#5: The latest anti-slavery antics and awards, TV coverage and resources

Because we're all short on time and there is a lot happening in the anti-slavery space, we're breaking things down into the choicest, bite-size pieces.

Subscribe and share if you're a practitioner or just interested in the fight to end #modernslavery, including online sexual exploitation of children (#OSEC).

This month in …

OSEC

• Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) ’s Foreign Correspondent aired an in-depth story about OSEC in the Philippines, featuring the work of the Australian Federal Police , Philippine authorities and interviews with IJM staff. We’re grateful to reporter Stephanie March and producer Naomi Selvaratnam for their compassionate and nuanced coverage of this horrendous and heartbreaking crime.
• The eSafety Commissioner has given the online industry until the end of March to strengthen protections for children in their draft industry codes, saying she had told them, “my preliminary views that the draft industry codes as they stand do not provide appropriate community safeguards and would not meet the statutory requirements for registration.”
• The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (#ACCCE) ran a stakeholder day focused on how to get OSEC onto the national agenda (thanks for having IJM for the first time, and hi to everyone we met there!)

• Decorated anti-OSEC law enforcement leader Jon Rouse APM has retired and announced he will be stepping into roles with AiLECS Lab Lab as well as ICMEC Australia ’s Board of Directors.
• This short article from U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations special agent Austin Berrier provides a window into just how heinous online sexual exploitation of children is, and how tough it is to be on the frontlines fighting it.
• ACAMS has launched a course designed to support anti-financial crime analysts and criminal investigators to use crypto assets and compliance data to identify and track the billions of dollars in illicit proceeds generated from child abuse material.

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Modern slavery

• #cyberscamming slavery is increasingly making headlines in the region, and in Australia. February and March saw what may be the first ever convictions for this new form of modern slavery (certainly the first IJM has been involved in), with three recruiters convicted and sentenced in #Indonesia, for trafficking their compatriots to a scamming centre in #Cambodia. This emerging issue is covered in the latest episode of ABC Foreign Correspondent.
• Subsequently, the Indonesian Government has provided technical guidance to its Southeast Asia staff for how to deal with cases of cyberscamming slavery.
• Be Slavery Free Australia released their latest Chocolate Scorecard this week, in time for #Easter.
• Congrats are due to?Vanessa Zimmerman,?Moe Turaga,?Robyn Parkin, The OAASIS Project,?Ramila Chanisheff?and?Rex Patrick, Investors Against Slavery and Trafficking Asia Pacific,?Cocogun, and the?Australian Federal Police?Human Trafficking Team Sydney - all of whom were recognised at Anti-Slavery Australia 's #FreedomAwards last week.

• In a #hoax that fooled many (including the Australian Financial Review, apparently), Clean Clothes Campaign published a media release purportedly from adidas, appointing supposed “former garment worker Va Ya Nak Phoan” as co-CEO of the global #fashion giant. The stunt was designed to raise awareness about unfair and unsafe worker conditions at adidas factories.

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Quote of the month

This job is not just figuratively but is literally killing the cops who investigate these crimes. I have gained 60lbs, I am on blood thinner, blood pressure meds, my hair is falling out and I look older than my 50 years. I have nightmares. I see those kids’ faces, not just in my sleep but when I look at my own kids.

Austin Berrier, HSI special agent

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