Redemption City Columban Fr. Shay Cullen Fifty years ago, a young Irish missionary in the Philippines founded an organization that defended the rights of abused and trafficked children. In spite of being denigrated, harassed and threatened with deportation this work has led to successful campaigns to reform the law and close sex bars and brothels and rescue many children from prisons and human traffickers and abusers.
It is now 55 years since I landed in the stifling heat of Manila, Philippines. I was 26 years of age. I had been sent to join a community of Columban fathers running a parish in Olongapo, 80 miles north of Manila. It was known as “Sin City,” and I soon found out why.
I took up the peaceful parish routine: daily Mass, hearing confessions, visiting the sick. I began to wonder, was this to be my life? I taught teenagers in the parish school. I spoke about Gospel values and social justice. They taught me about the reality of broken homes, dysfunctional families, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, child abuse, sex trafficking and gang violence. Despite three Masses a day and six on Sunday, in Olongapo, vice, it seemed, had conquered virtue.
Hundreds of sex bars and brothels with city permits were licensed to supply girls (many of them minors) for the sexual gratification of the servicemen at nearby Subic Bay. In the 1970s Olongapo had become a fantasy land for the soldiers serving in the Vietnam War.
One evening, walking home to St. Columban’s College and parish house, I passed the sex bars with their flashing neon lights and blasting rock music. Young girls tried to lure me into the bars. Child sex traffickers stood in shady doorways. “Hi Joe, you want a kid, only 12, will do anything you want.” Having sex with a child who was 12 years old was legal so long as the child consented (the law was not changed until 2022). The city’s business was sex for sale. The Church turned a blind eye. The dollars flowed in by the millions.
When I arrived back at the ornate parish church, I was feeling angry and powerless. The contradictions were enormous and inescapable. Extreme poverty among plenty. I prayed. What kind of faith would move this mountain of evil? As the Apostle said, “Faith without action is dead” (James 2:17). I needed faith with action, and it came soon enough.
In 1972 President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., declared martial law. It was brutally enforced by his hit squads. Some of our students who had joined protest marches were targeted and shot. Others were jailed on suspicion of illegal drug use. In 1974 I set up the People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance (Preda) Foundation as a sanctuary to protect them and others at risk. We built a shelter overlooking Subic Bay, the Preda “New Dawn” Center.
Our dedicated team got teenagers out of prison and gave them protection. We began Emotional Release therapy, and gave education and legal help. Juanito was one of many. He was rescued, had therapy and overcame drug dependency and became a caregiver in a home for disabled elderly people. Several years later, he wrote: “Many thanks for all I learned at Preda. I love this work helping others, it is my life.”
Poverty and corruption continued to grow under President Joseph Estrada and later under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Thousands of abandoned “throwaway children” lived on the streets. They were arrested, jailed with adults, and beaten and sexually abused in their cells. The Preda team and other NGOs campaigned to stop it. We were ignored. Then a ray of light fell upon us. Independent Television (ITV) produced a documentary film, Kids Behind Bars, highlighting the plight of children in jail cells with adults. CNN showed it in the United States. I showed the film to a human rights committee hearing in the US Congress headed by Chris Smith of New Jersey, a Catholic. He and others wrote to President Arroyo. She ordered the children to be separated from adult prisoners but they were jailed instead in separate cage-like cells.
The Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 raised the age of criminal liability from nine to 15 and mandated proper care homes for “children at risk and children in conflict with the law.” However, local governments continue to jail children and Preda works with judges to enable their release.
Child trafficking for sexual abuse is another story. It continued in Olongapo in the 1980s.
The children told me that servicemen and foreign sex tourists had sexually abused them for a few dollars. One child took a T-shirt from the apartment where she had been raped to stem the bleeding.
When authorities planned to close the Preda Foundation home, I told a journalist: “You know, it would be better to end the sex trade and convert the base facilities into an economic zone and provide jobs with dignity.” The interview made national and international news. Finally, I had found a possible way to end the sexual exploitation and debt bondage of women and minors in the sex bars. The only way to freedom was to close them all down. I wrote a series in my weekly column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Finally, after 10 years of campaigning, on September 16, 1991, the Philippine Senate voted on whether to retain or reject the bases. Each senator gave a speech before declaring their vote. There was high drama. Then the count. Eleven for keeping the bases; 12 against.
On November 21, 1992, the last US marine ship left Subic Bay. Every sex bar and brothel closed, all bondage debts were cancelled, and thousands of trapped women and children walked free. The conversion plan I had suggested and campaigned for was implemented. Today, the Subic Bay Freeport Zone provides 145,230 jobs with dignity and fair wages.
In 1996, the Preda Foundation opened a home for sexually trafficked and abused children. Since then, about 1,680 girls have been rescued, protected, healed and empowered. There are no Philippine donors or government support; the work relies on international partners. Unless they are given protection and therapy it is not safe or easy for girls to testify with self-confidence against their human trafficker or abuser. Yet every year we see around 20 courageous girls a year testify in court and win convictions that put their abusers and traffickers in prison.
Columban Fr. Shay Cullen has received several human rights awards and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times.