The website is a place where people moving to Australia can register their details with the organisation. Traffic Jam, run by volunteers, will then keep in contact with them, checking on them as they settle in Australia.
“This is a vehicle for them to just have a bit more peace of mind and know that they will be followed up via their details,” Mr De Silva explained. “If we lose contact with them and we can’t contact them through their family and friends we will then provide those details to the human trafficking section of the federal police.”
A group of local sex workers, however, is concerned that this will just further impact the discrediting of the sex industry, which is legal in NSW. “It gives people a false impression of the sex industry and what’s going on in Australia,” one protestor said. “If there was exploitation in the sex industry, sex workers would be the first against it. We would be the first to speak out against it.”
Traffic Jam insists that Australia is seen as a “destination country” for human trafficking. In 2011-12 the then-named Department of Immigration and Citizenship referred 31 reports of possible people trafficking to the AFP.
While media coverage generally links human trafficking with the sex industry, a NSW government inquiry last year found a lack of understanding that human trafficking involves the continuing exploitation of victims, not just the smuggling of people over borders. It also highlighted that exploitation more frequently occurs in family homes and businesses.
Human trafficking does not just concern sexual exploitation but forced labour, slavery, servitude and involuntary organ donation. In Australia it can be carried out through deceptive practices in contract terms or recruiting practices. It is these practices the organisation seeks especially to combat in its fight to help end human trafficking and slavery by 2020.
