BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
IT IS VITAL that the Catholic Church, non-government organizations (NGOs), development agencies and government put children at the heart of national and religious concerns.
The Church and clergy must remember and act constantly on the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth when he made children the center of importance in the kingdom. “Whoever welcomes in my name one such child as this, welcomes me,” he said.
Jesus also demanded all abusers be brought to justice. “Better that that person (abuser) have a large mill-stone tied around his neck and he be drowned in the deep sea,” he said in Matthew 18:1-7.
When the evidence of clerical child sex abuse is overwhelming, is there any bishop, law enforcement officer, prosecutor and judge with the guts, courage and commitment to children, the law and love of justice, to bring him to justice?
Civil society, churches and government need to put children first and provide much more services that shelter, protect, heal and empower the thousands of abused and neglected children and help them win justice and convictions and end impunity and the cycle of abuse. It can be done.
The good news is that more than one hundred and fifty children annually with care and therapy recover from both malnutrition of body and spirit at the Preda Foundation homes, having been victims of poverty, neglect, abandonment and sexual and physical abuse. They are empowered to testify with courage and bravery against their abusers and win an average of 15 convictions annually.
There is an urgent need to fund and expand Philippine expert law enforcement action groups to investigate child abusers especially online abuse and trafficking and to succeed in convicting them. The rate of convictions for these child traffickers in the Philippines nation-wide is very low.
According to the US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report for 2022, the government convicted only 56 traffickers — 46 for sex trafficking, five for forced labor, and five for unspecified forms of exploitation—compared with 73 convictions in the previous reporting period.
The child victims/witnesses have to have protection and professional therapeutic care and expert social and psychological services in well-funded therapeutic homes for victims /survivors. In Central Luzon, there are only three government centers that provide therapeutic interventions and psychological healing of child victims of rape and sexual exploitation.
The vast majority of victims/survivors that report abuse are from impoverished families. This does not mean the middle class and the rich do not abuse children. They do as it is a heinous crime that has no boundaries to exclude anyone, no matter their economic or social status. The rich, the middle and upper classes, clergy, and celebrities have greater ability to cover up their crimes with powerful legal representation, political connections and resources to pay off the victims and silence them by threats, intimidation and shame. This is common practice.
Poverty is not the cause of abuse. Child abuse is a crime committed by the free choice of an individual to commit an evil act. The availability and desire for money at any cost by some people, even parents, can prompt abusers to exploit children for financial rewards. There are thousands of foreigners that are paying large sums of money to view children being sexually abused online. As in all commerce, it is the law of demand and supply that rules and can destroy lives. (To be continued)/PN
