“Do not let convicted sex offenders leave the country”

Crime scene personnel with Father Cullen © Crime Scene – Streets of the World e.V. (private)

Interviewer: In 1972, you founded the private aid organization PREDA ("Peoples Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance Foundation") in the Philippines, a refuge for street children to whom you try to give a new life. What situation are these children and young people in?

Father Shay Cullen (Founder of PREDA): Many of the children we free from the hands of traffickers. It was just two weeks ago that one of our social workers went to Angeles City [Note. the editor: north of Manila, hotspot for sex tourists and prostitution] was called. He found two sisters there, 11 and 14 years old, the mother was in prison, the father had abandoned the family. We intervened because they were being held by a pimp who was selling them to foreign sex tourists. That's one of many typical cases that we come across. At the moment there are 50 girls living in our shelter, we take care of them. We offer them therapies and try to give you a fresh start. They are able to go to school and we help them deal with the severe trauma they have suffered.

Interviewer: How do kids get into these situations in the first place?

Cullen: Many of the children we rescue from the hands of child molesters and pimps are alone; often they have already experienced violence and abuse in their own families. This is a terrible consequence of the business of international sex tourism. The government allows this, there is little prosecution for child abuse, on the contrary: politicians ie licenses for these sex bars, even if they know that minors are also offered there or women who are abused for brutal bondage games. People are kept like slaves and this is tolerated.

And we can't expect much from our president Rodrigo Duterte either, he himself has a certain penchant for this kind of thing: He often talks about his mistresses and thinks it's perfectly okay for women to be used. This thinking and disdain is in the minds of many men and it becomes a vicious cycle: first the men "buy" minors in the sex bars and then they go home and misbehave with their own relatives and think that is okay.

Interviewer: In 1972, you founded the private aid organization PREDA in Olongapo City – how did this commitment come about??

Cullen: I had already been sent to the Philippines in 1969 as a missionary, working in the St. Joseph's parish in Olongapo City. There were a lot of kids and teenagers there with problems: They came from broken families, they were alone, their fathers were U.S. soldiers who had absconded.

That was, after all, the beginning of it all: Olongapo City was the largest U.S. naval base in Asia until the early 1990s. In the course of this, a huge red-light district developed there, which continued to exist even after the Americans withdrew: an organized sex trade with children and young women developed, which locals and foreign men use extensively to this day. The encounters with these children shook me up and we began to rescue the children who were living on the streets. That was the beginning of Preda. At the same time, we also began to work with journalists to raise awareness of the problem. This has led to a lot of resistance, to this day I and my co-workers are threatened or people try to discredit us.

Interviewer: In 1998, the two Cologne crime scene detectives Ballauf and Schenk investigated abroad for the first time. In Manila, they were on the trail of a child trafficker. From the filming on location, the association "Tatort – Straben der Welt" (Crime Scene – Streets of the World) was founded, which supports Preda until today. What did this mean for you?

Cullen: At that time, there was the real case of two girls who had been abused by a German man. They were able to escape, found shelter at Preda and then we tried to bring the case to court. As unbelievable as it sounds, the man was found guilty in Iserlohn in 1996: The first German child molester to be convicted at home for a crime committed abroad – and this made our work known in Germany.

The Tatort team became aware of this outrageous story and came up with the idea for "Tatort Manila," the first time ever that Tatort detectives investigated outside of Germany. We advised the team during the filming and from this developed the association "Tatort – Streets of the World", which supports us to this day. Again and again we visit and also members and we are really very grateful to the German helpers.

Interviewer: But you are also on a political mission here in Germany, you want to promote a new law with members of the Bundestag. What is at stake?

Cullen: The problem in the Philippines is that many of the sex tourists come from Europe, including Germany. And among them are also many convicted sex offenders and pedophiles. Here in Germany, law enforcement is really good, I know about the police officers who investigate the darknet to root out child porn rings and track down human traffickers. But it is precisely because law enforcement here is so committed that these men go abroad.

That's why I'm currently holding political talks with members of the Bundestag, many of whom have been supporting our work for years, such as the German government's human rights commissioner Barbel Kofler or the Committee for Economic Cooperation and Development.

I want to talk to them about the idea of introducing a law that would prohibit convicted sex offenders and pedophiles from traveling to countries like ours. In Ireland, we have also brought this on the way, such a proposal is now being discussed in parliament. Such a law would be a really important step for us!

The interview was conducted by Ina Rottscheidt.