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As told to: Meg Mason-. Photography: courtesy of Grace ForrestWHEN I WAS 15, I went on a school trip
to Nepal and spent time with girls who
had been rescued from child sex
trafficking. I couldn’t believe girls as young
as three could endure the worst human
rights abuses imaginable and be denied
their right to an education. I began to think
I’d start my own orphanage or do
something similar. When I revisited the
children two years later, I found they had
all been re-trafficked by the institution itself,
a practice that is all too common in corrupt
segments of the orphanage sector.
That really shifted my perspective of the
world and my place in it, and made me
realise that we could not turn our backs on
these children or others like them. As soon
as I started pulling the thread – trying to
find out how far-reaching it was, what
other kinds of extreme exploitation exist –
I learnt that human trafficking was just one
part of modern slavery. It was then that
I founded the Walk Free Foundation with
my father [philanthropist Andrew Forrest],human rights and the same legal
protections as men, which makes them
uniquely vulnerable. In Lebanon, I met
a mother in a refugee camp who
explained, in tears, that the only way to
protect her 12-year-old from the risk of
exploitation would be to marry her off to
a much older man. Imagine being a mother
faced with such a set of options.
It’s easy to think of slavery as something
that just happens ‘over there’, but it is able
to exist because of unethical business
practices, which makes it absolutely our
problem here. Each year in Australia, we
import $12 billion worth of potentially
slave-made products – our smartphones,
clothes, chocolate and coffee. In
a globalised market, supply chains are so
complex it’s easy for people to be hidden
and exploited. This is why we need strong,
national legislation like the Modern
Slavery Act, which became Australian law
in November. It requires large businesses
to report on the risks of modern slavery in
their operations and supply chains,
domestically and internationally.
The issue can seem overwhelming, but
there is so much we can do by supporting
brands who are doing the right thing,
making more ethical choices in what we
buy and getting behind movements (such
as Fashion Revolution and the Good On
You app) that are bringing the conversation
into the mainstream and demanding that
brands adhere to basic ethical standards.
Every time we buy something we have
a choice to empower or possibly harm
another person in the process. As
consumers, we hold power and it is our
responsibility to consider where our
privilege intersects with someone else’s
oppression. We should be demanding
quality not just in the goods we buy but in
the lives of the people behind them.
Through the choices we make, each of
us can play a part in creating a safer
world. Being aware of the challenges
the world faces shouldn’t demotivate or
overwhelm us, instead it should give us the
confidence and determination to act. We
have the tools to end slavery at our
fingertips – let’s use them.Ewith the aim of ending all forms of modern
slavery in our lifetime.
To measure the scale of the problem,
Walk Free launched the Global Slavery
Index, which is now the world’s leading
research on the issue. It found that slavery
exists on a scale that is unprecedented;
there are more slaves in the world today
than any other time in human history.
We’ve estimated that 40.3 million people
around the world are still living in slavery.
Modern slavery doesn’t just refer to
forced labour. It’s is an umbrella term for
a range of exploitative practices such as
domestic servitude, organ trafficking, debt
bondage, forced marriage, child soldiers
and state-enforced labour. [Grace is
pictured above in Varanasi, India, holding
a baby girl who was the first person in her
community to be born free from
intergenerational debt bondage.]
The vast proportion of modern slaves –
71 per cent – are women and girls,
because in so many places they lack basicPERSPECTIVESINCEFOUNDINGAGLOBALHUMANRIGHTS
ORGANISATION AT 18, GRACE FORREST HAS
BECOME A MA JOR FORCE IN THE MOVEMENT TO END
MODERN SLAVERY AND IS NOW THE YOUNGEST
UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA
GOODWILL AMBASSADOR“EVERY TIME
WE BUY SOMETHING
we have a choice
TO E MPOWER
OR POSSIBLY HARM
another person”
CULTURE
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