“The girl looked about 4 years-old. She’d been dragged out of bed, she was rubbing her eyes. He asked me ‘Is this what you like? The younger ones are more expensive. You can have her for $50.'”
CONTENT WARNING: CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION & TRAFFICKING
As a former police officer and private investigator, Glen Hulley has seen a lot of awful things in his lifetime.
However, nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to witness on a seemingly ordinary night in 2013.
As Glen sat in a Cambodian bar, enjoying a drink while on holiday, he was approached by a tuk-tuk driver who asked if he was interested in paying for sex with a local woman. Declining, Glen thought that would be the end of it…
The man then turned to him, and in a quiet voice, asked if he would be interested in a ‘younger’ prostitute… specifically, a child.
Although horrified, Glen was curious to investigate whether these claims were legitimate, and on a whim, decided to play along.
What he discovered, not only shocked him to his core but also changed the entire direction of his life.
“It wasn’t long before a girl got marched out, she looked about 11… I could tell it wasn’t the first time she had experienced this. She was looking at the floor, she was passive… It was distressing…”
It was on this night, that Glen was also offered a girl of around four-years-old, who the trafficker explained, could be taken back to his hotel for just $50. Glen was sickened.
“I thought to myself, ‘[Are these things] happening every night? And not just to this girl… How many girls is this happening to?’
“I’d done 13 years with the Victorian police, I’ve seen horrible stuff in this world, but we don’t have anything on this kind of scale in Australia…”
Some months later, Glen sold most of his belongings and moved to South East Asia to do whatever he could to fight child trafficking.
Eventually, this led him to create Project Karma, a not for profit who work alongside – and educate – South East Asian Governments, Police, and Communities, to identify vulnerable children, rescue and rehabilitate victims, and catch perpetrators.
As well as his work in SE Asia, Glen has also worked alongside Australian politicians and senators in recent years, including Derryn Hinch, to ban child sex-offenders from travelling overseas – something Senator Hinch referred to as ‘child rape holidays.’ (As covered in my 2016 News.com.au article with Glen, here.)
Chatting on the issue of child-exploitation closer to home, Glen agrees that more needs to be done to address the failings of our Western ‘justice system,’ including the inconsistencies around child-sex crime sentencing, and lax bail laws. As Glen asks during our chat:
“[When it comes to sentences] Why are we treating child sex offending like theft? Especially if this person has harmed a child before?
“I would suggest a minimum of 10 years as a mandatory… It’s not about the perpetrator learning remorse; it’s about punishment…to send a deterrent to that person, and the rest of the community, that this is what happens when you rape a child.”
Glen Hulley is one of the bravest people I know, and I’m proud to bring you this chat.
Listen in to our full chat here.
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