Walk Free\u2019s Global Slavery Index estimated 8000 people in New Zealand were living in modern slavery, comparatively low compared with other countries and placing the nation 148th out of 160 states for slavery prevalence.<\/p>\n
It praised moves in recent years to criminalise forced marriage and a national action plan against modern slavery, but called for a national referral mechanism (NRM) and resources for specialised support services.<\/p>\n
This week, an INZ investigations manager spoke about the need for a police-led trafficking unit and NRM. Legal specialist on independent trafficking in persons, Rebecca Kingi, echoed those concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have systems in place to adequately collect data and intelligence around trafficking in persons,\u201d she said. \u201cTo my knowledge, the police do not have specific systems in place in relation to that, so it\u2019s going to be very hard without those systems, and also without dedicated specialist trafficking in persons, investigative units or members of staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody reports trafficking to the police, they\u2019re unlikely to actually pick up the phone and say, \u2018Hey, I\u2019ve been trafficked\u2019. Unless there is the right level of understanding, training and knowledge to recognise the indicators from whoever has received those calls or those reports on the frontline, it\u2019s very unlikely that trafficking may even be picked up.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s operational approach seemed to be based on an old idea that trafficking only happened across borders, which was fixed legislatively only in 2015.<\/p>\n
Kingi believed the country was falling behind, when compared with trafficking responses overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really uncommon for an enforcement approach to be primarily led from an immigration agency. Firstly, trafficking is not an immigration crime \u2013 it\u2019s a crime, it could be a transnational organised crime, it\u2019s a very serious crime, it\u2019s a harmful crime, but it\u2019s not an immigration offence in and of itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have this historic misunderstanding of what trafficking is and that\u2019s embedded our approach primarily from an immigration enforcement perspective, and that is problematic. It\u2019s often connected to varied other types of criminal offending, whether that\u2019s transnational organised crime, money laundering, assault or sexual offences, such as rape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having Immigration New Zealand in charge of trafficking responses could deter victims from reporting crimes, as they may fear deportation.<\/p>\n
Police would have the necessary resources to conduct proactive, intelligence-led investigations, identify trends and go looking for trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther countries have usually got a primary model of police leading trafficking enforcement. For example, in the UK, it\u2019s the National Crime Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Australia, it\u2019s the Australian Federal Police, and there are specialist units and specialist enforcement officers that have training in this, and specialise in this, because of the complexity that can evolve, because of the need to make sure that the correct approach with looking after and caring for victims is involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
The number of investigations was \u201cunlikely\u201d to be representative of the crimes being committed, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a growing type of crime, because it is profitable for the criminal actors involved, so we have to be robust and then proactive in our efforts to combat it. Those numbers do seem very low to me in terms of what I would expect of a domestic profile in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bid for a national referral mechanism by INZ staff to Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment bosses said trafficking victims were not properly supported.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor cases that are detected, we are not resourced or trained to be providing support to victims, but are providing such support anyway, because it is critical to do so. There is a risk that victims are not being supported appropriately, a risk to the wellbeing of the staff providing that support and a risk to the success of other investigations, if such staff are being taken away from their investigatory duties.\u201d<\/p>\n
That advice predated the current Government, and Associate Immigration Minister Casey Costello said she had not received similar advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat said, as you know, I\u2019m receiving advice from a ministerial advisory group on organised crime, and a key theme is that we need a stronger system response to all of the aspects of serious crime, including trafficking and migrant exploitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll soon be receiving the group\u2019s final report and advice, and that will inform a stronger response in this space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walk Free\u2019s Global Slavery Index estimated 8000 people in New Zealand were living in modern slavery, comparatively low…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45784,40147,11424,45783,78,24350,117,111,43,139,69,1118,1560,25397,2742,8844,80],"class_list":["post-59526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bonnett","tag-estimated","tag-finds","tag-gill","tag-in","tag-modern","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-report","tag-slavery","tag-thousands","tag-victims","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}