker was arrested and is facing arraignment in Balanga, Bataan, Regional Trial Court.

Many people may know of abducted or recruited children or see trafficking or abuse happening but are afraid to report it or have no one to trust to whom they can safely and anonymously report it and get immediate action. What Preda Foundation does best is immediate response and through its highly trained personnel, it can do undercover surveillance and research on the one hand, and give public community training to develop awareness and trust in communities and empower women and children to report human trafficking and abuse of any kind through texting to the hotline mobile number +63 917 532 4453. The one utility back on in most disaster hit areas is the mobile phone systems.

Besides giving relief foods and seeds to farmers, we need to give this public education and empowerment training seminars to parents and youth on the dangers of falling for the offers of traffickers and spread the message through radio, seminars and puppet shows and distribute information cards with the contact information and hotline number.

This way, the people knowing about trafficked children or adults can report it without fear of retaliation or threats. It’s important to involve the local officials and train and hire local youth to take on the preventive educators’ job and continue the empowerment and information project. The feedback to the Preda coordinator of any trafficking or child abuse will be met with an immediate response. The hotline number for reporting trafficking or child abuse of any kind is +63 917 532 4453. We can make this a better world for children at risk.

Donations: Preda Foundation, Metrobank, Rizal Ave., Olongapo Bank Account 144-2-14403962-3, Swift code MBTCPHMM

shaycullen@preda.org , http://www.preda.org
Mobile No: Sun +639228768621, Globe +63 917 627 4910

People

[People] The greatest mission By Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

The greatest mission
By Fr. Shay Cullen

Malala Yousafzai, the 16 year-old Pakistani girl who defied the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education and was shot in the head but survived, has been granted the European Human Rights Award. Many thought she would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, it went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Malala wanted to change the world as she knew it in Pakistan Taliban-controlled areas and beyond.

She has been campaigning for education for girls. She has a mission and is pursuing it with great success since she was ten years old. She has a mission in life and that gives her the strength to take risks and live with death threats at a very young age and become an inspiration to many thousands of young girl students all over the world.

Young people like Malala give us hope and encouragement so that we too want to help to make this a better, happier, and more just world but just don’t know how. Around the world, there are millions of people working for justice, peace, human rights, the dignity of women and children, and work to end drug proliferation, human trafficking, and sex slavery. We can help them by supporting their work and be part of their mission. They are serving humanity. Never think there is only misery and evil. There is abundant good everywhere, we just have to look and see and join in.

These agents of change look upon the world and see human suffering and misery, oppression and exploitation, apathy, indifference, greed, corruption and injustice and with deep compassion and care for others they say, “I will try and change it, if I could save even one child, one person, I have done great good. My life will be worth a human life. Thousands of people have become missionaries and volunteers to be an agent of change for others.

Some want to change the people doing evil or doing nothing at all. They promote spiritual transformation. Others attempt to change the political systems that in some nations condone, allow and actually do evil, violate human rights, as in cruel oppressive dictatorships or corrupt political systems devoid of morality and compassion and that harm the common good.

Others strive to change one aspect or other of society like Malala believing that if you bring change in one vital sector of society, it will impact on all others and that will make a better world. Many see the suffering in the world and hurry to be the good Samaritan to heal, help and protect the victims, the orphans, and the abused.

Others become partners in a mission and do good providing the resources, support, and logistics to make these missions possible; each work according to their abilities and at the level of their enlightenment and inner goodness.

Those with a mission have convictions in the value and dignity of the human person. For many, they are inspired and motivated by that “man with a mission” who wanted to turn the world upside down and change it forever – the man from Nazareth. Jesus is the unschooled son of a carpenter turned prophet, teacher, healer, reformer, spiritual prodigy and leader, a washer of feet, a social revolutionary, a man of peace and a friend to all.

His mission was to save the world and everyone from the effects of evil, sin, poverty, oppression, exclusion of all kinds, and much more. He challenged the world of his day with great social life changing truths and values and teachings that are still relevant today.

They were unthinkable and unacceptable to the rulers, authorities, the theocracy and the landowning elders of society in his time. They are universal values of unselfish concern and love of others. To serve others without reward is unacceptable for most people and it never really caught on. The great values and the Man, a true son of God, and his mission was turned into an ideal to be worshiped in religious rites and rituals. Not a way of life for all to be imitated and widely practiced. Most people want to pursue comfort, prosperity and find happiness that way but seldom do.

He taught that all human beings are equal in dignity, rights and status in the world and before God, his spiritual father. He offended the religious elite by calling God Abba, meaning Papa.

He put the most impoverished and unrecognized of all as the model for all – a child. A child or a woman had practically no status, rights, position or value in society at that time but he gave them status and position.

Yet when asked who is the greatest in society and religion, he called out for a child, unless we become as morally clean and as innocent as a child we can’t be intimate with the man from Nazareth, Jesus and his heavenly Father. The status and rights of the child was elevated that day but never recognized until recent times.

The innocent children are representatives of Jesus of Nazareth himself. “Whoever welcome one such as this child, welcomes me”, he told them. That’s a profound teaching. Its implications were and are far reaching. It directly challenged the ruling class and the authorities. His spiritual mission was to change everything and that eventually led to his execution. But his mission never ends, we are challenged to carry it on just as he lives on us and children like Malala. [shaycullen@preda.org, http://www.preda.org]

People

[From the web] Address trafficking for better handling of human rights -Forum-Asia

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Address trafficking for better handling of human rights
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
October 02 2013

Addressing problems of human trafficking and migration within Southeast Asia is a realistic way to improve regional cooperation on human rights despite the principle of non-interference of ASEAN, a leading activist said.

Thida Khus, a leader of the Women’s Caucus in Southeast Asia, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the 10 government members of ASEAN were more open to discuss cross border issues on illegal immigrants and human trafficking, compared to other more “political” issues.

“We wouldn’t be interfering [into states’ sovereignty] because the issues are cross border in nature,” Khus said.

Speakers at the two-day 6th Regional Consultation on ASEAN and Human Rights raised the “sensitivity” of several member states including Myanmar.

Hundreds of the Rohingya ethnic minority have fled to Indonesian waters, saying they are persecuted by the Myanmar government. Indonesian undocumented migrant workers in Malaysia also remain an unresolved issue.

Khus, also a leader of Silaka, a women’s NGO in Cambodia, was one of the speakers at the talks, which involved several NGOs as well as the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).

Next year ASEAN is scheduled to review the commission’s terms of reference, which limit the body’s mandate to request information from member states “on the promotion and protection of human rights.”

Khus proposed that the commission work together on trafficking and migration, for instance, with the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children.

As the commissions largely included government representatives, speakers warned that the ASEAN bodies, especially AICHR, lacked transparency.

More cooperation between the commissions would encourage ASEAN to address issues such as trafficking, Khus said.

The regional association, representing some 600 million people, is still widely criticized following the signing of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration in Phnom Penh in November 2012.

Indonesia’s representative to the AICHR, Rafendi Djamin, said exposure to human rights violations was still new to most ASEAN countries, which includes new democracies, monarchies and socialist states.

However, Rafendi said he tried to “push existing opportunities” since the commission’s establishment in October 2009.

I Gusti Agung Wesaka, directorate general of ASEAN Cooperation at the Foreign Ministry, said the government fully supported efforts to improve the association’s handling of human rights.

Evelyn Balais-Serrano, executive director of Forum Asia the co-organizer of the talks, had raised the recent conviction of activists in Myanmar who protested against the Shwe Gas Pipeline Project in Arakan.

With strong pressure to create an ASEAN Economic community by 2015, Serrano said, talks on corporate social responsibility and human rights in the region would be increasingly relevant. (url)

Link: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/10/02/address-trafficking-better-handling-human-rights.html
Atnike Nova Sigiro
ASEAN Advocacy Programme Manager
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
Jalan Borobudur No. 14, Menteng, Jakarta Pusat
13510 – INDONESIA
Email: atnike@forum-asia.org
Telp: +62-21-31922975

Forced Marriages = Human Trafficking (freethemblog.wordpress.com)
[Press Release] Special Meeting of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights 2013 -Forum Asia (hronlineph.com)
A tool to assess the human rights impact of anti-trafficking laws and policies (researchhumantrafficking.wordpress.com)
Rehabilitation of trafficking victims: NGO shows the way (thehindu.com)
Collateral Damage: The Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights around the World (sexworkresearch.wordpress.com)
‘Human trafficking is a global concern’ (thehindu.com)

From the web

[Press Release] Dakila partners with MTV Exit in bringing campaign against human trafficking to Davao City

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Dakila partners with MTV Exit in bringing campaign against human trafficking to Davao City.

Photo by Dakila

DAVAO – Following the success of the Freedom Ride, a pioneering event that brought together 6,000 cyclists in a nationwide campaign against human trafficking early this year, Dakila partnered with MTV EXIT for a youth-driven initiative against human trafficking and exploitation in the Philippines. Dakila renewed its partnership with MTV EXIT’s human trafficking campaign following the efforts of the Department of Justice Inter Agency Council Against Trafficking (DOJ – IACAT) to revitalize its information and awareness campaign in Davao City and adjacent areas.

The MTV Exit Youth Jam featured 3-day youth training, forums in various schools in Davao, free film screenings at the Davao Cinematheque in partnership with the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), and a free concert held last September 21 at the Matina Town Square in partnership with Davao Music Nation (DMN). The concert featured local artists such as Maan Chua, lucas, Lost Tribe, Anne Mendoza, South Breed and Umbro. Dakila brought in the rock band, Franco, a staunch advocate in the fight against human trafficking.

The MTV Exit roadshow aimed to empower youth advocates in Davao to sustain the campaign against human trafficking. Dakila’s artist-members singer-songwriter Nityalila Saulo, photographer Ralph Rovie Eya, and seasoned thespian Erolle Linus Miranda mentored 25 youth ambassadors from all over Davao in using their creative medium of choice to forward their advocacy against human trafficking at the Youth Jam Training held last September 13-15 at the Ateneo de Davao University. Saulo breathed new life into words as she taught songwriting while Eya laid down the essentials of photography, as Miranda encouraged truth in acting.

Making it a point to inspire change and social transformation, Dakila Spokesperson Ayeen Karunungan gave a comprehensive crash-course on advocacy communications followed by a talk on project management by Communications Manager Ayrie Ching, capped off by Executive Director Leni Velasco’s discussion on the finer points of effective and creative project planning and communication strategy.

Dakila president and multi-awarded journalist, musician, and pop culture icon Lourd de Veyra mentioned during the launch of Dakila’s anti-trafficking campaign last March, “Not only are we a country with 10 million of our countrymen working abroad and where disasters, armed conflict and poverty force most of us to find better opportunities and safer living space elsewhere, but also a society where the luster of city life and promise of fast cash continue to attract people from the rural communities. As a result, more people are becoming vulnerable to human trafficking.”

“In the face of the growing number of victims of human trafficking in the country, the MTV Exit Youth Jam is a welcome contribution to the prevention efforts,” said Dakila Spokesperson Ayeen Karunungan. “We admire the passionate drive of Davao’s youth ambassadors in engaging their fellow youth to embrace the campaign. We are very positive that with these 25 new youth leaders as ambassadors and with the participation of Davao’s artists, we will be seeing more initiatives on line and on ground to help curb human trafficking in Davao.”

The MTV EXIT Davao Roadshow is made possible by MTV EXIT, in partnership with DAKILA, through the sponsorship of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT:
23 SEPTEMBER 2013 AYRIE CHING / 0927 443 1323

Press Release

[People] Human trafficking – not only in the Philippines by Fr. Shay Cullen.

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Human Rights Online Philippines Leave a comment

Human trafficking – not only in the Philippines
Fr. Shay Cullen

Stuttgart, Germany – Human trafficking and sex tourism is on the rise in Europe especially in prosperous Germany as well as the Philippines and South East Asia. It is on the rise in the UK and Ireland also.

It is slavery under another guise, hiding behind the liberal laws of Germany and the Netherlands that legalized prostitution in 1992 to decriminalize the business and protect women. However, it opened the door to human traffickers.

Sex-starved and psychologically disturbed men from failed marriages or none at all, come from Germany and other European countries for sex in the biggest brothels in Europe, one of which is here in Stuttgart, named Paradise. I have not gone there but an article in “Der Spiegel” describes it well. It seems like a hell hole of woman abuse and depravity.

It is far from being a “paradise” for the hundreds of young girls trafficked and forced into prostitution which the law cannot monitor or protect. Social workers speaking on a panel discussion where I was invited as a panelist said the young girls are exploited and abused and have no protection from the law.

Instead of protecting women and giving them protection and rights, the 2002 German and Dutch law legalizing prostitution has become a cloak for a massive girl slavery business involving hundreds of thousands of poor girls from the Eastern European countries such as Belarus, Ukraine and other still impoverished members of the European Union – Romania, Bulgaria and now the newly admitted Croatia.

The open borders of these countries make human trafficking by criminal syndicates for forced labor in factories and farms and worst of all in the glittering mega-brothels of Germany and France all too easy. This has greatly reduced human trafficking from South East Asia and especially from the Philippines into Europe. But others are now victims. The German law is now being re-examined as a failure and a benefit to the criminal syndicates and human traffickers.

Women’s rights groups in Europe are hotly debating the failures of that law which is used by human traffickers as a cover for forced prostitution where the girls are in debt and under threats from their recruiters and pimps and forced to say they are willing employees. Many are minors disguised as adults like in the Philippines, where they at times, have fake papers or use an older sister’s identity.

In the debate, I recommended that the Swedish law, that penalizes the male customers and considers the women as exploited victims be adopted. I also said that the underlying causes of the male problem, the failed relationships and the inability of European male sex tourists to have loving, satisfying married relationships has to be considered as part of the problem.

Many tourists are now being seen by sociologists as psychologically disturbed people and are unable to have stable loving relationships with a woman as friend, mother of his children, and life companion. But the resources should be used to help victims of human trafficking all the more.

In Europe and in South East Asia, the victims are mostly young girls unknowingly sent by their parents with recruiters and traffickers to work in the hotels and restaurants in the cities but are forced into brothels against their will.

Preda Foundation social workers rescued 13 young girls from sex bars in Subic last February and they had all been trafficked in this way. They are easily beguiled by promises of well paying jobs and frequent home visits but instead they are captured, controlled and bound by debts and brutality in the sex trade.

In Europe, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to this opening of borders and an increase in poverty as corrupt capitalism replaced corrupt communism. Criminal gangs, corrupt police and politicians have been implicated in the trade in children and young girls for sexual exploitation.

During the war in the Balkans, the sex trade in persons grew to huge proportions because of the concentrations of troops and the massive displacement of people from war-torn regions.

The Philippine government is presently inviting back the US Navy and US Air force to have greater access to Philippine military bases, a creeping mission of reoccupation of the former military bases to counter the claims of China to the islands in the Philippine Western Sea. This is unnecessary, a violation of the Constitution, a provocation and the expansion of the sex tourist industry which has brought misery and human suffering is an ugly stain on the Filipino people.

Why the Philippine government allows it can only be for gain and because leaders lack moral courage and virtue. It is a threat to children everywhere and we have to stand against it and uphold the dignity of women and children. Email shaycullen@preda.org; send letters to: Fr. Shay Cullen, P.O. Box 68, Olongapo City 2200, Philippines

(Fr. Shay’s columns are published in The Universe, The Manila Times, in publications in Ireland, the UK, Hong Kong, and on-line.)