Trafficking and Slavery in Australia: An Evaluation of Victim Support Strategies

Abstract

The paper evaluates legal protections and social support systems for victims of trafficking and slavery in Australia within a human rights framework based on the United Nations Protocol to Prevent and Suppress Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and the UN Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking. A major focus of the paper is the evaluation of a system of visas offered by the Australian government to victims of trafficking and slavery. The paper argues that the visa system and social support program is restricted to the assistance of victims who participate in the criminal justice process, thereby limiting state protection of victims of trafficking and slavery.

Health and community services for trafficked women: an exploratory study of policy and practice

“…As a number of commentators have already noted, particularly Burn and Simmons (2006), this requirement posed a number of risks to trafficked women including retribution by traffickers and exposure to their family and other networks as participants in the sex industry. Certainly conditions promoting accessibility of government health and support services have improved with the elimination of the requirement for trafficked women to co-operate with the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Office of Public Prosecutions in apprehending and prosecuting perpetrators of trafficking if they wish to avail themselves of such services.…”

“…Certainly conditions promoting accessibility of government health and support services have improved with the elimination of the requirement for trafficked women to co-operate with the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Office of Public Prosecutions in apprehending and prosecuting perpetrators of trafficking if they wish to avail themselves of such services. As a number of commentators have already noted, particularly Burn and Simmons (2006), this requirement posed a number of risks to trafficked women including retribution by traffickers and exposure to their family and other networks as participants in the sex industry. As a result, they were significantly more likely to draw on services provided by NGOs.…”

Anti–Human Trafficking Interventions

“…After the initial review, it was determined that some of the evaluations that were identified using the search terms were not, in fact, evaluations. For example, a publication by Burn and Simmons (2006) entitled ''Trafficking and slavery in Australia: An evaluation of victim support strategies'' was not an evaluation but rather a review of the literature on human trafficking in Australia and a discussion of the country's visa and support scheme for trafficking victims. Similar documents were excluded from the final review because they were not considered evaluations; that is, they were literature reviews, or market research reports, or PhD theses.…”

“…The Action Plan's elements include prevention, detection and investigation, criminal prosecution, and victim support and rehabilitation. Under the Action Plan, the Australian government established a community awareness campaign to increase knowledge of human trafficking; created an Australian Federal Police Transnational Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Team to investigate human trafficking and sexual servitude; placed a Senior Migration Officer focused on human trafficking in Thailand; developed new visa arrangements for trafficked persons who were of interest to, or could assist police investigations and prosecutions; instigated a victim support program for persons who had been granted visas to assist police investigations or prosecutions; and developed a reintegration assistance project for trafficking victims who were returned to source countries in Southeast Asia (Burn, & Simmons, 2006).…”