Labour trafficking in Australia is misunderstood by the vast majority of Australian citizens and the mistreatment and exploitation of migrant workers is nothing new to a country that built itself upon the backs of scores of deceased Indigenous populations. This time, its Four Corners (10/10/2011) that have attempted a risqué expose on sex trafficking and instead entered the murky world of lazy reporting, misreporting a legal industry that for the most part plays by the rules and at the same time ignoring the large spectrum of labour exploitation that occurs in Australia with migrant workers daily- not just within the sex industry.
It can take many different forms- poor working conditions, longer shifts, underpaying wages and covert sexual harassment, right through to rape and sexual debt bondage. For individuals who owe debts (real or invented) to traffickers, forced labour and slavery are compounded by an inability to breach the language barriers amid threats of deportation and a legal system that is thoroughly different in our country to others. Migrant workers are consistently one of the most vulnerable groups and it is this marginalisation that often leaves individuals and families without a way in which to recoup lost time or money or how to press charges against abuses from employers. While politicians love to bleat about “the Asians taking ‘our’ jobs” the protection of labour rights is important so that migrant labour is not exploited for lower pay and worse conditions than would ever be expected of our citizens. When unskilled labour positions go to migrant workers for lower pay it is not job theft from the local labour pool- it is exploitation of the migrant workers. This is an important distinction to make in the argument for market legislation and it is also imperative that this is upheld across all industries, not just the ones in which the job descriptions involve carnal activities.
Sexual slavery is defined by legislation and the terms of it are stressed to every single approved brothel manager in a legal brothel in Victoria. When one applies for a new approval, or renews a three-year approval certificate, this duty of care is stressed both in the application and in the interview which each potential manager must attend in order to be granted approval. Without this approval, an individual cannot act as a manager in any manner in any legal brothel in Victoria. To remain open, there must be an approved manager on site at all times- this is not negotiable and leaves brothel owners open to massive fines. Furthermore, in 2010 Consumer Affairs Victoria produced a poster that each legal brothel must display in every working room as well as reception and by all exits, that defines sexual slavery and where to get help. This allows the government to feel good about helping individuals affected by sexual servitude or debt bondage while doing nothing, given that most sex traffickers do not do business through legal brothels and illegal brothels are unlikely to maintain a strong enough façade to include sexual slavery signs as a decoy. But- I digress.
Four Corners, in the latest string of quite lazy reporting from the program who traditionally upheld journalism against the vitriolic xenophobia of Today Tonight and A Current Affair, used Project Respect as the basis for their article- the same non-government organisation who spoke of re-criminalising the sex industry as a way to end trafficking of individuals for sexual servitude and debt bondage in May 2004 to Lateline. Through the eyes of staunch anti-sex trafficking, Project Respect honcho Kathleen Maltzahn, the program distorts the facts of the Papo case via the typical presentation of his teary mother proclaiming her son’s undoubted innocence and conveniently omits details of the police report that suggest he was anything but a martyr for the cause of hookers everywhere. This includes the information that Abraham Papo has methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death with more found in his car, that he was accused of violently storming the brothel in question and stealing items and money from reception before grabbing the tyre iron that killed him from his own vehicle to strike the individual who was not convicted of his death, based on a suggestion of self-defence.
The show also curiously failed to consult with Scarlet Alliance, the peak member organisation for sex workers in Australia, despite the migration programs that Scarlet Alliance provide as well as their assistance for anyone who believes that they are a victim of sexual enslavement. Instead, they consulted with Project Respect- who support sex workers just deep enough under the surface to maintain sufficient funding for their front as an anti-trafficking group hell-bent on forcing the sex industry back underground into the hands and deep pockets of the underworld, where abuses and exploitative conditions are likely to be far worse than they are currently if history is anything to go on. Project Respect aims focus around sex trafficking victims and provides extensive exit programs to get sex workers into ‘respectable’ jobs- this is a genuine need in the community, but this is absolutely a minority. Sex workers who have a particular issue concerning sex work but who are unwilling to leave the sex industry find that their requests for help fall on deaf ears as we are not considered educated enough to facilitate our own health and wellbeing and our agency is removed whenever we are pigeon-holed as diseased, deluded or deranged.
Not every migrant sex worker who has had a bad experience in the sex industry has been sexually enslaved. The sex industry includes employment conditions that mean some clients can be unpleasant or distasteful and shifts in brothels can be long due to extended operating hours not seen in many other industries. Criminal exploitation of marginalised individuals is a different matter and to confuse the two reduces the impact of how horrifying sexual slavery truly is to those affected or exposed to it.
The exploitation of migrant women in particular isn’t limited to sex work and sexual slavery is a symptom of a much bigger problem with migrant agency and marginalisation within the Australian community. Illegal brothels in Melbourne, completely unrelated to the legal industry and unregulated therefore much more prone to sex trafficking, would have served Four Corner’s purposes better for this argument however it would mean that the presentation is not as sensationalised. Most ‘illegal brothels’ in Melbourne are individual sex workers working from home without an exempt brothel permit and are not the red-lit terraces policed by a lacklustre return to a Vice Squad era, documented by a television program attempting to appear impartial. While sex work remains a moral playground for abolitionists and sex –positive feminists alike, all arguments surrounding labour trafficking needs to be based on the marginalisation of migrant workers, not the industry in which they are exploited.
Further reading, for individuals interested:
Research and public policy series no. 108- Labour Trafficking
Sex Slavery Sign- Consumer Affairs Victoria, .doc format
Migrant Workers Convention, Amnesty International Australia
Consumer Affairs guidelines for legal brothels
ABC Lateline transcript from May 2004- Project Respect position statement on sex work
Scarlet Alliance overview of sex trafficking laws
No-one Is Listening To Us- Christian Vega, 10/10/2011
Exposing the Flesh Trade (aka Sensationalist Journalism 101) by Delectable-Detriment
