Pacific.Scoop
By Krista Ferguson

It is time to put the rhetoric aside and focus on the true cost of human trafficking in the Pacific, say participants in an upcoming forum.

The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective and the Salvation Army say the numbers involved in human trafficking can sometimes be exaggerated and it’s time to present hard evidence.

Both organisations are presenting at the first Pacific Trafficking in Persons Forum to be held in New Zealand early next month.

National coordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective Catherine Healy says that people often say there is trafficking in New Zealand but her organisation has not found evidence of this.

“We’re the only organisation working hands-on nationwide with sex workers and we’re not seeing any evidence of trafficking.”

Healy says it would be difficult to hide an “underground” operation with trafficked labour given that advertising is needed to attract clients to a brothel.

“The idea that there could be a place that is hiding away doesn’t stack up.”

Healy says that part of the issue in measuring the problem is that the annual 2009 US report Trafficking in Persons defines a person as trafficked if they are working as a prostitute under the age of 18 regardless of where they are from.

As a result, New Zealand has scored badly on this scale.

New Zealand’s definition of trafficking wouldn’t record that, she says.

Justice Advocate for the Salvation Army Chris Frazer says the forum will bring people together to focus on the evidence and to discuss the issues.

“We want to separate fact from fiction. What lies behind? How big is it?”

Frazer says the issue has been misrepresented by the media in the past. For example, in the 2006 Football World Cup, media reported that 40,000 young women would be trafficked into Germany as sex workers.

This number was never sourced, says Frazer.

She believes it’s time for a Pacific focus on this issue.

“You can find a lot more information about Africa. There hasn’t been much focus on the Pacific.”

The evidence for trafficked labour in the Pacific is anecdotal but significant, says Frazer.

The American report says Fiji is a source country for children trafficked for the purposes of labour and commercial sexual exploitation, and a destination country for women from a number of countries trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.

Fiji is given a “tier 3” rating – indicating the report authors’ view that its government is not making significant efforts to address this issue. Other Pacific countries are given similar low ratings.

More than 21 Pacific nations will be represented at the forum, including Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Western Samoa.

Pacific Immigration Directors’ Conference secretariat head Viliami Lolohea says a team is dedicated to researching this issue. The Fiji-based group will be presenting their findings at the conference.

National Council of Women project coordinator KJ Smith, whose organisation advocates on behalf of women who are most likely to be the victims of trafficking, says she has struggled to find evidence of issues in the Pacific.

“There’s always speculation around. The research is quite minimal.”

She will attend the forum to find out more, she says.

The forum, co-hosted by the Salvation Army, the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Pacific Immigration Directors’ Conference, will be held in the Quality Hotel, September 2-4 in Wellington.

Krista Ferguson is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student at AUT University.