Maintaining the fight against slavery

Dr Katarina Schwarz (right) takes part in a recent BBC Impact discussion on modern slavery with Anti-Slavery International's Ryna Sherazi. Photo: Supplied

If you think that slavery exists only in places such as Africa or India, think again. It might be closer than you suspect.

Former Wanaka woman Katarina Schwarz says modern slavery affects an estimated 40million people worldwide and there is no country in which people are entirely free from the phenomenon.

"Not only are there people experiencing modern slavery in every one of the world's countries, but global supply chains connect us all to widespread modern slavery happening beyond our borders. Our electronics, clothes, fish, rice, sheets, towels, cocoa and coffee [among many other things] are all at high risk of being connected to extreme exploitation and abuse. So modern slavery touches all of our lives."

Contemporary forms of slavery took many different forms, said the 28-year-old, who is the associate director of the law and policy programme in the University of Nottingham's Rights Lab and assistant professor of anti-slavery law and policy in its School of Law.

It included practices that closely resembled historical chattel slavery - with people born into enslavement or bought and sold as if they were property - as well as forced labour in which people were compelled to work through threats and violence.

It also encompassed human trafficking, marriages to which people had not consented or in which they were exploited, forced sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and bonded labour in which employers held debts over workers that they could never repay and forced them and their families to work in bondage, sometimes for generations.

"What ties these practices together is the exercise of total, or near total, control over people in situations which they cannot leave, extreme forms of exploitation - and often abuse - and the treatment of people as if they were things."

In New Zealand, there have been only a few people-trafficking prosecutions (relating to about 40 victims) in the past decade but the Government has said that eliminating migrant exploitation in the workplace is a priority.

A former Mt Aspiring College pupil, Dr Schwarz said she knew when she was in high school that she wanted to work in an area related to human rights and justice but at the time did not have much of an idea what that would be. Her entry into the field came with her work on reparations for historical slavery, the topic of her honours dissertation at the University of Otago and later, her PhD.

Slavery was usually thought of as something that had been left behind in history so when confronted with the fact it was still going on, it was "hard to just turn away".

" ... I wanted to help empower people in these situations."

The focus of the Rights Lab was on delivering academic research that made a real difference in the global movement to eradicate slavery and in the lives of victims, she said.

This meant working with governments, international organisations, businesses, anti-slavery groups and survivors themselves to help improve anti-slavery actions around the world.

One example was its work on the UK's system of support for victims. At present, they were guaranteed less than 60 days of support to recover from their experiences but this was "nowhere near enough" to help them get back on their feet. Some argued that a longer period of care would be too expensive but the Lab's cost-benefit analysis found that providing 12 months of comprehensive support would, in fact, save the government money.

The findings were used to challenge the current support provision and, as a result of the court case, the government had committed to overhauling the system.

For the past few years, she had also been working with Prof Jean Allain to develop the first comprehensive database of every country's laws on slavery, related forms of exploitation, and human trafficking. This will be launched publicly at the end of this year.

Pulling together almost 700 different national laws, the database will be a resource for those involved in anti-slavery work and will help them advocate for law and policy changes.

Already, the Lab was working with others to review legal pathways for survivors in six Southeast Asian countries, so workers on the ground were better equipped to support them to get justice.

The recipient of an Otago Daily Times Class Act award in 2009, Dr Schwarz comes from a large theatrical family. At school, she was heavily involved in the performing arts and often led the senior debating team, honing skills that she now uses in her work every day.

"Effective communication and collaboration are critical in my advocacy work ... and these were definitely skills that I developed through my extracurricular activities."

Although every survivor's story affected her, what resonated most was not people's experiences of exploitation but "engaging with them as human beings", she said.

"Sometimes, this is about listening to their stories of trauma. But other times it's learning from them ... talking with them, laughing with them, eating dinner, making plans, and ultimately trying to make things better for them in both big and small ways when you can."