WHAT HAPPENS TO TRAFFICKED WOMEN ONCE THEY’RE PLACED IN DEBT BONDAGE?

Women who are deceived about their role as prostitutes are frequently subjected to significant and systematic violence on arrival in Australia. Multiple rapes and threats of harm to a woman and her family are known as the “breaking in” stage.

This violence serves two functions. Obviously, pre-prostitution violence breaks women’s will and reinforces their powerlessness in the face of the traffickers’ demands. It aims to stop them from escaping or seeking help by telling their customers about their plight. Secondly, the breaking in stage teaches women how to do prostitution sex, impressing on them that they must ‘satisfy’ their ‘customer’ and mustn’t refuse their customers or the sex they demand, including sex without condoms.

Women who come to Australia already knowing they will do prostitution may also be subjected to pre-prostitution violence. Initially, trafficked women are prevented from leaving their residence, often the trafficker’s home, or a residence guarded by the traffickers or their associates, or are chaperoned. The preconception that women are chained to beds is unlikely.

The next stage is the exploitation of women through prostitution - when the traffickers make a return on their investment. The debt that trafficked women must pay off is generally in terms of ‘dollars’, ‘jobs’ or ‘months’. A debt for a woman may range from $35,000 to $50,000. Typically a woman must work between 500 and 1,000 jobs to pay off her debt. Some traffickers demand that women stay on even though the debt is paid.

Women are prostituted for many hours a day, frequently six days a week and may have the odd free day if business is quiet. They may use this ‘free’ day to earn a small amount of money for themselves in the trafficker’s brothel. If they’re allowed to keep some of their earnings they typically send it back home to parents or their children. Often women aren’t given food or essentials so what little they earn might also be spent on food, medicines and clothes.

How long does it take a woman to pay off her debt?

Many women pay off their “debt” very quickly, often between two and six months. Traffickers force them to work long hours so that they can maximise their profit as quickly as possible. Once the women accept that they cannot escape, they just want to pay off the debt as soon as possible. They see no way out of their situation other than accepting the traffickers' conditions.

[How are women trafficked?]