With love and support exploited children can make college
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
Dressed in a black gown the young lady walked straight a proud up the steps to the college stage and received her diploma of graduation. After many long years of struggle, hardship she had made it. She was a qualified social worker. Her dream and mine came true. Marlyn the former street child that was once shamefully exploited in the sex trade had made it to the top.
Marlyn ran away from an impoverished family in Mindoro, an Island south of Manila. She was only 12 and her stepfather repeatedly raped her and threatened to kill her and her mother if she told anybody, a rapist's typical tactic of intimidation.
After months of abuse, Marlyn told her mother. She refused to believe her and Marlyn felt abandoned and unwanted. She left home and found a job selling cosmetics on a booming island resort. Thousands of foreigners flock to this island paradise in the Philippines including the sex tourists and pedophiles that prey on children.
This is her story "On that island there are many night clubs and bars for the tourists and I was approached one day by a employee of one of the bars who introduced me to Bernard a French bar operator. He gave me a job in his restaurant but a few days later, he took me to a little cubicle at the back of the restaurant and raped me.
I felt dirty and worthless after what he did to me using me like an animal. I was told that this was an everyday thing and he expected young girls to co-operate if they wanted to get ahead in life. Bernard invited his friends other foreigners on the beach to take me .I just was helpless and had no resistance left.
I was like a powerless slave to them. Outside I just showed submission but in my heart and feeling I was angry and planned escape. I could see no other life for myself. I had lost my dignity and self respect and felt I was worthless and had nothing to lose because no one respected me and I had no where to go.
One day a sex tourist from Holland paid a lot of money to Bernard and bought me for himself for a week. I was hired out as a sexual plaything to him. I was just a toy. He took me to Manila and that was the first time I flew in an aeroplane and stayed in a big rich hotel. No one seems to mind when they saw the foreigner take me to his room.
He met a German friend of his there and he had an even younger child than me. He had video equipment and made videos of Patricia, the girl was only 13. Then together we went back to Boracay. There, the mayor's wife was shocked that Patricia was so young going with the sex tourists and demanded they be arrested, then we were saved."
The abusers, because of police and judicial corruption escaped back to Europe.
Marlyn and Patricia were later brought to the Preda Center and with the care and education came to realise that had been led astray and exploited. They began to discover their dignity and self worth and became close to the other children in the home. Many of the other children are victims of sexual abuse in the home or on the streets.
It is a happy family and all feel they are now safe at last from their abusers and can find a new life and education. Marlyn studied hard and caught up with all the missed year out of school. Marlyn and Patricia learned about their rights and understood the wrong that had been done to them and then wanted the abusers be brought to justice.
The Preda legal action team traced the abusers to Germany and Holland and both were put on trial. The young girls went to Germany and testified in court. Both pedophiles were sent to prison.
Marlyn and Patricia began a new life. Marlyn said, "I want to help other children that are abused like me, I understand exactly as they do, I have suffered that too and I can help." Today she is a social worker doing just that. The ragged child exploited and abused realised an impossible dream. [End]
