Published May 08 2018

Exposing modern slavery

Slavery isn’t something relegated to the past. It’s happening today, and it’s happening under our noses. About 40.3 million people are currently in some form of modern slavery, such as children in sweatshops, debt bondage, forced marriage, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. So how do we hold people and states responsible?

Sometimes the answer isn’t as simple as criminalising these acts. In many cases it’s also a societal or family issue, which complicates the motivations for victims to report their situations. It begs the question: how do we stop the exploitation of people?


Read more: Unmasking slavery's hidden face




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About the Authors

  • Marie segrave

    Professor of Criminology, School of Social Sciences

    Marie is a criminologist whose work into human trafficking, migrant labour exploitation, women prisoners and policing challenges the assumptions that drive legislation and policy in Australia and internationally. Marie’s research focuses on the intersection of regulation, exploitation and vulnerability. Her goal is to raise awareness and to help create more effective policies that have better outcomes for individuals and for society in general.

  • Jean allain

    Jean is the leading legal scholar on issues of human trafficking and modern slavery and special adviser to Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest international human rights organisation. He's also Professor of International Law with the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) at the University of Hull, UK.

  • Jayashri kulkarni

    Professor, Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre

    Jayashri Kulkarni founded and directs a large psychiatric research group, the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc). A major area of her research involves psychoneuroendocrine studies of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis in women with severe mental illnesses. In particular, she has pioneered the use of estrogen as a new treatment in schizophrenia. Women’s Mental Health is a major area of Jayashri’s research and over the last 25 years she has worked to improve the quality of care for women with mental illnesses.

  • Sharon pickering

    Vice-Chancellor and President, Monash University

    Sharon is Vice-Chancellor and President, Monash University. She is an internationally recognised expert in criminology, refugees and trafficking who has written extensively on irregular border crossing with a focus on gender and human rights. She is the Founder and Director of the Border Crossing Observatory – an innovative virtual research centre across 12 universities, led by Monash and driven centrally by a collaboration between Monash, Oxford and Oslo universities. Sharon leads a series of Australian Research Council projects focusing on the intersections of security and migration, deportation, and police and community responses to Prejudice Motivated Crimes.

  • Aderajew teshome

    PhD Candidate, Assistant researcher (Human Trafficking)

    Aderajew is a Monash PhD student and research assistant. Aderajew has been researching human trafficking in Ethiopia for the past three years. Prior to immigrating to Australia in 2008, he worked as a lecturer at Gondar University, and before this as a public prosecutor in Ethiopia. He hopes his research will offer workable recommendations to enable the Ethiopian government to effectively criminalise the problem, prosecute and punish traffickers, support and protect victims and cooperate with other governments and organisations.

  • Campbell wilson

    Associate Dean and Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Information Technology

    Campbell Co-Director of the AiLECS lab and Associate Dean (International) at the Faculty of Information Technology. His His research focuses includes digital forensics, information retrieval, machine learning and bioinformatics.

  • Heli askola

    Associate Professor, Law Resources

    Dr Heli Askola's central research theme is the study of the various legal, social and political practices through which states and international organisations, particularly the European Union, seek to manage increasing and diversifying migration flows and migrant inclusion and what these efforts mean for migrant-receiving states, their citizens and immigrants.

  • Bodean hedwards

    Criminologist

    Bodean Hedwards is currently undertaking her PhD at Monash University examining the forced and irregular migration of Tibetan refugees on the Tibet-Nepal border. Bodean has also worked with the Australian Institute of Criminology in Canberra on a range of issues, including anti-human trafficking, countering violent extremism and indigenous justice.

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