Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Cortlan Bennett
March 12, 2012Modern-day slave traders are attracted to Australia by its high dollar and strong economy, federal police say.
Talking ahead of a joint federal and West Australian police forum on human trafficking in Perth on Monday, AFP Commander Chris McDevitt told reporters the nation's resilient economy was providing an incentive for organised sex and slavery rings in the region.
"Australia is very much the lucky country at the moment," Cmdr McDevitt said.
The dollar is strong and the opportunities for organised crime are huge."
While estimates put the number of people trafficked and held illegally against their will at 1.36 million in the immediate Southeast Asian region, Cmdr McDevitt admitted the true extent of the problem in Australia was unknown.
"If we have so many people being moved - and that's what the statistics are saying to us globally - there must be some impact here in Australia," he said.
"What is it that we're missing out on? Where is our gap?"
Most victims came from vulnerable backgrounds, Cmdr McDevitt said, but others were simply tricked into slavery, thinking they were going to make money in the sex industry.
"A girl may in fact come out here to become a sex worker in Australia and then when she arrives here she may be forced into a sexual servitude situation, work 20 hours a day, seven days a week and have a debt over her head of $40,000 payable to the person who brought her out," he said.
Cmdr McDevitt said 187 people had been rescued by police during 320 human trafficking operations in Australia since 2003.
Of those, 167 were women and 151 were victims of sexual servitude.
But while the sex industry was a major target of human trafficking rings, there was an increasing trend towards debt-bondage and slave labour.
"Most of our efforts have been directed at sexual servitude only by the nature of the crime," Cmdr McDevitt said.
"(But) slavery is not a new phenomenon ... so our focus is now going to be on labour trafficking."
Multi-agency human trafficking forums have already been held in the WA mining towns of Kalgoorlie and Karratha, and will soon head to Alice Springs and Darwin.
Cmdr McDevitt said these areas all had strong local economies, highlighting their attraction to organised crime.
He said the AFP hoped to build a nation-wide network, but was also liaising with other nations about the crime.
"The international network is critical to AFP success," he said.
AAP
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