http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-12/afp-forums-target-human-trafficking/3884818?section=nt Source:
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)Posted March 12, 2012 21:53:41
The Australian Federal Police is holding a series of forums in Western Australia and the Northern Territory to raise awareness about people trafficking.
It wants more state and territory officers to become experts in identifying the victims of a crime that is little understood in Australia.
The AFP says nearly 200 people in Australia have been rescued from people-trafficking arrangements.
That figure is small when it is considered alongside the estimate that 25 million people around the world have been trafficked at some point in their lives.
But AFP manager of special references, Commander Chris McDevitt, says the aim is to completely stamp it out.
"Since 2004 we've had 320 investigations or assessments. And out of those, that's resulted in the rescuing of 187 victims," he said.
"In modern-day Australia we have 187 victims of human trafficking, slavery, debt-bondage, sexual servitude - it's absolutely abhorrent."
Meetings have been in the mining towns of Karratha and Kalgoorlie. Today there was a gathering in Perth, with forums in Darwin and Alice Springs to come later this week.
Law enforcement agencies want to gather more intelligence so they can get a better idea of the extent of the problem.
Commander McDevitt says there are several signs that could identify a victim.
He says those being forced to pay off debts will work excessive hours, with no access to their income.
"For example, it might be that their passport or travel documents have been taken away. It might be that they have to pay rent to a landlord. It might be that they live on the premises of the employee and bathe there, which we've had in one particular case. It might be that their travel movements are restricted or they get taken to and from work. It's to inform people about what to look for," he said.
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'Vulnerable individuals'
Commander McDevitt says it is not about targeting prostitution.
"I just want to emphasise that the AFP is not interested in prostitution at all. We're about human trafficking. What we're interested in is people who are forced into that, certainly sexual servitude is the biggest side of the business at the moment," he said.
"We have 167 out of those 187 victims were women and 151 of those were actually from sexual servitude. The rest of those were forced into other labour trafficking situations."
He says all industries will be looked at.
"I don't want to silo industries, but we'll look at all forms of industry. We'll look at say, the mining industry; we will look at agriculture. We will look at everything that's possibly available that people can go into: hospitality, we'll look at domestic situations," he said.
"What we've got to do is remember that the people that are involved in this particular organised crime aren't fools. They are very alive to what police methodology is, they're very alive to trends.
"They look at the success and the failures of judicial processes and then they change their tactics, just as quick as they get caught they're changing their tactics. We need to be alive to that."
The Red Cross is one of the many groups which helps victims of trafficking.
The national manager of its migration support programs, Lis De Vries, says trafficking victims have been through a lot of trauma.
"They have been brought into Australia under circumstances that are very deceptive, and while they're in Australia people are often very isolated and alone. They don't have connections to their ethnic communities, they've often lost contact with family back home," she said.
"So it means that people who have been trafficked don't have access to services in Australia. And I guess we would identify them as just highly vulnerable individuals."
The Red Cross is currently assisting 70 trafficking victims around Australia.
In the 20 years I have been working in the field of anti-trafficking, it has moved from the margins to the mainstream. New laws have been adopted; new institutions established; hundreds of millions of dollars spent to support prosecutions, victim protection and prevention. Today, trafficking is the focus of a major social movement that, according to the publicity of its self-proclaimed leaders, is uniting millions of individuals against the scourge of “modern slavery”.
