Recently, I drove from Olongapo City to Subic town in the Philippines with a journalist. As we drove, I pointed out the row of dilapidated and closed-down sex bars that lined the road at Calapandayan, Subic.
This is evidence of the success of an anti-trafficking operation conducted by the PREDA Foundation (People’s Recovery Empowerment and Development Assistance), social workers, the Philippine police and an agent of the U.S. Homeland Security. Fifteen young girls were rescued from the horrible life of forced prostitution.
Some younger minors, so traumatized after being trapped and abused for over a year in this kind of sex slavery, were in need of therapy, support, compassion, friendship and hope for a better life. They came to the PREDA Home for Girls where they have made a good recovery and are now empowered to testify.
Other young girls had been recruited for jobs as food servers in the hotels at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone but were forced into prostitution in a sex hotel. They were freed and were brought to the homes in a town south of Manila by government social workers.
Unfortunately, they were later intimidated by the sex mafia and were too scared to testify. The bar operators walked free except one U.S. national who is on trial. This is the common course for the victims. They are poor and helpless and need strong support, witness protection and encouragement to find their justice but sadly the government agencies do not provide these services effectively.
The long term success of the operation was that we had retired federal police from Australia who volunteered to go undercover as sex tourists and infiltrated the sex bars and clubs. These secret surveillances have many sex tourists and bar operators worried today because they don’t know if the sex tourist downing a cold beer and chatting beside them is a fellow exploiter of young girls or a retired undercover police officer for the Philippine police.
These retired officers are good men determined to save children and are working to end sex trafficking and slavery. Evidence could put the bar operator and owner in gaol for a very long time.
In addressing this crime against humanity, Pope Francis has acted to bring police and church leaders together to find a more effective response to this crime that destroys young lives. The group named Santa Marta Group held its first meeting in Vatican City and in December, 2015, met in New York for its second Trafficking Conference aimed at developing strategies to combat human trafficking. Columban Fr Shay Cullen highlighted that there needs to be a special human trafficking court in each region in the Philippines, on which two international Judges would sit trialling the child abusers and human trafficking suspects.
Fr Shay Cullen SSC has been a missionary priest in the Philippines since 1969 and is the co-founder of the People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance Foundation (PREDA). Learn more about the inspiring work of PREDA: www.preda.org