What do you know about human trafficking?

By Jessica Lang
YWCA Victoria student on placement

Human trafficking is something that we have all heard about but how much do we actually know?  Sad enough as it is, I’ll admit the most that I knew about human trafficking was the fact that Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher created a foundation which helps women that have been caught up in this awful crime.  I have since learned that  human trafficking is a major crime against humanity, a huge issue not only in Australia but worldwide and something that we should all be educated on. 

Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as involving an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.  This exploitation can be through a number of means such as forced labour, slavery and the removal of organs.  The main reasons for the trafficking of women are prostitution, sex slavery and other sexual purposes.

These women, usually from countries in Asia such as China, Korea and Thailand are the victims of deception, agreeing to moving to a ‘promised land’ on the premise a good job and better life.  Generally, these women have some kind of debt bondage attached to them, which is an unreasonable debt to pay back to their traffickers which occurs in the form of sex work. Whilst some women do agree to working in the sex industry before they arrive in Australia they do not agree to the extent of the exploitation forced upon them when they actually arrive.

It is scary enough when you get off the plane in a new country, trying to find a job and all that comes with it.  Imagine these poor women who get off the plane with minimal English skills full of excitement, only to have their passports stolen and be forced into sex slavery with no means to get out of the situation?  These women are subjected to physical, emotional and sexual abuse on a regular basis and both demoralised and disempowered so they do not even consider escaping.

It is hard to get numbers of the women subjected to human trafficking and sexual slavery but it is estimated at approximately 1,000 per year.  The fact that there is anyone who is trafficked is upsetting, let alone 1,000 women who arrive in Australia each year only to have their hopes and dreams crushed and to endure indescribable things that no human being should.

Sometimes I can’t even bear to be in the same room as someone I don’t like; these women don’t have that choice.  Project Respect details how the women are forced into the room with men, expected to provide sexual services, with or without a condom, and subjected to violence if the man decides that is what he wants.  The depressing thing about it is this isn’t a once of, these women experience a cycle of this for hours and hours on end up to six days a week.

Some of the things that these women must endure and see are unimaginable to me.  I can’t even consider how something like this can occur under the noses of our authorities.  Why is it that I didn’t know about this disgrace to humanity before now?  Human trafficking along with survival stories of these women should be plastered all over the media.  As someone who watches the news every night and reads at least one paper a day, I find it almost laughable that all I can remember seeing about it on television was an episode of City Homicide.

Human trafficking and the sexual exploitation is obviously an issue which needs to receive more focus.  Do we really live in a world in which the media coverage of the celebrity marriage break-ups such Demi and Ashton, the very two people that created the DNA foundation against human trafficking receives more media attention than the issue in which they care so deeply about?  We, the public need to be aware of the abominable exploitation that these women have been subjected to so as a society we can do all we can to prevent this crime against humanity. 

There are things that we can all do to help combat human trafficking and sex slavery.  Educate your family and friends, follow and retweet tweets from Captive Daughters, DNA and Project Respect as well as sign the petition on the Project Respect website for compensation for the women who have experienced this horror.  If you can afford to do so, you can also donate to Project Respect to help them continue the great work they do.

If we work together, we can make change!  Let’s stop this disgraceful crime against humanity so that no woman has to suffer the hell and torture that is human trafficking.

For further information:

http://projectrespect.org.au

http://www.captivedaughters.org

http://demiandashton.org

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