Promoting a Human Rights Response to Slavery and
Trafficking in Australia
High Court Hearing Canberra 13-14 May 2008
In 2006 in the Victorian County Court Wei Tang, a Victorian woman, was found
guilty of possessing and using a slave and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment
with a non-parole period of 6 years. Wei Tang appealed this decision to the
Victorian Court of Appeal which found that the trial judge had misdirected
the jury on some points. The case was scheduled for a retrial, but in the meantime
the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions sought leave to appeal the
Victorian Court of Appeal decision to the High Court of Australia.
On 13 and 24 May 2008 there was a full High Court hearing: a process of testing
the arguments and submission about the meaning of the slavery offences in the
Criminal Code.
This is a program within
Samaritan House which provides accommodation and support to homeless women.
Sex trafficking in Australia 07 March 2008
When this story broke, Jennifer Burn (Director of the
Anti-Slavery Project) was approached by the ABC to make a comment. Her
texts are available as follows:
Outback truckies trade in child sex, drugs March 13
It is important to realise that the movement or transfer
of children through abuse of a position of vulnerability or fraud or deception
for the purposes of exploitation is trafficking. In a bid to stop girls
as young as eight years of age from being paid for sex, Aboriginal elders
in Boggabilla and Moree convinced young women with first hand experience
in the truck stop trade to speak to Lateline.
On Wednesday, 12 March 2008, Liberal Senator ELLISON (Western
Australia) drew the Senate’s attention to the Vienna Forum and its implications
for Australian initiatives against human trafficking.
This is a program within Samaritan House
which provides accommodation and support to homeless women.
Links
Many of the non-government organisations (NGOs)
below can provide direct assistance to enslaved and trafficked people
in addition to human rights policy advocacy. Links to some government
organisations (GOs) and inter-governmental organisations (IGOs)
have also been provided. If you need to find a resource in a country
that is not currently listed, please contact us for further assistance.
La
Strada Foundation – an anti-trafficking network in Poland,
the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Belarussia,
Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia and Moldova.
Anti-Slavery Project, University of
Technology Sydney
Faculty of Law, PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61-2-9514 9662 Fax: +61-2-9514 9685
