FR.SHAY CULLEN AND MARLYN CAPIO-RICHTER receive the Award at the Iowa Sate university .
July 26, 2015 ·
SEX TOURISTS FLEE OLONGAPO IN FEAR OF ARREST.
PREDA NEWS REPORTER
During a presentation at the Iowa State University Father Shay Cullen told a audience of 600 professors, clergy, human rights activists and students that following the undercover work of retired Australian police and US ICE agents sex tourists are leaving Olongapo and Subic sex tourist areas.
“The wave of human slavery is increasing in the world and the young women and children are the most vulnerable victims. It is not only in poor countries but in developed nations also.” Fr.Shay told the audience.
Marlyn Capio- Richter ,A Preda social worker and Paralegal officer told her life story as a child sexually abused by step-father ,ran away and was lured by a human trafficker to Boracay island where she was forced and turned into a commercial sexually exploited child and forced to work in a sex bar when only 12 years old. Later with an other child she was rescued and brought to Preda by Father Shay Cullen and became a college graduate and is presently helping other victims of human trafficking.
In his presentation Fr.Shay said that in America alone as many as 35,000 children go missing every year as many are children who run away from sexual abuse in the home and neighborhood .Others are abducted and made sexual slaves and forced prostitution by human traffickers.
Fr.Shay reminded the audience that as many as 13 million unfortunate Africans ,men ,Women and children were kidnapped, abducted, captured and sold into slavery in North and South America over a period of 300 years upon which the early wealth of the nation in part was taken.’
“However today” ,Fr.Shay said , “more than 4.5 million women and children and poor working men are trafficked into slavery every year, most never escape and are forced into fishing boats , brothels and sex dens and made have forced abortions.
The demand is growing around the world with the power of the Internet. This is aided and abetted by the refusal of the Internet Server Providers in the Philippines and elsewhere to install filtering software and stop the proliferation of the child pornography.It is increasing the demand for child sex.When the sex tourists return to American,he said, the sex tourists are addicted to underage sex and are abusing American children daily.
He told the audience a big anti-trafficking success for Preda was when the Preda social workers rescued young women and children in 2013 from Sex bars in Calapadayan,Subic Town.This was helped by retired Australian police and active US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and Philippine police investigators .They went undercover into the sex bars poising as sex tourist customers.
They identified the minors and the sex customers and traffickers. Arrests were made and the court cases are still going on in Olongapo City with a jailed US national on trial. Sex tourists are deserting Subic and Olongapo bars and clubs as a result out of fear of being identified by the undercover retired police officers.
Father Shay said and as many as 12 sex bars have now closed and others denied a Mayors permit down. The chilling effect has been seen in the Olongapo area he said as sex tourists of many nationalities have a fear of being under surveillance and in danger of arrest in such bars.
Sex tourism is also a growing scourge that abuses and enslaves the children and women in developing countries and in Europe also where thousands of young girls are trafficked Germany and Austria every year where prostitution is legal.
However while it may protect German and Austrian sex workers the many trafficked children and girls are from the Ukraine and Belarus and eastern European countriews.These girls he said are deprived of their passport and documents and are held against their will in brothels and are threatened if they try to escape.
In the Philippines he said the most sex tourists come from South Korea, Japan and Australia and North America.The campaign to stop this and free the victims must go on. Fr.Shay illustrated hsi lecture with slides on the work of Preda.He showed the beautiful building in the countryside where rescued children are helped in a “best practice” therapeutic center and home for girls.
The visit and speech was on the invitation of the University Of Iowa ,organized with their help of Columban Father Bill Brunner,SSC and John Burke both are active in combating human trafficking in Iowa and works with the anti-human trafficking network who presented Preda with the award.
The plaque has the inscription:
