It must have been around the beginning of 2000, when this lady, whom I used to see every day at Mass in Saint Francis Church in downtown Bogotá, approached me. She asked me whether I was a seminarian and when I said that I was a religious brother, she just asked me point blank whether I would be interested to help her with giving catechism classes to a group of ladies who were involved in prostitution. At that time I was in charge of our postulants and I was looking for some apostolate outside formation to breathe some “different kind of air.” The lady who spoke to me, probably in her mid-forties, a bit on the heavy-side, with short hair and wearing a sweater and skirt, turned out to be a nun. Together with two other members of her community, they were running a centre for women who were trapped in prostitution.
My first contact with the world of prostitution goes back to 1988. At twenty-three, I was the president of the Third World Group and that year we had decided to try our luck with offering our voluntary services in an area of Malta where prostitution was rife. At that time, prostitution in Malta was a profession which ran in the family from mother to daughter. That also meant that while the “business” was run from the family home or in the nearby bars, children were around. One of the most prolific areas was a street in the capital city popularly known as Strada Stretta (Narrow Street). Almost one kilometre in length and between three to four metres in width, it was the narrowest street in Valletta. Bars and shabby dwellings ran along both sides of this street. Previously, my only exposure to this street was a furtive look here and there, when I had to cross the area for some office work.
Brother Carmel Duca MC
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