An Irish priest in the Philippines has won a long battle to stop the country’s controversial shame of adult men marrying girls as young as 12.
Fr Shay Cullen, 77, has persuaded authorities in the Philippines to bring in a 30-year jail sentence for anyone who marries children.
The campaigning hero priest, from Dublin, convinced politicians to approve a bill that bans the shocking practice.
It is estimated in the Philippines that as many as 800,000 young girls have been married off to men every year.
A Unicef report claimed that nearly 20% of teenage girls there have been sexually abused in some way and that 1.2 million girls over the age of 10 have given birth to at least one child in the last decade.
But, thanks to Fr Shay, sexual assault can now be punished with a sentence of between 16 to 30 years in prison.
He said: “It is a form of human trafficking by the parents or relatives, who for a payment or as dowry - which can be money or animals or a piece of land - give their young daughter, as young as 12 years, to an older man as a live-in partner.
“Local government officials usually give their approval for a fee.”
He added: “But the new law will make every arrangement illegal.”
The new bill against child marriage (Bill 162 or the Girls not Brides Act 2019) has taken decades of campaigning.
It resulted in threats against Fr Shay for opposing sex tourism and child brides since he was sent to the country by the Columban Missionaries in 1969.
Fr Shay said: “The only plausible explanation [for the delay in introducing a ban] is that politicians are corrupt.
“Or they are subject to the influence of paedophile groups and have therefore allowed for 90 years a 12-year-old girl to be sexually abused by a 20-50-year-old man without any legal consequences.”
Fr Shay set up People’s Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation (PREDA) in 1974 to aid child victims of ex-President Ferdinand Marcos’ military regime.
