The Australian anti-trafficking response is relatively new. The response is still developing and knowledge and experience is still being accumulated. Nonetheless, this research identified several issues that merit further consideration. These issues are discussed in this section.
Reconceptualise or expand coverage of the visa framework to accommodate situations where victims of trafficking need help but do not want to talk to the police
There is no doubt that the People Trafficking Visa Framework has led to an increase in detections of victims of trafficking by law enforcement. AFP investigators interviewed were able to give several examples of cases where they literally would not have been able to convince key witnesses to talk to them, had it not been for the availability of the BFV to regularise their status. However, while the visa framework has assisted some victims to come forward, it is not available to all victims of trafficking. Under the existing system, women can only be offered a visa under the visa framework if they are both willing and able to assist an investigation. Women who want help – but do not want to talk to the police – are outside the coverage of the visa framework. Women who are willing but unable to help the police (for example, because their cases are historical and key evidence has been lost) are also outside the coverage of the framework.
Experience in the sexual assault context confirms that many women want support and assistance but do not want to be pressured to talk to the police. It is likely that similar considerations apply to trafficking that involves sexual exploitation. Under the present system, women may be able to access a level of assistance from no-questions-asked services, such as sex worker support organisations or inner-city health clinics. However, these services are not resourced to respond to the needs of victims of trafficking. Also, if women do come forward and are unable to assist an investigation, they may face deportation even if they are victims of trafficking unless they are able to access another visa category. This may constitute a significant disincentive for women seeking help.
Consideration should be given to how best to address this issue. It may be necessary to make visas available to victims of trafficking that need assistance but do not want to participate in a criminal justice process. It may also be necessary to completely disconnect the issue of visas from the criminal justice process. This would be consistent with other existing categories of visas, where decisions reflect humanitarian concerns, rather than a link to participation in a criminal justice process.
For example, the family violence provisions in Australia's migration program currently allow people who are escaping domestic violence to continue with their applications for permanent residence, even after the breakdown of the relationship. There is no requirement that such applicants participate in an investigation or prosecution of their former partner. The provisions were introduced in response to community concern that some spouses or partners may feel compelled to remain in abusive relationships rather than end the relationship and be forced to leave Australia. It is arguable that similar considerations apply in the trafficking context, where victims of trafficking may find themselves in situations of increasing vulnerability, because they fear seeking help and risking deportation.
At the time of writing, DIAC was conducting a review of the people trafficking visa regime. During October 2007–January 2008, DIAC met with key government and non-government stakeholders to discuss the effectiveness of the current arrangements. As at 29 February 2008, the government was considering the outcomes of the consultation.
Clarify time frames for moving women onto longer-term visa categories
Defence counsel has and probably will continue to argue that the People Trafficking Visa Framework creates an incentive for victims to fabricate their stories. However, this is not a sufficient reason to delay decisions about moving victims of trafficking onto longer-term visa options, including Witness Protection (Trafficking) Visas. If decisions about visas are delayed until court processes are resolved, women face the prospect of being on a Criminal Justice Stay Visa (that can be cancelled at any time) for at least two years and possibly up to four or five years. The impact of this practice on clients of the program should be considered. One of the aims of the government's anti-trafficking response is victim support and rehabilitation. This needs to include creating a level of certainty for victims of trafficking about their migration status.
Consideration should be given to bringing forward, or at least setting clear time frames, for when the AFP should seek a Witness Protection (Trafficking) Certificate from the Attorney-General (as the first step toward the grant of a longer-term visa). There is a risk that this will be used by defence counsel to argue witnesses have been 'bought'. However, the weight of this risk should not be borne entirely by the victim. Ultimately, it is the role of investigators to seek sufficient evidence to corroborate the victim's account and the role of prosecutors to convince the court that the victim's account is credible, irrespective of their visa status.
Fund culturally appropriate outreach services for women
The experience of the past four years confirms that some victims of trafficking will actively seek help. Accordingly, it is important that women have as many opportunities as possible to access information about support and services. Such information needs to be available in relevant languages, and presented in a way that takes account of cultural considerations. To date, most information has been provided in written form. While this is one strategy, consideration could be given to funding outreach services provided by workers with relevant language skills and cultural competence. There are already several outreach services for the sex industry operating around Australia. However, few have sufficient resources to engage workers to focus specifically on culturally and linguistically diverse groups. As many participants noted, without language and cultural competence, it is difficult to build trust and rapport. To be effective, outreach services need to be able to provide women with a range of options for responding to their situation, including that of seeking help without necessarily involving the police.
Ensure federally funded victim support measures are high quality and comprehensive
It is vital to ensure victim support services are both high quality and comprehensive. In addition to the humanitarian needs of the victims, AFP investigators saw this as vital to their ability to conduct an effective investigation. The CDPP also considers that high-quality victim support services are crucial to a successful prosecution.
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Creating the conditions for effective performance management
The Office for Women is responsible for monitoring the level and quality of federally funded victim support services. The contract for the victim support service was recently put out to tender. Accordingly, it is important that the new contract address performance monitoring considerations. Key considerations would seem to include ensuring the Office for Women has access to:
- a clear and objective assessment of the service needs of clients of the program
- a clear service standard, against which performance can be measured
- relevant, reliable, regular information from the contractor, and also from clients of the program and those that regularly interact with victims of trafficking.
Developing a service standard for victim support
It appears that key agencies, including the AFP and CDPP, need more information about exactly what services they can expect from the victim support provider. There also seems to be a need for a system or mechanism to help address possible points of tensions between a victim support provider and other agencies with competing considerations. Finally, individual clients need to have access to information in their own language about what services they can expect, about their rights and responsibilities, and about mechanisms for raising issues, complaints or providing feedback about individual services.
To help meet these objectives, it may be helpful to consider developing a service standard. Service standards are used in many contexts and typically include information about:
- what services the service provider is required to provide
- the level and quality of service that can be expected
- how case management needs will be balanced against the needs of law enforcement
- processes for raising issues or complaints about individual cases
- processes for raising broader issues, giving feedback or raising concerns about the overall service.
Ideally, a service standard would be developed with input from the various agencies that work most directly with suspected victims of trafficking, such as the AFP and CDPP. A service standard for the victim support service could form the basis of different products, including information sheets for the clients, but also information for the AFP, CDPP and other agencies and people involved in working directly with victims.
Also, mechanisms may need to be created to allow OfW to collect more information from clients about their experiences on the program. For example, this could take the form of periodic surveys or discussions with clients, including when they have exited the program, about their perceptions of the relevance and quality of the service, along with any ideas for improving the service.
Increasing involvement of other relevant community service providers
AFP investigators and several NGOs noted the benefits of the victim support provider networking broadly with existing community service providers. The individual needs of victims of trafficking are likely to be highly variable and complex. It is not realistic for one service to try to meet all needs of all clients (a fact noted in the set up of the program, which involves a case management approach). By building strong links into the community, the victim support service will be better able to 'fill in the gaps' left by mainstream services.
Victims of trafficking have, to date, been drawn from some of the more marginal groups in society, including illegal workers, female migrants and sex workers. It is not realistic to expect that this client group will always receive appropriate, sensitive and high-quality care from just any service provider. Stigmatisation, stereotyping and lack of information have an impact on the quality and appropriateness of service delivery. This suggests that services should, where possible, be drawn from existing services that have a depth of relevant specialisation and expertise. In this context, this might include services that have experience working with sex workers, clients from particular cultural and linguistic groups, victims of sexual assault, and migrants with complex legal needs. It is likely that increased engagement with existing service providers would effectively extend the services that can be offered under the program while ensuring services are appropriate to clients' needs.
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Capture institutional learning in standard operating procedures
Over the past few years, individual AFP investigators have developed considerable experience and expertise, including how to work effectively with victims of trafficking. It is important that key lessons learnt are documented, so this can be passed on to newer investigators and to investigators in other parts of the country where there is no TSETT unit.
While relevant practices have developed, the AFP does not have a protocol or set of standard operating procedures that cover interviews or other interactions with victims of trafficking. In contrast, most state and territory police services have a range of key documents that guide the conduct of interactions with victims of crime, particularly with victims of sexual assault.
For example, Victoria Police has the detailed Code of practice for the investigation of sexual assault. The aims of the code are to:
- provide a coordinated approach to the handling sexual assault cases by police, Centres Against Sexual Assault and other victim assistance programs
- increase the confidence of sexual assault victims and the public in the police management of sexual assault cases and minimise trauma experienced by sexual assault victims during the investigation and court process
- increase the apprehension of offenders
- maximise successful prosecutions (Victoria Police 2005: 4).
The code covers issues such as caring for the victim and working with diverse communities, and provides detailed guidelines for first response and conduct of interviews. The code also includes a resource guide for police, including information about local services and facilities.
Standard operating procedures are important because they:
- help standardise practice
- can reflect institutional learning, thereby ensuring that 'good practice' becomes the standard practice throughout the organisation
- can form the basis of training activities
- are an objective measure for assessing performance.
Expand AFP training on working with victims of crime
Several AFP investigators noted that working directly with victims of crime is a relatively new development for the AFP. The AFP has traditionally worked on what might be considered victimless crimes, such as drug importation or crimes against the Commonwealth. Investigators noted that cultural competence and training in working effectively with victims of crime – and particularly victims who have experienced crimes that have a strong sexual element – were crucial. While these matters are part of the existing TSETT training program, there was also a view that such training could be expanded and localised.
Continue to build training opportunities for prosecutors
Since the introduction of the government's anti-trafficking measures, there has been considerable focus on training for law enforcement and immigration compliance officials. For example, the AFP's Transnational Sexual Exploitation Investigations Program has been operational since 2004. Since that time, the three-week residential training course has been provided to more than 100 law enforcement officials. Until relatively recently, specialist training programs on trafficking in persons have not been available for prosecutors.
The CDPP has identified this issue, and is actively seeking to address training. For example, in June 2007, the CDPP held an information-sharing conference for prosecutors working on trafficking matters. This was an opportunity for prosecutors who had worked on trafficking cases to share knowledge and experience. The CDPP is proposing to hold a similar event in 2008 and has sourced local and international expertise for other training events scheduled for 2008.
Ensure laws are available to protect witnesses in trafficking matters
Consideration needs to be given to ensuring witnesses in trafficking prosecutions have assured access to consistent and appropriate protections in court. In this regard, there is a wealth of experience that could be drawn upon from the states and territories. Key considerations should include:
- minimising the harm that is caused to victims of trafficking through the process of giving evidence, particularly where the crime involves a sexual element
- protecting the privacy and safety of victims as well as other key witnesses in trafficking prosecutions.
Given the considerable variation in existing laws on this issue, it may be necessary to consider whether consistency could be best achieved through legislative reform at the federal level.
Share front-line experience and expertise
Knowledge and experience in directly responding to trafficking in persons is limited to a small number of people in Australia. It is important that this knowledge is fostered and shared. It is also important that people working on the front line – at both the junior and senior level – have the opportunity to meet their counterparts, and to understand the realities of how their counterpart agencies work.
At the federal level, an inter-departmental committee on trafficking in persons provides senior officials in Canberra with an opportunity to meet regularly. This helps ensure knowledge is shared, and emerging issues are identified and solved. There would be value in ensuring similar opportunities are available to those involved in the daily operational response to trafficking.
At present, there are few opportunities for front-line or operational officials to assemble and share information and experience, beyond the opportunities provided by individual cases. It may be possible to build these opportunities into internal agency processes. For example, the AFP might bring its investigators together from the various jurisdictions that have been working on trafficking investigations to share 'lessons learnt' and network. Alternatively, it might be useful to consider bringing people together from across a range of agencies, to share recent experiences and information about how their agencies work. It is likely that such discussions would highlight differences in approach, and different issues arising in each location, which could be usefully discussed and explored further.
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Share information through regular reporting
Information about the broad framework of the government's response to trafficking is available. However, information about how the response has actually operated is not well known beyond federal government circles. In the absence of regular, reliable information, there can be a tendency to rely on information available – such as the experiences of one case, or the experience of cases that occurred several years ago. Information-sharing is an important part of building relationships of trust and facilitating cooperation, particularly between the NGO and government sectors.
There is much community interest in the government's response to trafficking in persons. As this response has been refined over time, it is important to regularly release up-to-date information about the government's activities in this area. This could take the form of regular public reports that include information about the key components of the government response and de-identified statistics about known cases.
It is presently possible but relatively time-consuming to source up-to-date statistics from key agencies on aspects of the government's anti-trafficking response. Also, as individual agencies use different units of analysis and collect statistics for diverse purposes, it can be difficult to reconcile statistics from across agencies. It is important that agencies work together to find the best way to produce relevant statistics that can be regularly and easily reported.
Improving key data on trafficking is part of the remit of the Australian Institute of Criminology. Accordingly, the AIC should be included in these efforts. Given the difficulties inherent in reconciling statistics from different agencies, it may be productive to build data collection capacity into any future case management systems, with key de-identified data released to the AIC for research purposes.
Build cooperation with the non-government sector
While cooperation within government has continued to strengthen, the opportunity for NGOs to participate in existing processes has been relatively limited. Cooperation between the two sectors is important. With proper funding, NGOs should have the capacity to access women in settings that may be closed to law enforcement or other government officials. NGOs also have local and/or sector specific expertise that could make a valuable contribution to the larger anti-trafficking response.
In 2006, the AFP held a colloquium that assembled representatives from a range of NGOs. Several participants spoke highly of the opportunity. There appears to be value in repeating the exercise, and looking for other opportunities to ensure ongoing dialogue and cooperation between non-government and government sectors on trafficking.
To ensure the full range of existing skills and expertise is drawn upon, such dialogue and cooperation needs to include not only those NGOs that work specifically on the issue of trafficking, but also the many NGOs that have particular skills and expertise in related fields. This might include organisations around Australia that work on sexual assault, migrant health and welfare, and the commercial sex industry. Many strong differences of opinion exist within the community sector on the issue of trafficking in women for the purposes of sexual servitude. However, there are also many areas of common interest and agreement. Meaningful cooperation is most likely to be facilitated if all parties have an opportunity to express their views and concerns, so that areas of common interest and agreement can be identified and mutual respect for areas of disagreement ensured.
Monitor impact along with performance
The government's Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons includes indicators for measuring progress. These include:
- increased support for victims of trafficking
- increased willingness on the part of victims of trafficking and other potential witnesses to come forward to Australian authorities
- prosecution and conviction of people involved in criminal activities associated with people trafficking
- improved capacity to take up future challenges associated with people trafficking.
At the time of writing, the Australian National Audit Office was undertaking an audit of the action plan.
The government's response to trafficking does not operate in isolation. For example, law reform and law enforcement activities can have an impact that goes well beyond individual victims and offenders. Some of these impacts were raised in this research process, including the potential for law enforcement or compliance activities to affect a wider group of women, beyond those who are victims of trafficking. In line with modern approaches to measuring progress, it is suggested that consideration should be given to monitoring not only the indicators noted above, but also the broader social impact of the government's response to trafficking. Any response to crime can have unintended consequences, including impacts well beyond the intended target audience. It is important that these broader impacts are identified and understood, so unintended consequences can be addressed.