Wow, what a surprise. Imagine some people not being honest when filling out an application to enter Australia. Why not one of those dumb self-reporting clauses that Centrelink includes in some of its forms? And to think some people advocate open borders.

So we have two instances of one woman and five women - incidently brought in and made slaves by another woman (yes Wei Tang is a woman, a fact curiously ommitted), and all of a sudden we have an epidemic worthy of special legislation.

But lo, Ann Gallagher is in possession of a mass of detailed information about the 'trade'. What trade? Where does she get her facts - or factoids - from? These six women? The interrogation of Mrs Tang the Slaver? They resemble the ones that do the rounds in the feminist movement where verifyables are rare and mendacities abound.

amfortas
The 2004 report by the House of Representatives Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission states:

While it seems to be generally accepted that approximately 300 women are trafficked into the country each year for sex work, the number of these who can be considered to be in servitude is likely to be relatively small. Whether the figure is as low as Scarlet Alliance's estimate of ten, or as high as Project Respect's estimate of one thousand, is impossible to determine accurately. Contract women who have been trafficked into Australia represent a continuum of those who enter with full knowledge and consent; those who enter with consent but are deceived as to conditions; and those who enter Australia completely deceived as to their work in the sex industry.

The cases mentioned in the post are those that have been prosecuted in the courts.

I do not think that the Joint Committee under the previous Howard Government was a hotbed of members from the feminist movement where verifyables are rare and mendacities abound. The committee went on to say that:

However, the Committee agrees with Ms Maltzahn of Project Respect that, whatever the final proportions represented in each category, [it] is a significant enough problem that we need to take it seriously. I do not think it is just a few aberrations that we are finding.

Unlike you the Australian Crime Commission is taking the issue seriously, as judged by its latter submission in 2005 to the Joint Committee.

Look I'm sure it's only 2 or 3 women involved in this. Everybody back to sleep.

odd that both RumpoleQC and amfortas say there's nothing here to worry apart from the odd case when a Parliament committee and the Australian Crime Commission found otherwise.

Strange. I would have thought that Rumpole QC would have been interested in the legal questions around human trafficking, sexual bondage and slavery and could have informed us about the way the High Court would address these issues in the Queen v Wei Tang case in relation to international law.

This is one of those issues that surfaces from time to time and largely gets ignored, partly I think, because as in this case, Asian women are exploiting other Asian women.

It's also an ongoing problem for Russian and Ukrainian women.

I don't see how it's a feminist issue. What kind of man would think this sort of thing is ok?

plenty, Lyn plenty

you people here sound like you know what your talking about, what excalty are the legal issues that would prevent the prosecution from winning this case. I know we aren't judging this case under international law, but what effect does this have on the case?
and why is it important for trafficking, forced prositiution and slavery to be linked togethet for the case?

I'd guess that the number who are clearly in "sex slavery" is probably small - of course we should prosecute vigorously in these cases. For one thing, most johns would prefer the lady to cooperate (despite what Gary says). As implied, there may be rather more borderline cases though.

The reason it's hard to know, though, is that everyone involved has a strong incentive to lie. Granting permanent residency to freed "sex slaves" to encourage them to go to the police (as reformers often suggest) is likely to result in an awful lot of bogus cases.

RumpoleQC
There are disagreements about numbers and definitions according to this account in The Age by Karen Kissane. Thus Nina Vallins, joint co-ordinator of anti-trafficking group Project Respect, says 1000 women are trafficked every year into Australia for the purposes of sex work.

Elena Jeffry's, from Scarlet Alliance (the Australian Sex Workers Association), claims the figure is only 400 and says the women are not "trafficked" but are migrant sex workers. "The money they earn here sets them up for the rest of their lives in their home country," Jeffreys argues.

Vallins defines trafficking as having three ingredients: a person is moved from place A to place B; the person has either been kidnapped, or has agreed to go but been deceived about the circumstances that await them at point B; and the purpose of moving the person is to exploit them.

AKP,
According to Karen Kissane's this account in The Age the Wei Tang case before the High Court is important because the questions being raised — such as whether Tang should have been convicted if she did not knowingly intend to possess slaves — have implications for cases even under the new laws about sex trafficking and causing a person to enter into debt bondage.

The High Court must decide the constitutionality of the slavery laws, how slavery should be defined in the 21st century, and what needs to be proved to win a conviction. It must also decide how the crime of slavery should be interpreted in relation to our international human rights obligations. Solicitor-General David Bennett, who appeared in order to speak for the federal Attorney-General, argued that the slavery laws were supported by the external powers section of the constitution. He said the laws were drafted along the same lines as international anti-slavery treaties to which Australia is party. Brett Walker, for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, who also joined the case argued that international and Australian lawmakers had intended the definition of slavery to include slavery in all its forms, including sexual servitude and debt bondage.

Nina Vallins, joint co-ordinator of anti-trafficking group Project Respect, says "It's the most crucial test of our criminal laws against sexual and all other forms of slavery ever to come before an Australian court."

The harder ball to catch about Australia's sex industry, is the local women have been forced into slavery!!

There is a technique popular among Australian criminals, which men teach to each other in the prison system, by which a group of people organised into it, can cause the form of mental illness which, when not well managed, can manifest in many people, as a real multiple personality disorder. There is information available in the internet about how American psychologists have uncovered cases of teenage girls raped and abused by organised crime, through specific techniques of ritualised abuse; until they are either displaying the symptoms of a multiple personality disorder, or they are working as a drug addicted, and drug selling, prostitute.

A few folk escape to tell the tale, and the stories are horrendous, and are endemic among Australians who are involved with drug crimes. How I know? is a very long story, but with much thanks to a considerable few Aboriginal men who have spent time in the prisons, and spotted me as somebody who was worth saving from the worst of what goes on.

In the prisons, the men who gain the right favour from the right bosses of organised crime, are being paid to study psychology to get the job right. Its a very serious social problem that the mainstream has been too afraid to tackle, but which is acknowledged well in the indigenous community, who normally will not speak about the matter due to need for immediate safety, (and also for cultural reasons which require that nothing is spoken about until a real resolution is found), but since I am a white Aborigine, I can cope with the story of being who puts the information out. Check out the first post of my website "do you know me" at wordpress, if you want a bit more detail.