WALKING IN THE DARK ALLEYS AT NIGHT,  dressed in street clothes, we rescue children and women victims of prostitution and sex trafficking. Underage children…waiting for customers to pick them up and being paid a small amount of money to augment their family sustenance. Bar dancers, tourist escorts and the poorest of the poor who have fallen victim to the handlers who roam the desperate rural villages promising parents “good jobs in the city” for their girls. With the Sisters chosen by the “New Eve”, the Woman clothed with the sun (Rev. 12:1), God shall liberate these women back to Her image of unblemished dignity.

Over two decades ago, seven Roman Catholic Filipino women who were friends living in Manila, began spreading Marian Devotion prayers and education among families and children. These working women, as a group, spent their weekends conducting talks on the Rosary, leading rosary prayer sessions, and discussing the Brown Scapular. All was done in a lay outreach ministry to teach Filipino children about Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

Corazon J. Salazar from Bulacan was one of these seven friends and owned her own ready-to-wear clothing store in Baclaran, Paranaque, Philippines. Each morning on her way to work, she regularly passed along the long strip of Mabini Avenue in Manila, known as the Red Light District. Foreign nationals with Filipino girls were a common sight, with many being so young. Day after day she witnessed the same scenario and was deeply touched with pity for the young girls and women caught in prostitution and sex trafficking.

She developed a strong desire to do something to help them out of this cycle of misery and wanted to help them reform their lives for the better. She confided her strong compassion for these lost victims to her six friends who came to believe without any doubt that the Holy Spirit was prompting her to act. With all of them inhabiting a strong love for the Blessed Mother, they felt it was their calling to rescue these girls and women by providing shelter and safety, medical and psychological needs, and education for future self-sustaining employment while bringing them back to Jesus and His abundant love.

All the friends agreed to leave their homes and careers and live together, for the common cause of lifting these women and children up and out of prostitution.  They didn’t know how they were going to do it, but with the utmost faith in Divine Providence, they started a community among themselves in Manila.  Corazon, strong willed and courageous, sold her business and gave all the proceeds to this new community of seven which she was about to found.  They took Mary Queen of Heaven as their Patroness,  the woman clothed in the sun, the moon at her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head (Rev. 12:1).

MQHM Sisters Visiting Brothels at Night

A MQHM Sister Talking to a Brothel Worker