Slavery Exists in Australia

The ABC recently ran an article on Modern Slavery in Australia, which featured Aranya’s story (name changed for privacy) of modern slavery for sexual exploitation in Victorian brothels. It’s a story we hear too often.

Aranya found herself paying $100 a week to sleep on the floor of someone else’s kitchen, forced to cook, do laundry and clean for a family she barely knew. Then she was recruited to work in a massage parlour that doubled as a brothel, for at least 10 hours a day, only paid per client, with no idea how to escape. It is claimed she owes $9,000 in unpaid rent.

Debt bondage within the sex industry is a form of modern slavery that coerces people into the industry and/or keeps them from leaving.

Australian Red Cross’s Kyla Raby says, victim-survivors “often blame themselves or think they chose to be in that situation.”

You can read Aranya’s story here.