Post by Moses on Jul 6, 2005 20:35:07 GMT -5
Trafficked women 'being raped, starved'
July 6, 2005 - 6:04PM
At least 1,000 women are kept in debt-bonded prostitution in Australia, where they are raped, beaten and starved, a new paper shows.
The women, usually from Thailand and Burma, are brought into Australia by human traffickers who force them to work as prostitutes - often in legal brothels - for free until they pay off "debts" of up to $50,000.
The paper, published this week by the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA), reviews research and developments in trafficking in women for sexual exploitation since the early 1990s.
Of the 700,000 people trafficked each year across the globe, 80 per cent are women and girls and 70 per cent of those are traded for sex, it says.
There are at least 1,000 adult women in Australia in any one year who have been brought here to work as prostitutes and most have their passports removed and are subjected to violence and rape to "break them in".
"They are usually locked in the brothel ... or a house with other trafficked women," the paper's author, Lara Fergus, writes.
"This is often the period where the women experience the most violence.
"The traffickers need to break their resistance, show them that they are essentially the property of the trafficker (and) in no position to make choices or decisions about their lives.
"The sexual violence teaches them that they are there simply to satisfy customers and cannot refuse types of customers or any sexual act, including sex without condoms.
"Some victims report being shown pornographic images or videos and told that this is what they will be required to do.
"Rape, physical violence, starvation, and threats of harm to the women's families are all used to instil fear and punish those who resist or try to escape."
They are then forced to perform between 500 and 1,000 "free" jobs to pay off their debt to the trafficker.
Legislation outlawing human trafficking passed federal parliament last month, delivering a 12-year sentence for trading adults and 20 years for children.
A joint parliamentary committee into the Australian Crime Commission's response to trafficking in women for sexual servitude handed down a report into its year-long investigation in June last year.
But the new ACSSA paper also identified a gaping hole in the research into human trafficking for prostitution - demand.
In Sweden, for example, prostitution is seen as a form of violence against women, it said.
But in Australia, there is a growing tendency towards legalising prostitution, which could undermine the possibility of addressing demand for prostitutes.
Anti-trafficking organisations also point to a lack of victim support in Australia's response to the problem.
"Current victim support initiatives are limited to those victims of trafficking who are contributing to a police investigations," the groups argue.
Ms Fergus said traffickers often dob the women in to immigration officials when their usefulness as sex workers wanes.
In 1998-99, 237 women illegally in Australia were deported after being found in brothels.
At that time, immigration officials were not required to question the women to work out whether they had been trafficked.
"Sometimes the traffickers turn them in to DIMIA (the Department of Immigration) to be deported because they're no longer a fresh face," Ms Fergus told AAP.
The federal government committed $20 million over four years to combat trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2003.
© 2005 AAP
July 6, 2005 - 6:04PM
At least 1,000 women are kept in debt-bonded prostitution in Australia, where they are raped, beaten and starved, a new paper shows.
The women, usually from Thailand and Burma, are brought into Australia by human traffickers who force them to work as prostitutes - often in legal brothels - for free until they pay off "debts" of up to $50,000.
The paper, published this week by the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA), reviews research and developments in trafficking in women for sexual exploitation since the early 1990s.
Of the 700,000 people trafficked each year across the globe, 80 per cent are women and girls and 70 per cent of those are traded for sex, it says.
There are at least 1,000 adult women in Australia in any one year who have been brought here to work as prostitutes and most have their passports removed and are subjected to violence and rape to "break them in".
"They are usually locked in the brothel ... or a house with other trafficked women," the paper's author, Lara Fergus, writes.
"This is often the period where the women experience the most violence.
"The traffickers need to break their resistance, show them that they are essentially the property of the trafficker (and) in no position to make choices or decisions about their lives.
"The sexual violence teaches them that they are there simply to satisfy customers and cannot refuse types of customers or any sexual act, including sex without condoms.
"Some victims report being shown pornographic images or videos and told that this is what they will be required to do.
"Rape, physical violence, starvation, and threats of harm to the women's families are all used to instil fear and punish those who resist or try to escape."
They are then forced to perform between 500 and 1,000 "free" jobs to pay off their debt to the trafficker.
Legislation outlawing human trafficking passed federal parliament last month, delivering a 12-year sentence for trading adults and 20 years for children.
A joint parliamentary committee into the Australian Crime Commission's response to trafficking in women for sexual servitude handed down a report into its year-long investigation in June last year.
But the new ACSSA paper also identified a gaping hole in the research into human trafficking for prostitution - demand.
In Sweden, for example, prostitution is seen as a form of violence against women, it said.
But in Australia, there is a growing tendency towards legalising prostitution, which could undermine the possibility of addressing demand for prostitutes.
Anti-trafficking organisations also point to a lack of victim support in Australia's response to the problem.
"Current victim support initiatives are limited to those victims of trafficking who are contributing to a police investigations," the groups argue.
Ms Fergus said traffickers often dob the women in to immigration officials when their usefulness as sex workers wanes.
In 1998-99, 237 women illegally in Australia were deported after being found in brothels.
At that time, immigration officials were not required to question the women to work out whether they had been trafficked.
"Sometimes the traffickers turn them in to DIMIA (the Department of Immigration) to be deported because they're no longer a fresh face," Ms Fergus told AAP.
The federal government committed $20 million over four years to combat trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2003.
© 2005 AAP