The Irish priest who has campaigned for more than 40 years against
the child sex industry in the Far East has hit out at comments by
businessman Martin Naughton that Irish aid should be abolished because
we are borrowing millions to give away to others.
"It's all right
for a businessman to say such things, but does he realise the work
people like us do?" asked Fr Shay Cullen, who has worked in the
Philippines for the last 40 years and has been nominated three times for
the Nobel Peace Prize.
He was responding to comment by
philanthropist Martin Naughton, who, in a wide-ranging interview, said:
"In my personal opinion, it's crazy for the Government to borrow money
and then give it away in overseas aid."
"He's speaking against the
Irish people -- because they are unbelievably generous and they know
what's important," said Fr Cullen, who was in Dublin last week.
"We
still have a lot of people who look beyond their own selfish interests
and want to help someone more down-and-out than themselves; that's the
Irish spirit and that's what keeps me going," he said.
Among those
who support his work is musician and singer Sharon Corr, who is among
the stars and sportspeople who have posed for a 2011 calendar to raise
funds for Fr Cullen's organisation, Preda.
"It's appalling that
these things are still happening to small children," said Sharon, who
was keen to help after her manager John Hughes met Fr Cullen walking
along the streets in Glasthule, Co Dublin, when he was home on holidays
from the Philippines. They got talking and the idea for the calendar
with musicians and sports stars was born.
"I think music and
sports transcend all barriers, and that's why it's important that we
support Shay Cullen's work," Sharon said.
Fr Cullen began
campaigning against the child sex industry in the 1970s, when, as a
young missionary, he "took on" the activities of American servicemen and
the child sex industry that had grown up around their base at Subic
Bay.
He has survived assassination attempts and death threats from the
local mafia groups that run the sex industry, but carries on undeterred.
"When
I first arrived in the Philippines, I was mistaken for an American
sailor; children were offered to me on the street for sex. It was a
wake-up call for me, because nobody was focusing on this horrific crime,
not the authorities, not the church, they had nobody.
"I didn't
get very far at first, but then Mother Teresa came and she said: 'This
is the way Jesus would take.' He would walk down the street of sex bars
and clubs, and she told us to go out and minister to these children.
This was what we needed to hear."
Since then, he's linked up with
an Irish policeman in Interpol to pursue and prosecute sex tourists in
Germany and Holland in their own jurisdictions.
"It's a warning to them -- paedophiles, beware," he says.
"And
it's not just Americans and people from the continent -- there are
Irish people who are part of the sex trade and go to the Far East to
prey on children. We have a huge problem and it's something we need to
address."
But he also sees positives. His organisation not only
tries to get young people out of the sex industry, but out of jails as
well.
He's launched 'Preda Fair Trade' to export dried mangos and help
lift the farming poor of the Philippines out of a life of poverty.
His
organisation, Preda, has a staff of 89 centred in Olongapo city and
spread through the county. He praises Irish Aid, the government funding
agency, but unfortunately Preda's last submission was two months late.
"There is a lot of bureaucracy," he says, without complaint, "but we're hoping that we will get something in the New Year."
In the meantime, the calendar is available in bookstores or it can be ordered directly from www.preda.org.
SIC: II/IE