by Fr Shay Cullen
St James, Andrea del Sarto, 1528-29
Galleria delgi Uffizi, Florence [Web Gallery of Art]
[8 January 2016] This was a very happy Christmas and New Year celebration for the 70 children, boys and girls IN THE PREDA children’s homes in Zambales. They are recovering and finding a new life.
The boys are aged from nine to 15 and have been rescued from terrible sub-human jail conditions. The girls have been rescued from rapists and sex bars; some are victims of human trafficking and sex slavery. Other are rescued from abusive parents.
The greatest moment for the children is to be to be rescued from cages and prison cells or saved from brothels and rapists. To be rescued and to be brought to a place that is in a beautiful location in the countryside surrounded by nature and to feel safe from abusers is what the children tell is their greatest joy .
The first thing a child will experience in the Preda children’s home is freedom, respect and a feeling that they are wanted and belong to a family.
It is the community spirit of affirmation, support, encouragement, respect and dignity that the children love. They are taught their rights and human dignity and receive therapy and values formation and education.
They soon learn that the abuse done to them is a heinous crime, that it is always wrong for the adult and the children are not to blame. Usually the adult will claim that the child seduced them and the child gave consent.
This cannot be upheld anywhere.
The case of Marianne, is a case of abduction and human trafficking of a deft mute child who had no way to cry out and defend herself or even to make a complaint. A woman using sign language offered her snacks and food in a 7/11 store in the next town. There she was introduced to two men and they brought her to a hotel and raped her continually for almost 24 hours.
Her sister was looking for her and traced her to the hotel and called the police.The rapists were arrested and Marianne was rescued. But her two sisters took her home but blamed her and shaved off her hair as a punishment as if she had been responsible for her own abduction.
Full post here.