This submission urges against prosecution approaches to trafficking in Victoria, written by a working party of Scarlet Alliance volunteers.
At least 0.5% of the migrant workforce globally experiences trafficking or slavery-like conditions. This is indisputable and stems directly from exclusionary immigration policies regarding migrant labour and the third party traffickers who create profit from individuals’ desires to travel and work. Lack of access to migration pathways leads sex workers to consider third party contracts. This has been brought to the attention of authorities by sex worker organisations, including the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria, since the late 1980s.
Migrant sex workers from South East Asian countries face real and perceived barriers accessing migration pathways without the aid of third parties, migration agents and/or traffickers. Migrant sex workers choose contract labour as a means of gaining legitimate access to the legal and decriminalised sex industries of Australia. This makes them vulnerable to trafficking or slavery-like conditions.
