How To Help Stop Modern Slavery

If you think someone is being exploited, the most useful thing you can do first is nothing visible. Do not confront the employer, do not raise it with the person while others are around, and do not start gathering proof yourself. Each of those can put the person at greater risk and give whoever controls them a reason to move them on.

What helps is a phone call. Australian Red Cross delivers the Support for Trafficked People Program, funded by the Department of Social Services, and takes calls on 1800 113 015 from anyone worried about a friend, family member, colleague or someone they know. You can get confidential advice without naming the person and without committing them to anything. If someone is in immediate danger, call the police on 000.

After that, what is useful depends on where you sit:

• Reporting to the Australian Federal Police on 131 AFP (131 237) is one route and it is not the only one. Support does not depend on the person assisting an investigation, which matters because fear of police is often exactly what keeps someone silent.
• At work, use your own speak-up channel and describe what you actually saw. Who was working, at what hours, paid how, living where. Leave the conclusion to the people whose job it is to reach one.
• If you buy from suppliers, ask one specific question you can check rather than a general one about compliance.
• Remember that the person decides. Participation in the support programme is voluntary and they can leave it at any time.

Most people who end up helping are not specialists. They are a co-worker, a neighbour or a customer who noticed something and asked someone who would know. The Australian Red Cross support page sets out what the programme provides and how to reach it. This is general information rather than legal advice, and circumstances differ, so take advice on anything specific.

For the organisational side of this, see human rights and workplace culture, or Sentrient’s modern slavery course within the wider compliance training courses.