The Shortlist of the Alfred Fried Photography Award 2014
Safehouse
Ten girls sleep at the same time in a room with broken bunk beds and ornate iron bars on the window. All are between 14 and 18 years old and all girls are victims of sexual exploitation. Now they start a new life at the Preda Safehouse. A social worker is available 24 hours a day. "The sex industry is war. We have many victims“, says Father Shay Cullen, the founder of NGO Preda in Olongapo, Philippines. Preda helps the victims of sexual exploitation. At its safehouse, victims of sex tourism get treated and find protection from traffickers, sex tourists and even protection from their own family.
Erica is now eighteen years old. For more than two years she has lived in the Preda safehouse, thanks to her adult sister. She had heard that Erica was sold to sex tourists, for "work" at an hourly fee. While other parents are trained by social workers at Preda to act accordingly in cases of sexual abuse and how to treat their child if she is returned to them, there is no turning back for Erica. While Erica had to do in the hotel room, what European and American pedophiles thought up in their imagination, her own mother waited outside the Rajah Motel in Angeles City and collected money from them. Every time when the money in the family was scarce. The sex tourists leave behind generations of girls like Erica whose childhood was cut short in bars by sexual acts forced upon them.
"It's nice to see how life comes back to them," says Cullen as he watches them play. Erica is asked to draw her bad memories, she paints a rainbow landscape. She says that the house symbolize Preda. Here she feels safe and secure.
Ten girls sleep at the same time in a room with broken bunk beds and ornate iron bars on the window. All are between 14 and 18 years old and all girls are victims of sexual exploitation. Now they start a new life at the Preda Safehouse. A social worker is available 24 hours a day. "The sex industry is war. We have many victims“, says Father Shay Cullen, the founder of NGO Preda in Olongapo, Philippines. Preda helps the victims of sexual exploitation. At its safehouse, victims of sex tourism get treated and find protection from traffickers, sex tourists and even protection from their own family.
Erica is now eighteen years old. For more than two years she has lived in the Preda safehouse, thanks to her adult sister. She had heard that Erica was sold to sex tourists, for "work" at an hourly fee. While other parents are trained by social workers at Preda to act accordingly in cases of sexual abuse and how to treat their child if she is returned to them, there is no turning back for Erica. While Erica had to do in the hotel room, what European and American pedophiles thought up in their imagination, her own mother waited outside the Rajah Motel in Angeles City and collected money from them. Every time when the money in the family was scarce. The sex tourists leave behind generations of girls like Erica whose childhood was cut short in bars by sexual acts forced upon them.
"It's nice to see how life comes back to them," says Cullen as he watches them play. Erica is asked to draw her bad memories, she paints a rainbow landscape. She says that the house symbolize Preda. Here she feels safe and secure.
