Hospitality to the world - Rosie Hoban

His family’s hospitality to the outsider had a profound effect on Peter O’Neill, to the extent that he dedicated his life to that cause in the Columbans.

Fr Peter O’Neill recalls the Vietnamese foods and flavours that were passed around his family’s kitchen table on a Sunday. It was a departure from the traditional fare that normally graced the O’Neill menu. Vietnamese food wasn’t popular in Geelong in the 1970s, but it was enjoyed by the O’Neill family once a month when they played host to many newly-arrived Vietnamese refugees as part of a volunteer resettlement program in Australia.

Hospitality was abundant in the O’Neill kitchen, and no matter how many people lined up for a meal there was always room for someone else. This generous spirit and big-hearted approach to life, especially to those Vietnamese refugees, had a huge impact on Peter’s life and influenced his decision to join the Columbans in 1982.

‘These visitors would show us how to cook Vietnamese food and how to play soccer, and we would teach them how to play foot—and we also taught them Australian slang! My parents were a great example to me as a teenager; they always welcomed the stranger and reminded us how lucky we were to live in peace. They also taught us not to take the blessings we have for granted’, Peter says.

Peter wanted to be a priest and was attracted to the Columbans because of their cross-cultural missionary work that would take him beyond his own shores, to places and people he had learned to respect and admire as a teenager. Two of his nine-years as a seminarian were spent in Japan, which fuelled his passion for Asia.

‘When I spent some time in Japan I worked closely with people who were marginalised and I became keen to follow that work after my ordination’, he says.

Peter was ordained in 1990 and a year later he was sent to Taiwan, one of 15 countries where the Columbans work. Nineteen years down the track he is a vital part of the social justice network that advocates and provides services for the poor, especially people who have been trafficked into Taiwan. He speaks Mandarin and Taiwanese and still studies the intricacies of the Chinese language in order to understand the legal documents that he regularly discusses with government officials to achieve a better outcome for trafficked people and those languishing in detention centres.

Peter is now the Diocesan Migrant Chaplain and Coordinator of the Hsinchu Catholic Diocese Migrants and Immigrants Service Centre, which has grown in recent years to meet an unfortunate increase in the number of people trafficked into the country for labour and sex work. The diocese now runs five shelters for trafficked people and abused migrant workers.

‘About five years ago, I became aware of trafficking and so now a lot of my work focuses on lobbying for these people and working with the government to have laws introduced that will protect them. In Taiwan there is a close link between labour and trafficking which means a lot of people come into the country with work documents and are then trafficked’, he says.

Peter says thousands of women, mainly from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia, are trafficked into Taiwan each year, mainly through fake marriages. Brokers in the sending countries and in Taiwan work together to arrange for young women to marry Taiwanese men and after the marriage and issuing of visas the couple fly back to Taiwan. In some cases the husband is actually a pimp and the woman is forced into prostitution.

Many women come into Taiwan with work documents to care for elderly family members. Peter recalls a case where one family hired four women from Indonesia to look after two lots of elderly grandparents and once they arrived they were in fact forced into slave-like conditions where they worked into the night and early morning caring for children, cleaning, cooking, and they were also forced to work in the family’s restaurant.

Care-givers coming into Taiwan from other countries are paid half what local caregivers get paid. Peter and a social worker from the Migrants and Immigrants Service Centre met three of these women, who had eventually escaped the family and ended up in a detention centre. The Service Centre offers people in the detention centre counselling and support and will try and access whatever they need to have their cases heard.

The case involving the four women is something of a test case in Taiwan as the Service Centre closely monitors the progress of the case in court against their employer, the accused trafficker. Already, the women have been recognised as trafficked women, and the centre has helped the women get back their unpaid wages and find new employment.

For almost two decades, Peter has lived among those who are poor, vulnerable and exploited and he, along with many others, has worked to create better services, conditions and laws for these people. Surely one story merges into another and the faces of people are lost in the detail of events?

‘I have to be very aware that I am not numb to each person’s story. I have a spiritual director and we meet regularly to share my experiences. This helps me to reflect, and it reminds me that I have to acknowledge the pain that each person has gone through and that I do not lose compassion for them. For me it’s a good sign that I am in touch with the people because what has happened to them makes me sad or mad and keen to stop it happening to someone else’, he says.

‘God gives me hope, and I try to give that hope to others who welcome me into their suffering and pain. I try, through my work, to give people a sense of hope that what has happened to them matters and we will try and do what we can for them.’

Peter returns to Australia every two years to catch up with family and friends, and to spend time in Geelong with his parents, Ruth and John. He still marvels at the starry sky he can see once he lands in Melbourne—stars he cannot see through the fog of pollution that hides the Taiwanese city skyline. Coming home is a chance to rest and catch up, but it can also be challenging adjusting to the affluence that is more and more apparent in Australia.

‘I am aware that Australia as a whole is very materialistic, and when I first left and came home for a visit it made me very angry, but now I have learned to settle in,’ Peter says. ‘I still voice my opinion, but now I do it in a sensitive way.’

This year Peter’s holiday back to Australia coincided with a visit from his brother, Kevin, who is also a Columban working in China. His sister, Kate, is a Province Leader for the Our Lady of the Mission Sisters in the Philippines. The O’Neill clan has grown and the six children who shared stories, food and culture with the Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s have spread their hospitality and welcome around the world.