Fr. Shay Cullen the children's champion
Published in Reality
(October 2003)
He has been smeared, beaten up, and threatened with deportation, but Columban priest Fr Shay Cullen continues to campaign on behalf of children exploited by the sex industry in the Philippines.
Sue
Leonard spoke
to him during a recent visit to Ireland with his PREDA theatre group
When Columban priest Father Shay Cullen arrived in the Philippines in 1969, he was sent to Subic Bay, where there was an American naval base. Walking along the street one day, he was stopped by a man who thought he was a sailor.
"He asked me, 'Do you want a girl?"' Fr Shay recalls. "I told him, 'No.' Then he said, 'Ah, you want a little girl. How about this one?' And he showed me two little kids, no more than 11 years old. I was really devastated. I couldn't believe what was going on."
Abuse against children and women is a huge problem in the Philippines, where children are recruited for use by 'sex tourists.' "I thought this is a crime. This is evil," recalls Fr Shay. "These people should be in prison for crimes against children."
Appalled, Fr Shay felt compelled to help, so he started working with drug addicts and street children.
"The problem of child abuse has always been there, but it's growing now because child pornography is spreading over the Internet," he says. "This is a worldwide problem. It's the third largest business in the world after arms dealing and drugs, and you can be sure it's going to expand."
In response to the problem, Fr Shay set up the PREDA Foundation in Olongapo City in 1974 with the specific aim of protecting children from sexual abuse. With the help of others, he began to rescue abused children and give them back happiness through therapy and education. For his efforts he has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Role of theatre group
I met Fr Shay in Bray recently. In Ireland with the PREDA Theatre Group, who act out their own experiences of abuse, we met before a performance in the Holy Redeemer Church. Wearing a bright striped waistcoat, he rushed around, helping the young people set up for the show. Such is his energy, it was hard to tie him down for an interview.
First, I met Gemma, 19, star of the play, who ran away from home at 13 when a relative had abused her. She was sold to a bar, but was rescued by Fr Shay. Then there's May, now 22. She was abused by her school principal's husband before going to the home run by PREDA. Both are now happy, vibrant women, who have attended college and feel set up for life.
"The theatre is important for public awareness," explains Fr Shay. "They've been through the therapy and they've overcome a lot of the trauma in their own lives." Some of the actors were not abused, but perform as part of their youth development work.
"We train young people as part of their Christian commitment to help other teenagers in trouble," says Fr Shay. "They decided to tackle the sex tourist business through theatre. They developed the storyline and dialogue and played it out for themselves. So it is their story, and they play it from the heart.
"They are telling people to take action, and not just wring their hands and lament. They're saying, 'We can act together and move as one.' They're asking people to do anything they can - to contact their politicians, write letters of protest against sex abuse, and be aware that it is going on, even in Ireland."
Not popular
Determined to stop the problem, Fr Shay gets abusers arrested and put on trial in the Philippines.
"At present we have an American nightclub owner on trial for using 13-year-old minors, and also an Australian who was in charge of pimps."
But this doesn't make him popular. "I've lots of enemies, lots of people trying to kill me. I've had death threats, the usual. I've been beaten a few times in the streets by gangs belonging to politicians who are being damaged financially because we are driving sex tourists away from clubs and bars. They try and have me deported by filing false charges. This has been going on since 1973. It's just part of the routine."
But as Fr Shay says, it's a sign that he is successfully defending children's rights. Shrugging, he admits that his enemies employ devastating tactics at times. "They accuse me and my workers of kidnap when we rescue children and help them to testify against their abuser. They say that using the child's name and telling their story is child abuse. And then it gets into the paper that a priest is accused of child abuse. The media don't realise it's a trumped up accusation that goes nowhere.
Fair trade system
A lso keen on prevention, Fr Shay is building a system of fair trade. In one initiative, he pays high prices for mangoes in order to break the mango price-fixing cartels. He also invests in small handcraft livelihood projects in villages, so that children will no longer be sold into the sex industry.
At the moment he is campaigning to reform the Filipino prisons, because women and children there are being horrifically abused.
While many Countries now have legislation against child abuse, Fr Shay would like to see it become the top priority of governments everywhere.
"That's our long-term goal. We want millions to be spent against the trafficking of women and children," he says.
There have been times, during the worst frame-ups, when Fr Shay has felt like giving up. Talking of the sex mafia, and the trouble he has had with some church people who seem to be more on the side of the abusers than the abused, he looks momentarily downcast. But looking round the church at all the smiling faces, he soon cheers up.
"You can see the energy coming from my team and these kids. They give great strength. We are all happy and rejoice, and the kids recover and go to school, and you see them graduating. They were raped and devastated, and now they're empowered. They're in the theatre full of life and power. That's the most inspiring thing."
