CHILD RECOVERY AGENCY

What is Human Trafficking?

Silent Integrity Inc., trading as the Child Recovery Agency

The Child Recovery Agency has been fighting child trafficking since 2010, the following is information on trafficking in general. As well as information on our specialised field, anti-child trafficking.

The difference between Trafficking & Smuggling

Trafficking is an exploitation-based offense against a person and does not require movement across borders or any type of transportation. Smuggling is transportation-based and involves movement. Trafficking is exploitation-based. The key distinction between smuggling and Human Trafficking is freedom of choice.

The CRA Fight

The Child Recovery Agency operate predominantly in Southeast Asia, while also collaborating with Global organisations fighting child trafficking.

The following was taken from the Lowy Institute and will give you information why we fight our fight in Southeast Asia.

To understand the current situation in Southeast Asia with respect to people smuggling and human trafficking, it is important to be clear about the distinction between the two. People smuggling is the act of moving people across borders into countries for which they have no authorised travel documents in order to obtain a financial benefit. Human trafficking is the act of moving people either internally or across borders through coercion or deception for the purpose of exploitation in the destination country. In the case of people smuggling, people are generally being moved voluntarily. In practice, however, the line between people smuggling and human trafficking is often blurred, especially in Southeast Asia.

In terms of border protection, the Australian Government has largely focused on refugee and migrant smuggling, more than on human trafficking. Specifically, the stress has been on irregular arrivals by sea from the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia. The focus has also been on the people-smuggling networks in Southeast Asia that help facilitate these irregular movements to Australia. Human traffickers often share the same networks as people smugglers. Most irregular migrants from Afghanistan and Iran who have arrived in Australia in recent years have come via countries in Southeast Asia. In some cases, they have reached countries in Southeast Asia legally and are then smuggled (or sometimes trafficked) for the onward journey to Australia.

While human trafficking in Southeast Asia has relatively little impact on Australia directly, Australia has an interest in combating it, not least because it is linked to people smuggling. This was highlighted by the 2015 Rohingya crisis, where smuggled refugees and migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh were abandoned in the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea after a crackdown on human traffickers following the discovery of mass graves in jungle camps in Thailand. The main destination countries of the smuggled Rohingya refugees were Malaysia and Indonesia, as they are Muslim majority countries, with some intending to reach Australia.

Since human trafficking and people smuggling are closely interrelated, the so-called ‘push-down and pop-up’ effects of human trafficking have direct implications for migrant smuggling. When human traffickers or smugglers are pushed down by tough regulations and a strong stance on enforcement in one state, they move to another that has less rigorous controls. This is evident in many trafficking cases. If traffickers cannot move victims within Southeast Asia, they target neighbouring countries, including much richer or bigger countries such as Australia.

Understanding the TVPA

Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000.

Tier 1
Countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards.

Tier 2
Countries whose governments do not fully comply with an TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

Tier 2 Watchlist
Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards and: The absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing; or There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or The determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year.

Tier 3
Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.

Click below for the full 2023 report and the country ratings

Click below for the full 2023 report and the country ratings.

TVPA REPORT

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