Child rights center helps uncover Norwegian Pedophile ring -
four charged in Oslo
Asian Report
19 February 1999
by Louis Barker
A Children's Rights Center based in Olongapo City, Philippines is continuing to help Norwegian investigators identify more Filipino child victims sexually abused by members of an international Pedophile ring.
According to the Norwegian press and the BBC, four suspects, a dentist, high school principle, a teacher and a psychologist, have been charged before an Oslo court ten years after the case was first reported to the Norwegian authorities by Father Shay Cullen of the Preda Children's Rights center.
The ring, whose members have not been named, as required by law, allegedly preyed on young boys in the resort town of Pagsanjan, South of Manila. Six children were taken to Norway with their mother after she married a member of the ring in the early nineteen eighties where the abuse continued. Now grown, the victims are telling police about their long ordeal of abuse. Five members of the ring were arrested in the Philippines in October 1984 suspected of sexually abusing children but were never brought to trial and were deported in 1985.
Members of ring said to be composed of as many as fifteen pedophiles in all, most of them in their late fifties and sixties, made frequent visits thereafter to the Philippines, skirting Philippine restrictions. Allegedly they abused other children and paid off the families with cash and gifts.
Last March 1989 Fr. Cullen, when visiting Norway as a guest of the Norwegian
Tourist Association, which funds scholarships at the center, saw new hope to
bring the suspects to justice. He met Detective Chief
Inspector Morten Aanonsen of the Norwegian National Bureau of Crime
Investigation, who reported the information to his superiors and an
investigation was immediately launched.
Fr. Cullen, a seasoned human rights advocate, heads the Preda Foundation, a Philippine charity he set up in 1974 with Mr. and Mrs. Hermoso who continue to direct the programs for children. The foundation maintains an extensive web site, on the nature of their work at http://www.preda.org, and can be contacted directly at preda@info.com.ph. With the help of twenty professional staffers the children's home provides recovery and legal services for sexually abused children in the Preda Therapeutic Community. Here, in a hill top home overlooking Subic bay, the children find protection, affirmation, regain their dignity and self-esteem and when ready, pursue justice through the courts.
The Preda center has been responsible for bringing charges against many Filipino pedophiles and foreigners and getting long prison sentences. At present the center is locked in a legal battle with a suspected Pedophile ring composed of American, Swiss, British, and German nationals based in Olongapo. Two of their members an Australian, Victor Fitzgerald and British Michael Clark have already been convicted and are serving prison sentences as long as 17 years in the Philippines. Further arrests of other members of the Norwegian Ring are expected soon according to media reports.
