Madam President, members of synod,
Gemma Baseley, Rector of St Paul’s Beaconsfield
I rise to move motion 17.7 on Modern Slavery, which stands in my name and is seconded by Revd Tim Russell from All Saints College, Bullcreek.
I first learned about modern slavery in 2001. At that time, it was estimated there were 21 million slaves in the world. In the past year, that figure reached 50 million.
The average price of a human in 2023 is 66 aussie dollars and, in the 5 minutes it takes me to move this motion, another 10 people will have been bought and sold, worldwide.
And while modern slavery and human trafficking is not as prevalent in Australia as it is elsewhere, there is not a single country in the world that isn’t impacted by this crime; either as a place where people are bought or sold, a route they are trafficked through, or somewhere complicit in buying the goods and services they are forced to create.
In Australia there are thought to be more than 41,000 people trapped in slavery but those working on the ground believe that even if you add a zero to that figure it would still be a conservative estimate. Here, the most common forms of slavery are forced labour in industries such as agriculture, horticulture, meat processing, and construction, forced marriage, and commercial sexual exploitation of adults and children.
And we are not excluded from this crime. Due to globalisation, products of slavery are prevalent in our homes. According to the Global Slavery Index, produced by the Minderoo Foundation, the most at risk products imported into Australia are computers, mobile phones, clothing and accessories, fish, rice and cocoa. These come to us via the hands of 16 million people enslaved and exploited by global supply chains. The problem is immense – so huge that it feels impossible to imagine, but each statistic has a name.
So, I stand here today on behalf of Miriam, who was trafficked from Nigeria to London, where she was bought by three different Christian families, over ten years. She lived on the kitchen floor, eating scraps left by the children, and working 16 or more hours each day. Every Sunday, Miriam was taken to church and sat in Anglican pews, between her slave owners. When I met Miriam, she told me that, week after week, she hoped someone would ask if she was ok. She said she tried to communicate with her eyes that she needed help, but nobody noticed, and nobody asked. It took a raid from the home office for Miriam to be freed.
And I am standing on behalf of the man who walked into a church-run café and slid a piece of paper across the counter as he ordered his coffee, saying ‘I am a slave. Please help’. And those who were serving refreshments didn’t know what to do.
And I am standing on behalf of Ruqia Haidari, an Afghan girl from Melbourne who was sold into a forced marriage for $15,000 and trafficked to Perth. She confided in her school friend that she didn’t want to marry a stranger, but her friend didn’t know what to do and two months later she was murdered by her husband, In Balcatta, in this diocese.
I believe we want to help. We want to stop this crime against humanity and restore dignity for all God’s children, but we don’t necessarily know how.
This motion provides all faith leaders with opportunities for meaningful and appropriate training by Walk Free and My Blue Sky, via the Social Responsibilities Commission, so we can spot the signs, source effective referral pathways, and communicate effectively with those who are in our pews, our prisons, our care homes and our classrooms, so future Miriams and Ruqias and visitors to our drop-in centres might be safe and free.
I urge you to support this motion.
Holy Adventures 