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To close the year for Eureka Street, the editorial team wanted to nominate who we considered to be the Eureka Street ‘person of the year’ based on this year's newsmakers.
A Global Slavery Index report found the number of people living in modern slavery in Australia had more than doubled in the past four years. As incidents rise, so too does the nation's response, evidenced by an increase in reported cases and government funding.
What does modern slavery look like? What facilitates it? What can be done to protect human beings from such exploitation? In this episode, we talk to the national executive officer of Australian Catholic Religious against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH). Christine Carolan.
Labour exploitation in Australia is a massive problem and becoming worse. And it's not like our parliamentarians are unaware of the facts. In March a senate report, titled 'A National Disgrace: Exploitation of Working Visa Holders', provided evidence of significant exploitation of vulnerable workers and made 33 recommendations to address these issues and work towards change. Yet, not one of these recommendations has been taken up and there is no sign yet that they will be.
Lobbies such as the Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce are frustrated but doing the right thing by attempting to appeal to the sense of compassion in our politicians. We can only trust in human nature that this will ultimately prevail. Unfortunately other groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby think in terms of the 'Christian vote' and play on politicians fear of electoral oblivion.
Controversry over the documentary Stolen at this month's Sydney Film Festival underlined how difficult it is to even acknowledge that slavery exists. Suppression of information about slavery in Australia allows the slave trade to continue.