Philippine Sex Tourism and Abortion

An old subject to be sure but for those who care....




Philippine Sex Tourism and Abortion

By: Fr. Shay Cullen

hen the social workers, police, and the mother of two missing
children, 13 and 14 year-olds, all from Limay, Bataan arrived in
Alaminos, Father Shay Cullen, shows the International Person of the
year Award for 2008 he received for his work at PREDAN. Pangasinan
last December 2008, they expected the local police to have a squad
ready to raid the �Trappers� sex bar and rescue the missing minors who
had been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. Instead, the
club was closed and the children were gone. After hours of persuasion,
the Alaminos police miraculously found the children at a �bus stop�
and they were then given to the Preda home for trafficked girls.

The traffickers, pimps and club operators seemingly have impunity from
the law. Even the good Mayor, a former congressman apparently is
unable to control the sex Mafia. Most sex bars, operate with a mayor's
license. The people of Alaminos ought to come to the support of the
mayor in his campaign to cancel the licenses and free the women and
children.

In Malaysia Philippine Embassy personnel rescued several 13 and 14
years old children, trafficked into commercial sex clubs there. With
the help of Visayan Forum, a children's rights organization, they were
brought back to the Philippines. One, Maryanne, was referred to the
Preda Children's Home where she recovered and gave birth to twins.
They are the love of her life now despite how she became pregnant. The
other girls dote on them and never want to return to prostitution but
want to marry in the future and have a family. Had Maryanne not been
rescued, she would have been dragged screaming to an abortion clinic
and the babies forcibly aborted.

The sexual exploitation of children in Philippine tourism is found on
both the national and international fronts. Thousands of European,
North American and Australian sex tourists make the Philippines a
destination and create a demand for commercially-sexually exploited
children (CSEC). Internal trafficking is the most common form of child
sexual exploitation in Philippine tourism. Thousands of Filipino sex
tourists abuse some of the estimated 80,000 children under the age of
18. They are made available in sex bars or through pimps. Even 11
year- olds can be bought by arrangement.

Most bars, clubs, beer houses and karaoke bars are fronts for
prostitution. Alongside, adult prostitutes, minors are also employed.
However, their documents are fake and rarely verified by officials. It
is a growing business with an estimated 1.2 million single male
tourist arrivals every year in the Philippines. How many of those
arrivals seek out minors for sex is not known since it is secret
underground-business worth millions of dollars.

Young Filipina bargirls pose on stage in front of customers and the
camera at a Philippine nightspotThe profits from tourism, sexual or
otherwise, seems to be of greater importance to the officials and
businesses than is the protection of children and the dignity of
Filipinos. With the economic recession, more and more children will be
dropping out of school and will enter the work force as impoverished
families try to survive.

Besides the lifelong physical and mental damage to the minors, there
is the ever present danger of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV-
AIDS. In tandem with the sex industry, drug trafficking and
distribution is the other side of the sex tourist coin and the
exploited children are vulnerable to addiction at an early age.

Worst of all is the illegal and dangerous abortions that are arranged
with back-street abortion clinics. This is the most heinous of crimes
as they are usually late-term abortions from the teenage victims who
conceal the pregnancy from the sex bar operators as long as they can
for fear of punishment and forced abortion. They are dragged to the
clinics and forced to undergo an abortion. These abortion clinics are
well known to the pimps and club operators and even police.

The lack of moral outrage by the church, local government and citizens
against the sex industry and its abortion clinics is shocking in
itself. When was the last national rally or church-sponsored campaign
against it? There are sex bars in every town and parish. When will the
clergy speak out against the exploitation? This silence, �see nothing,
do nothing�, is tantamount to hypocritical consent.
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