Modern Slavery Myth Busters 1
Like most things, slavery is often portrayed as cliches. Heavy chains. Shackles. Hands tied with thick rope. Cages. Metal bars. While some of these have been true, the reality of modern slavery is much more varied.
These myths or common misconceptions about slavery can be harmful. Without recognising slavery and its nuance, it's difficult for us to fight the realities of modern slavery.
So let’s debunk some of the most common myths about modern slavery in these upcoming three episodes.
In this episode, Fuzz and Carolyn Kitto will look at the first two myths.
MYTH #1: Slavery no longer exists
MYTH #2: Modern slavery happens only in developing countries, not in Australia.
Listen to Slavery Unravelled - Conversations about being slavery free wherever you get your podcasts!
Like many things, slavery is often portrayed as cliches, heavy chains, shackles, hands tied with thick rope, cages, metal bars. While some of these have been true in the past, the reality of modern slavery is much more varied. There are myths and common misconceptions about slavery and this can be harmful. Without recognising slavery and its nuances. It's difficult for us to fight the realities of modern slavery. So let's debunk nine of the most common myths about slavery over the next three podcasts. And what we're going to do is to be able to find ways of helping to unravel slavery and make it clearer for you.
Carolyn Kitto
First of all, let's be clear on what is modern slavery? Well, there was an article a convention in 1928, which defined slavery as the status or condition of a person over which the powers of ownership are applied. And that definition pretty much applies to slavery throughout the ages. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was put in place, it stated, no one shall be held in slavery or servitude, slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. But it was not until early 2000s that there was a definition that was agreed to worldwide through the UN Convention against transnational organised crime. And this describes criminalising of trafficking in persons for the purpose of exploitation, and that included at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others of other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery, or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs. In Australia, slavery describes situations where offenders use coercion, threats, or deception to exploit victims and undermine their freedom. practices that constitute modern slavery can include human trafficking, slavery, servitude, forced labour, debt, bondage, forced marriage, and worst forms of child labour. modern slavery is a term which describes serious exploitation. It doesn't include practices like substandard working conditions, or underpayment for workers. And while these practices can be harmful, and may be present in some situations of modern slavery, the aspects of coercion and exploitation and deception must be in place to make the definition. More modern slavery can occur in every industry and sector and has severe consequences and impacts on the life of victims. It also distorts global markets, undercuts responsible business and can pose significant legal and reputational risk.
Fuzz Kitto
One of the things that we argue when they were involved in bringing in the Modern Slavery Act, and also the review of the Modern Slavery Act, is that it is not good for businesses because there's not a level playing field when some people can use slavery in the production of goods, which means they can do it cheaper because they are not paying people, the labour cost that rather abusing them in that way. And so let's look at some of these myths then. Myth number one that we hear so often is slavery no longer exists. And that how many times when we're travelling or when we're doing sessions or we're working with different groups in the community. People say Yeah, is there is there still slavery? Is it still bad and they aren't There is yes. And estimated over 50 million people experience modern slavery or slave like conditions in any given day. There's more people in slavery today than any other time in human history. Walk Free and the global slavery index, which they do with the ILO, the International Labour Organisation, a give a clearer understanding, if you want to look up more worth looking at their site to give you a global overview of what is happening. No one really knows the numbers very rarely, is there a baseline, which means it's checking how many people are in slavery now to then determine afterwards? Is that increasing or decreasing? And there's hardly any areas where there's been a baseline that's there.
Carolyn Kitto
I remember being in a conference in India. And in the panel that was discussing, the discussion was around how how aftercare agencies were able to support people coming out of slavery, and how many they were able to support amongst the approximately eight organisations all doing brilliant work, who were presenting between them in any one year, they could help approximately 120 people to come out of slavery. I was sitting next to a colleague who leaned over and said to me, the problem is, I estimate that there are about 1000 children a day, who are trafficked out of the area that I am living in and taken into quarries, domestic work, and even into brothels. How are we going to address something of this size?
Fuzz Kitto
A good friend Matt Friedman from the Mekong club. Estimates estimates that around about 30,000 people every day, new people are caught in slavery, as NGOs, governments, health agencies, etc. We're able to help probably no more than 190 people out of slavery every day 30,180 out, do the maths on that one, we have got a long way to go. And we certainly are behind the eight ball on that. It's an illegal crime. It's hard to measure. And it's designed to be cover up because slave traders, let's call them what they are. Don't do. statistics don't do a census form don't put in tax forms that says, Oh, we've had an increase of 5.87% in the sale of slaves this year. So there's no way of actually knowing exactly what's happening. But we do know that, for instance, in the chocolate industry that we do a lot in particularly with the work that we do with the chocolate scorecard. And you can look that up on chocolate scorecard.com. We know that from the NOC report, which was done by the University of Chicago for the Department of Labour in the US as a part of a thing called the hackling angle protocol. They made a commitment every five years they do an assessment on child labour, particularly in West Africa, where around about 70% of the cocoa for chocolate in the world comes from and they found that there were 1.5 6 million children in child labour 1.48 at least had one component of hazardous child labour, like first forms of child labour. One of the biggest ones was exposure to pesticides, and then had been an incredible increase from 5% to 24% of that number that had been exposed to pesticide or the increase in exposure to pesticides and chemicals that were being used on cocoa farms. This tips had into worst forms of child labour, which is one of the forms of slavery, they had to be hospitalised or seek medical attention because they were exposed to it without proper education, or they were in the vicinity when it was being sprayed on trees or used in the ground or was dusted in the air. So whenever there's got to be that extent of exposure to it, then there's got to be ways of assessing that as chipping over the line into the worst forms of child labour. And it meant not going to school. And it makes it a modern slavery when that happens. And so when they brought a help out on the farm generally because the cocoa farmers are not getting enough money for the cocoa. Then what's happening is they are having to be forced to work on the farm underage and are not able to go to school which Here's again, one of the other definitions of child labour.
Carolyn Kitto
The second myth that we want to address is that modern slavery only happens in developing countries and not in Australia. The fact is, modern slavery happens everywhere. It's estimated that or should we say guestimated? Because, as we said, nobody really knows. There are approximately 41,000 of victims of modern slavery in Australia on any given day. Of that only 300 victims are reported to police and identified each year. And there have only been 31 successful convictions in two decades. This means that the vast, vast majority of victims are not receiving help, and they are definitely not receiving justice.
Fuzz Kitto
Remember, no one really knows it's a hidden crime. As the New South Wales Anti-slavery Commissioner James Cockayne, said, it might seem like a foreign concept to many this modern slavery, but modern slavery is all around us. It's happening right now on farms in regional New South Wales, in shops and construction sites in our cities. Perhaps even in a house down the street from where we live. We see women and children most vulnerable through domestic and family violence, cleaners and security, security guards working in office blocks, or looking after gated communities caught in the grip of debt bondage girls forced to marry here in New South Wales or overseas, and people living with disability who were exploited in segregated workplaces or even into institutional care. Migrant workers among those at greatest risk of modern slavery in New South Wales. Research released by in 2022 by unions New South Wales, the external site launch points to widespread Exploitation of Migrant Workers in Australia, particularly in the horticultural, hospitality, retail, and cleaning industries. Workplace abuse and exploitation including wage theft, retention of passports, deceptive recruitment and financial manipulation can indicate the presence of modern slavery, such as forced labour, debt, bondage, or even servitude. Recent examples of modern slavery in Australia are these
Carolyn Kitto
Yeah, hardly go to a workshop or a webinar that we do where somebody doesn't come up to us afterwards and say, I'm concerned about I have seen, there's a mini bus full of workers that seem to all be living together in the one house. I'm concerned about somebody who I've seen working in a situation that doesn't seem right, in a restaurant or somewhere else. Here is an example examples that have been in the media recently. They're examples of migrant workers and backpackers being enslaved on fishing boats in northern Australia. There was one just before Christmas, and then one just after Christmas. This has been astonishing because up until now, the Australian fishing industry has claimed that there has not been no modern slavery on fishing boats that are flagged from Australia. There have been domestic helpers in Melbourne found when they were taken to hospital and the hospital they happen to be taken to the emergency staff had been trained to recognise signs of modern slavery. And so the system was able to go into action to ensure that not only did this person receive the treatment that they needed, but they also received the health and justice that they deserve. There have been reports of people working in shops, from family owned shops, through to chains of of shops. There have been people in the horticultural industry picking fruit and vegetables in rural Australia, and the list can go on.
Fuzz Kitto
Everyone has a right to be free from slavery. And the thing is that it's hidden. We've just come back from the poll. And we're standing to discover the 65,000 students studying in Australia, in universities, etc. And this is one of the other big areas that we've seen abuse and make people vulnerable when they come to Australia. They can't afford to pay all the fees just on the resources that they have. And so they've got to go looking for ways to supplement that. And so they are vulnerable. And again, Anti-slavery Commissioner James Cockayne, has said to universities in New South Wales, because that's the area that he covers, you're on notice because you're not looking after your foreign students that are coming into Australia. So hopefully, this has been a bit of a collage to answer some of those first two myths and we're looking at the other myths in the next podcast and one after that in this series of three on the myths that are around regarding modern slavery. Our exposure is most of all in our products we buy. And we'll look at this in the next podcast when we're looking at slavery unravelled.
This has been Fuzz and Carolyn Kitto for slavery unravelled a project of the slavery free. Just to remind you that Slavery Unravelled is brought to you by Be Slavery Free. And if you want to know more actions, you can take it that the things you've heard, get more information and the more informed and also to donate to the work of Be Slavery Free, then you can do that on www.beslaveryfree.com/donate. And we look forward to having you back in the next podcasts and the series that we're doing.