Former child sex worker wins award
Philippine Daily Inquirer
December 11, 2006
by: Tonette Orejas
SAN FERNANDO CITY -- Ten years ago, then 12-year-old Pia Corvera testified against two foreigners who sexually abused her and another girl her age. Her courage led to the imprisonment of the two and enabled her to rebuild her life devoted to saving children from exploitation.
Corvera, now 22, continues to fight for children's rights and continues to reap recognition for the mission she chose to take up.
Her latest feat is the Woman's Opportunity Award, given to her by the Soroptimist International of Tokyo-Ginza in Japan.
"Hindi ako makapaniwala (I couldn't believe I won the award)," Corvera, known as "Kuwago" to her friends, told the Inquirer in a recent phone interview from Olongapo City.
She was juggling between finishing a two-year practical nursing course and working as a facilitator at the Preda (People's Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance Foundation), the group that saved her from the streets.
Her efforts to rebuild her life while helping others start anew and asking local and international groups to protect children was the reason she was given the award.
It went to "young women who have the potential to lead and make a valuable contribution to society," according to Soroptimist International.
Soroptimist International's Nozomi Hirayama, representing its president, Hiroko Kittaka, went to Preda on November 23 to hand the award to Corvera.
With it came 100,000 yen (about P50,000) that she had put in the bank and which she would use in her hospital training next year.
Corvera said the award came after she finished a series of talks in Japan on the sponsorship of the Sanae Nakajima (Free the Children) that sought a stop to child labor.
She said her trip, the third she made in Japan, enabled her to interact with parents, community councils and civic organizations. She discussed the need to band together to protect children from different forms of exploitation.
Corvera said she had lost track of the number of times she had spoken in local and international conferences. But always, she said, her message has remained the same.
"I always tell them to protect the children, to ensure a safe society for them and to provide them a good future," she said.
Her own battle was difficult.
Corvera stood up to her abusers and ensured that Thomas Breuer, a German, and Lennart Van Empel, a Dutch, were convicted of child sexual abuse.
Corvera consented to reveal her identity in 1997 shortly after her abusers were convicted.
Breur was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison while Van Empel was given a one-year prison term on December 18, 1996.
The celebrated trial brought world attention to a problem often dismissed as just another of life's realities.
Corvera's story also gave an authentic face and a strong voice to street children-turned-sex workers who plied their trade on the streets as a result of desperation and the deceit or greed of the people around them.
In 2002, Missio, the German Catholic bishops' agency for international mission work, honored her courage and bravery in pursuing justice against sex offenders. Her case inspired the agency to campaign against sex tourism and child abuse.
The five-page chronology of Corvera's case is an example of how some policemen, National Bureau of Investigation agents and lawyers could plant landmines in an already difficult road to justice.
But the case also shows how priests, nuns, social workers and justice and immigration officials can move as one to see the case through.
They took off from the efforts taken by the wife of an official in Boracay where Corvera and her friend, identified only as M.C., were taken by their abusers.
Preda's Fr. Shay Cullen, an Irish priest, also did not give up on Pia and M.C., and took the case to German authorities.
In nine days, Breuer and Van Empel were behind bars, and Pia was released from her doubts and self-hate.
"Pia is an amazing young woman," said Cullen. [End]
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