Fighting modern slavery
In an effort to fight modern slavery, The Salvation Army Australia:
- Supports people who have experienced human trafficking or slavery, including forced marriage
- Engages with government, business, corporations and consumers to uncover, mitigate and remediate slavery in production supply chains
- Partners with local, state and territory governments to develop and implement localised responses
- Empowers survivor advocates to contribute their expertise
Help provide the right support at the right time for victims of human trafficking and slavery
How our support services work
The Salvation Army provides a range of support services to people affected by slavery.
Safe House
The Salvation Army operates a Safe House for women who have experienced trafficking and slavery in Australia. The Safe House is located in Sydney, NSW but takes referrals from across Australia. It also provides outreach support and case management to men, women and children living in the community.
The Safe House provides flexible and comprehensive support to survivors including:
- Accomodation
- Emergency financial relief
- Access to health care
- Education/employment assistance
- Rights education
- Access to legal support
- International assistance
- Confidential advice
To seek help, or make a referral contact the Trafficking and Slavery Safe House on 1300 473 560
Prevention support
Case management can be provided to persons at risk of trafficking, slavery or slavery-like practices including forced marriage.
Eligibility for this support is assessed on a case-by-case basis when a person is presenting with some indicators of trafficking/slavery and there are contributing factors that increase their vulnerability.
Staff can work with clients to identify interventions that will improve their ability to remain free from exploitation.
About exploitation and slavery
The biggest indicator of slavery/trafficking is exploitation of a person for someone else's profit, gain or advantage using violence, threats or by making false promises. The main difference between substandard working conditions and slavery is whether or not the person is free to leave or is being coerced through some means.
Exploitation and slavery can affect anyone across a range of industries and situations, and may include:
- Agriculture or farm work
- Construction
- Retail
- Hospitality
- Cleaning
- Domestic work
- Maritime industry or seafarers
- Manufacturing orb factory work
- Organ removal
- Personal or aged care
- Sex services
Slavery-like practices may include:
- Forced marriage or the risk of forced marriage
- Slave-like marriage
- Forced labour or servitude
- Many cases of servitude in marriage present as domestic violence
For further assistance please contact the Trafficking and Slavery Safe House on 1300 473 560
The Lived Experience Engagement Program
The Salvation Army delivered the Lived Experience Engagement Program (LEEP) with the aim of creating a forum for survivors of criminal labour exploitation to use their lived experience to directly consult with government, to assist in preventing, identifying and responding to modern slavery. This program was funded by the Australian Government’s National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-25 Grant Program for two years from August 2021. This included a program design phase and one year of operating the program to facilitate the creation of a pilot Survivor Advisory Council to government. The LEEP addressed the lack of official forum for survivors of modern slavery in Australia to engage directly with government and supported the National Action Plan action item to develop a victim and survivor engagement and empowerment strategy.
The project has achieved its objectives to:
- Develop an evidence-based, survivor-endorsed written model for ethical and effective government engagement with survivors of modern slavery, particularly criminal labour exploitation.
- Provide an empowering forum for victim-survivors of criminal labour exploitation to safely utilise their lived experience to create positive change.
- Provide constructive consultation to government and key agencies on how to prevent, identify and disrupt criminal labour exploitation occurring in Australia.
Read participant reflections, key recommendations, and a summary of monitoring and evaluation, in The Lived Experience Engagement Program Report 2023 (pdf)
Next steps
The Salvation Army was successful in applying in a new funding round to continue LEEP’s activity and expand membership to all forms of modern slavery, including forced marriage.
Contact us if you would like to discuss survivor engagement: SafeHouse@salvationarmy.org.au