League will fight sex slavery trade
Catholic Weekly (18 August 2002) by Marilyn Kerjean
Peg McEntee
Catholic Women's League Australia has put up its hand to join the fight against the scandalous trafficking in human flesh that takes place in the sex industry.
Women - and children - in poorer countries are lured or forced into 'domestic jobs' in Australia and other more affluent countries.
But when they arrive in the new country - Sydney is a known destination - they find themselves enslaved in brothels as prostitutes.
The league decision to enter the battle came after the national president (2002 - 2003), Peg McEntee, and secretary, Madge Fahy, heard tragic accounts of the plight of the women during meetings in New York of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and the Non-Government Organisations Committee.
Sisters from various religious congregations and orders who work in impoverished countries spoke of the women and children being tricked into and trapped in a mire from which there was little chance of escape.
The league's national committee is now communicating with Church and civil community groups to raise awareness about the the issue and to seek ways to give the most appropriate support to victims at the local level.
"In many of the cases," says Peg McEntee, "women, because of their poverty, apply for positions of domestic work overseas.
"When they arrive in the designated country they are put into brothels, their passports are taken and, ifit is an English-speaking country and they don't know English, it's very difficult for them to get out of the situation.
"Children as well as women are being are sold because their families are so dreadfully poor. A lot don't realise that the children will be used for sexual purposes, they think they are going into industry, into factories.
"The other tragedy of women in enforced prostitution is that when they contract AIDS they are thrown on the dumpheap; they can't return to their families.
"It's the most tragic of circumstances you could ever imagine and it's dreadful to realise it's also happening in our country." The league participated at the UN conference as an accredited non-government organisation affiliated with the World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations.
The two Australian delegates visited Ground Zero - site of the September 11 attack on New York - and inscribed the league's name on the remembrance board.
They also met two delegates from East Timor, one of them a member of the new government, through whom they hope to organise a support program for women in East Timor villages.
The themes of the New York meetings were: Eradicating poverty, in cluding through the empowerment of women throughout their life cycle in a globalising world, and environmental management and mitigation of natural disasters - a gender perspective.
