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Trafficking of Women

“As unimaginable as it seems, slavery and bondage still persist in the early 21st century. Millions of people around the world still suffer in silence in slave-like situations of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. Trafficking in persons is one of the greatest human rights challenges of our time.” [U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2003]

Trafficking of Women, as an issue, has been endorsed by most religious congregations of women in Australia as well as St Patrick’s Province of Christian Brothers in Australia as a major issue.  

“is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation.”
(UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons) Extent of Women Trafficking Annually

IN AUSTRALIA: At least 1000 adult women are brought to Australia every year to work as prostitutes.

	700,000 – 2 million  women trafficked - largest number of victims come from Asia, between $250 - $25,000  per shipment …it’s a  BILLION DOLLAR business on EVERY continent
	75,000 trafficked from Eastern Europe
	South-East Asia - over 225,000 women. From South Asia - over 150,000 women. From former Soviet Union – over 100,000
	From Latin America to the United States and Europe - 200,000 to 500,000 trafficked

	Marginalised women and children
	Ethnic minorities
	Indigenous people and hill tribes
	Refugees and illegal migrants
	Illiterate women, runaway girls

CAUSES OF TRAFFICKING

vulnerability due to:

	Poverty
	Lack of Education
	Economic conditions / lack of life-sustaining work
	Cultural factors eg equity and equal rights of women
	Inequity related to ethnic, cultural or language demographics
	Social and political instability eg. persecution, violence, environmental disasters

greed due to:

	Exploitation of labour to maintain low cost structures
	Trafficking is third largest criminal industry in the world after arms and drug dealing, and generates billions of dollars every year
	Sex trafficking involves sexual exploitation in prostitution or pornography, bride trafficking
	Labour trafficking eg domestic servitude and small-scale labour operations as well as sweatshops and farms

…..the Church desires to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the "mystery of woman" and for every woman - for that which constitutes the eternal measure of her feminine dignity, for the "great works of God", which throughout human history have been accomplished in and through her  (MD #31)

Australian ngo shadow:  Report on Trafficked Women in Australia - see Good Shepherd web-site.

http://www.goodshepherd.com.au/justice/index

http://www.humantrafficking.com/humantrafficking/

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/