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By Fr. Shay Cullen
President Gloria Arroyo has the power, strength
and ability to address one of the most serious challenges of her
presidency—the significant curtailment of human trafficking and
sex slavery in the Philippines.
Both can be shut down if there were the
political will and commitment to do so. As yet these are absent.
Not long ago with the Preda child rescue team I
was searching for a young girl trafficked into the sex business. In
a public park the pimps offered to text a trafficker and women and
children would be delivered. We found trafficked 13-year-olds in a
provincial sex bar for sale. They mysteriously disappeared just
before the police arrived—a tip-off.
In Manila, Cebu and Angeles City the big bars
have hundreds of youth for sale to foreign sex tourists all
apparently permitted by the local politicians and all acting with
impunity.
Protecting the most vulnerable is the duty and
purpose of government. The challenge facing this powerful woman
president and her government is to rise above the criminal
syndicates that corrupt and cripple the police and government
officials and crush the sex mafia.
The President may indeed have many fine
achievements but victory over the pimps and pedophiles, sex tourists
and traffickers of persons is not among them. But we live and work
on in hope.
The Church and civil society are ready to help
protect and empower the rescued teenage victims so they can testify
against their traffickers and abusers. But few are rescued and
without witnesses there are no convictions. The good and honest
people in government are not in high enough positions to act against
the entrenched sex industry.
The President must act. Immigration Commissioner
Marcelino Libanan has shown determination and commitment to
investigate the suspected foreign abusers and traffickers.
But he needs to stop his confidential letters
and files being given to suspects, which undermine his
investigations.
According to the Trafficking of Persons report
of the US State Department, there is rampant trafficking of persons
from the Philippines to other countries for sexual enslavement but
also in the Philippines itself. Convictions are much too few. It
says: “However, the [Philippine] government demonstrated weak
efforts to prosecute trafficking cases and convict trafficking
offenders.”
The President has much to do and we are ready
and waiting to help.
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