News & Views
News & Views
COMBINING VOICES TO SPEAK FOR THE VOICELES
In 2001 the tragic death of a young Thai woman in an immigration detention centre in Sydney was the catalyst which moved the government to admit that trafficking was happening here in Australia. This young woman was found to have been trafficked into the sex industry, had developed a drug addiction and had died alone and unsupported.
The Australian Catholic Religious Against Human Trafficking (ACRATH) had its beginnings about one and a half years ago. Two religious sisters became aware of the growing problem of human trafficking both globally and here in Australia. They decided that Australian Religious needed to take action and the ACRATH grew in numbers and enthusiasm.
The FMDMs also came on board and in March of this year I joined the working group made up of around 12 religious sisters. In January, 2006 the group sent two women, both lawyers, to present a shadow report on trafficking in Australia to the United Nations CEDAW Committee (Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women). The recommendations that the CEDAW committee made to the Australian Government echoed those that our own shadow report had made.
One of these recommendations was that the government have a visa framework for trafficked women which has a human rights, rather than a criminal justice approach. Currently, only women who can give credible evidence which can lead to a conviction of the traffickers are eligible for witness protection visas and all the medical, psychological and other support that this visa entails. Many women are unable or unwilling to give evidence, often for very good reasons such as threats to their families. However, they are still victims of crime and deserve the help and support of our community. They are deported back to their country of origin to cope with the trauma of what has happened to them and often fall back into the sex industry.
ACRATH arranged public forums, talks and letter campaigns to the government to raise the awareness of the Australian public to the issue of human trafficking. Our next step was to take our concerns directly to the politicians in Canberra. The mammoth task of arranging a ‘lobbying trip’ was undertaken and from 16th-19th October 12 of us walked the corridors of government and petitioned members of parliament to help us in having visa reforms implemented so that all people who are victims of trafficking in Australia will receive the compassion and support they need.
Many people said how impressed they were at the number of appointments we had been able to arrange. We firmly believe that this is largely the result of having 43 Catholic Religious Congregations supporting us and named on our letterhead. All the politicians received us graciously and respectfully and though not all agreed with our proposal they listened and recognised that we were there representing congregations speaking for the vulnerable. What really struck me was the power of our combined voices to speak for those trafficked women who are so often voiceless. Individually, I doubt we would have been as well received or effective but as a combined voice we were heard and, please God, can affect some change for the better. Surely this is the way forward for the future.