International Justice Mission (IJM) has launched in Australia with the aim of mobilising the church in this country to respond to the hidden epidemic of violence perpetrated against the poor. ACL's Katherine Spackman spoke to chief executive Amber Hawkes about the work of International Justice Mission.

To coincide with the International Day of Remembrance for the victims of slavery, the federal government has announced more than $1.4 million in funding to four anti-slavery organisations. Jennifer Burn is the Director of Anti-Slavery Australia at the University of Technology, Sydney, which is one of recipients of the funding. She talks to ACL's Katherine Spackman about the funding and its free online anti-slavery course.

Caroline Norma is a member of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia. Last week a House of Representatives committee handed down its report from an inquiry into slavery and people trafficking making 8 recommendations including introducing a compensation scheme for trafficking victims. (Read related blog post Federal slavery inquiry ignores Swedish legislative approach to combating human trafficking) In this interview with the ACL's Katherine Spackman, Caroline Norma responds to the committee's report. A 5 minute interview can be listened to below or an extended 12 minute version here.

MEDIA RELEASE



Monday, April 8, 2013



The Australian Christian Lobby today backed a push to oppose the reintroduction of legislation legalising brothels in Western Australia.



“Legalising brothels is a failed experiment and we know there is a link between legal brothels and human trafficking,” said Wendy Francis, ACL spokesperson on Prostitution and Human Trafficking.



“There is a disproportionate number of overseas and overseas-born women in prostitution and many have limited English skills which should send alarm bells to society.



“The 2010 The Sex Industry in Western Australia report showed that about half of prostituted men and women in Perth were not born in Australia and almost one in five rated their skills as ‘fair’ or ‘poor’.



“Increasingly we’re hearing stories of women being trafficked to Australia from south-east Asia and sold for sex. Only last year 18 men in South Korea were arrested for pimping women to Sydney and Melbourne,” she said.



Mrs Francis welcomed comments from Member for Southern River Peter Abetz for the government to send a delegation to Sweden to investigate the Nordic approach when it comes to prostitution reform which criminalises the purchase of sex and tackles the demand from ‘Johns’.



“ACL has made many submissions state and territory parliaments in Australia advocating this approach, but the best thing would be for Western Australian MPs to visit Sweden and see for themselves how it’s impacted society and the number of women being trafficked to the country.



Christian leaders raised the Nordic model with the Premier Colin Barnett and Opposition leader Mark McGowan at a pre-election forum attended by 800 people in February.



Mr Barnett encouraged MPs to use their travel entitlement to investigate the Nordic approach.



'The Government should send a delegation to Nordic and other countries which have adopted this successful policy approach to a difficult issue,' Ms Francis said.



“If Australia is really concerned about equality between men and women then prostitution reform is one area where we can encourage a healthy view of womanhood where they’re not viewed as objects available on demand for men’s pleasure,” she said.