Stop trafficking where it begins
The Inconvenient Truths 2011 Pacific Trafficking in Persons Forum, held this weekend, challenged communities to stop trafficking where it begins—in the community. ‘We need to be really good at gossip and we need to be a whole lot more nosey,’ said keynote speaker Ruth Dearnley, CEO of Stop the Traffik UK.
She told the true story of 97-year-old Gladys in England, who ‘knows everything that goes on in her street’. She noticed that every morning a group of young men next door would get into a van and come back at night, but they never made any noise. Gladys mentioned this to her friend, and who rang her grand-daughter—a member of Stop the Traffik. She told the ladies to go to the Police. The next week, this group of young men were rescued. They had been chained to radiators at night, and threatened with debt-bondage—a common ploy of traffickers.
‘The greatest power that traffickers have is the power to work in the dark, without being seen, so we need to pull it out into the light,’ said Ruth. ‘We need to create communities that are high-risk and low-profit [for traffickers], instead of the other way around.’
This set a theme for the Forum of working together in our communities, in the Pacific and globally, against trafficking. ‘The Pacific is a region not free from this crime and its consequences,’ said Major Campbell Roberts, director of the Salvation Army’s Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit, which co-hosted the conference. ‘No country is immune, so we need to work together.’
A mixture of Government, parliamentary and non-government representatives spoke about the work being done in New Zealand, the Pacific and Australia to uncover trafficking. From Fiji, Adi Melania Tibikia of Save the Children, spoke about the work being done to change attitudes towards children in the region, so they are less vulnerable to exploitation.
From Tonga, Luisa Samani of the Tonga Women and Children Crisis Centre, described the first trafficking prosecution in the country: a Chinese national responded to an advertisement to work in the hospitality industry in Tonga, but on her arrival had her passport removed, and was told that she was required to pay off debts as a prostitute.
Although there have not been any trafficking prosecutions in New Zealand, researchers Glenn Simmons and Christina Stringer provided significant evidence of trafficking in foreign fishing vessels within New Zealand waters. Department of Labour manager Peter Elms also spoke about what they are doing to address this exploitation, saying that although New Zealand has closely observed fishing quotas, we’ve ‘not observed [labour] abuse or hours of work’ for the people doing the fishing.
Chris Frazer, who organised the conference, said she has received ‘incredible feedback’. ‘A forum will only be as good as the action that arises out of it and there is a high level of energy to continue this work as part of a network.’ Plans are now in place to step-up research in New Zealand, create of a network to join forces against trafficking, and develop campaigns to raise awareness of trafficking within our communities. ‘We’re focused on intentional action and how we can go forward,’ said Chris. ‘Traffickers are committed, and we have to be just as committed to stopping this crime.’
In her keynote speech, Ruth summarised the effect of people and communities joining together against trafficking. She told a story of standing in New York when it began to snow; first one flake, then hundreds that melted into the ground. ‘But soon there were millions of snowflakes and the ground was covered in white. Within 20 minutes, the snowflakes had stopped the traffick,’ she said. ‘We are the millions, and together we can stop the traffick.’