It was a normal day in the life of 13-year-old Jeremiah as he was leaving the schoolyard in Angeles City. He saw his classmates running to get candies and chocolates being handed out by an overweight, cheerful, balding Caucasian man. He sat outside his house, which was close to the school, handing out candies and the children flocked to get them. He invited some of the boys to inside his house and upstairs, where more candies and a television show await. He quickly made friends with them.

FR. SHAY CULLEN, SSC

Jeremiah told his parents. They immediately filed charges against Douglas Slade and then the other boys came forward to say Slade had done similar acts of abuse to them. They filed charges in court.

The years passed, but none of the cases against the wealthy Slade prospered. There were rumors of corruption and bribery at all levels in the prosecution and the judiciary but inexplicably, despite the direct testimony of the victims and other witnesses, the judge dismissed the cases. In an interview with ITV, an undercover camera taped Slade admitting that his lawyer made payments to have the cases dismissed.

There is a thriving dark business in courtrooms to allow foreign child sex abusers or wealthy Filipinos go free for a price to abuse more children. That’s what Slade did: he felt protected and abused children again. What is also just as shocking is the level of corruption and absence of moral values among these judges who should protect children and bring their abusers to justice.

To be abused by people you trust is a terrible experience. Majority of cases of sexual abuse of children happens in the family. Thousands of children are sexually abused every day, one in every three girls and one in every six boys. That is a terrible statistic and a condemnation of human society. Only a fraction of the victims can ever tell the abuse happened.

Slade had been accused of child sexual abuse in the UK. He travelled to the Philippines where he set up a business and a house where he abused children and he got away with it because of corrupt officials. As a child abuse suspect, he should have been banned from leaving the UK. But no court order was handed down to stop him from fleeing.

After years of lobbying by Preda Foundation and good police work in the UK, Slade was extradited back to the UK and was put on trial for the child abuse he committed there. He was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in jail. The boys he abused in the Philippines received no justice and no recompense. Preda, with a pro-bono lawyer, sued Slade in the UK for compensation for the injuries they have suffered. That case is ongoing in London.

Pedophiles like Slade and many thousands of others from Australia convicted of child abuse will be banned from traveling abroad, thanks to a new law that will soon take effect. The United States is considering new legislation to ban citizens from traveling to North Korea. Also, many nations have passed laws that ban suspected neophyte jihadists from travelling to Syria to join a jihad.

They are only suspects, not convicted of any crime, so it is right and good to have a law to ban convicted pedophiles and sex offenders from travelling beyond the reach of police monitoring and surveillance service in their own countries.

Prevention is so much better than cure. There was a time in the Philippines when a child had to be abused first before any action can be taken. So if a child sex abuser took a child to a hotel room, the police would not go to rescue the child because there was no evidence of abuse. They would need an arrest warrant.

We lobbied for many years and had the child protection law, known as Republic Act 7610, passed. Under Section 6 of the law, it is a blatant crime for a non-relative of a child to be alone with him or her in a secluded area. That gives the police and social workers the right to move in to the hotel room or any secluded place and rescue the child and make an arrest.

Lobbying and campaigning in your community and with political leaders for the cancellation of the passports of pedophiles is one great campaign that will save thousands of children from abuse in the days and years to come. Let’s get to work and do it!

shaycullen@gmail.com
www.preda.org

This story was originally published by The Manila Times, Philippines

If you were in Metro Manila and went to visit a Bahay Pag-asa or “House of Hope” where children as young as seven are incarcerated along with youth up to 17 years of age, you will see that the majority of 12-year-olds look like 8-year-olds.

FR. SHAY CULLEN, SSC

A study in 2015 discovered that 20 percent of children under 5 years old died due to poor health services and as many as 300,000 children under five years old were underweight. The Philippines ranks ninth among nations that have high stunted incidence. The rate of chronic malnutrition and stunting among Filipino children is 33.4 percent. Street children and those living in slums and in poor rural villages suffer the most.

If this continues, the Philippines will have a huge percentage of children that are stunted, malnourished and mentally challenged, unable to study and learn.

Children in jails suffer the most from hunger and neglect. Local governments manage the jails for children but officials think they are criminals. Children are hungrier than most — hungry for food, for freedom, for respect, dignity and recognition. They are human and need to be cared for. They need to be in school and not forced to sleep on a concrete floor, locked up all day and night and abused and bullied. They have no exercise, sunlight, stimulation, and entertainment, reading, games or anything to occupy them.

Imagine living in a small cell for months with 20 others, bored and going slowly insane. These children can be mentally and emotionally damaged. They were innocent going in but they will have a criminal mind coming out and will grow up angry at society. Without basic education, they have no chance for a better life, thus will likely end up as scavengers and beggars.

They need their parents but the parents do not always know that they are jailed. Many more children as young as nine years old will be locked up if the Philippine congress passes a bill that will reduce the minimum age of criminal liability to nine years old. That’s how the adult world of leaders see innocent children – as criminals at nine years old. In fact, many a criminal sits in congress dressed in fancy clothes and living a life of extreme luxury, corrupt and uncaring. Sixteen million people said they go hungry in this wealthy nation where they say 140 families rule the 103 million Filipinos.

When Sen. Risa Hontiveros from the Akbayan party-list was reading the column of this writer about children in jails, she was stopped by Senator Richard Gordon who did not want the senators to hear the truth about the condition of the children in jail. He silenced and blocked Hontiveros, violating her right to free speech. Senator Gordon was one of the respondents in the criminal case filed against President Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court for the killing of thousands of people in the government’s war on drugs. So many Catholics support the killings. Are they Christians, followers of Jesus of Nazareth? Some churches in Pampanga are hanging banners calling for a stop to the killings and opposing the death penalty.

The authorities love to blame innocent children for the crime of the adults. No evidence needed. The police are frequently involved in crimes themselves so they blame and arrest children. They claim they have solved the crime and get a promotion perhaps.

Every parish in the country and especially in Metro Manila ought to have a mission to their local Bahay Pag-asa or House of Hope. On the last day, we will be judged by the acts of charity we did in our lives. God will say “Enter the Kingdom, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me (Matthew 25: 31-46).”

We need to find Jesus not only in churches but in action for justice and compassion. If not, our spirit dies forever. Let’s act to release the children from the jails of hopelessness and give them a new life.

shaycullen@gmail.com
www.preda.org

This story was originally published by The Manila Times, Philippines