In less than 24 hours, Judy and I will embark on an epic 27,000 km journey (one-way) that will take us to Auckland, New Zealand and Perth, Australia before returning home. The compelling reason for making this arduous trek is attending the wedding of our darling niece Danielle and her beau Reece. I think you’ll agree that they make a “beaut” couple!
Our little side trip to Perth (a mere 5,300 km by air from Auckland) is for the sole purpose of running the Perth City to Surf marathon so I can check Australia off the list of continents on which I’ve run a marathon. (You’ll recall that last year I announced my intention to run a marathon on a different continent every year to support global efforts to protect the poor from violence—what I call my “Going the Distance” challenge.) The timing of the marathon in Perth just happened to coincide with the dates of Danielle and Reece’s wedding, but I also jumped at the opportunity to visit this thriving, cosmopolitan city on the western edge of Australia.
As the leader of International Justice Mission Canada, an anti-slavery organization, it also means something to me that Perth is the home of Walk Free Foundation, a global organization with a mission to end modern slavery in our generation. Walk Free was founded in 2012 by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest and his daughter Grace and is now the world’s leader in research into the global prevalence of modern slavery in all its forms. Walk Free defines modern slavery as “situations where one person has taken away another person’s freedom — their freedom to control their body, their freedom to choose to refuse certain work or to stop working — so that they can be exploited”. Each year, Walk Free publishes the Global Slavery Index, which measures the extent of slavery country by country and documents the steps governments are taking to respond to this issue. The 2018 Index estimates that on any given day there are more than 40 million people in the world who are being forced under threat to work against their will or who were living in a forced marriage.
While Canada and Australia come out looking pretty good in the 2018 Index on their scores for prevalence (estimated number of victims of slavery per 1000 population—0.5 for Canada, 0.6 for Australia) and vulnerability (the evaluation of a set of systemic factors that are correlated with an increased risk of enslavement), we have little cause for complacency or self-congratulation. Engagement in the global fight against slavery needs to begin with acknowledgement that our national record isn’t as clean as we’d like to think it is. Canadian author Afua Cooper describes the history of slavery in French and British colonial Canada as “Canada’s best kept secret, locked within the national closet”. In Australia, tens of thousands of Indigenous men and women were forced to work on sheep and cattle stations for little more than pocket money under colonial and state government schemes theoretically designed to protect Aboriginal Australians from mistreatment. While those of us alive today in Canada and Australia are not personally responsible for this history, we are responsible for how we interpret and remember our nations’ pasts and how we seek to seek to redress their respective histories of violence.
Engagement in the global fight against slavery needs to begin with acknowledgement that our national record isn’t as clean as we’d like to think it is.
A good place to begin for anyone who wants to contribute to making the world a safer place for those vulnerable to exploitation as slaves is to evaluate the effect our personal choices may have. There are three questions each of us should ask ourselves as starting points: As much as is reasonably possible, are we choosing to buy consumer goods that are ethically sourced? Have we contacted our local, provincial and federal government representatives to see what they are doing to combat human trafficking domestically and abroad? Are our online viewing habits contributing to the dehumanization of women and children that makes them commodities to be trafficked? A heinous expression of slavery that currently seems to be concentrated in the Philippines is cybersex trafficking of children, where young children are forced to participate in live sex shows streamed to paying customers in Canada, the U.S, Europe and Australia. Both the RCMP and the Australian Federal Police have contributed to the arrests of perpetrators in the Philippines, with tactical and technical assistance from International Justice Mission.
I’m not Andrew Forrest and neither are you. I don’t expect that anyone who will read this blog will have several million at their disposal to help make the world a safer and fairer place. But it’s not about how much money you have, it’s about how you use it. As Grace Forrest says, “Generosity is generosity; sharing one’s wealth to help others less fortunate is powerful no matter what the number is.” Everyone of us has the opportunity—dare I say, even the responsibility—to use our resources, even our limited resources, to make the world a better place. I want to use my influence, my passion for running, and my love for travel to help end cybersex trafficking of children. That’s the real reason why we’re making a weekend trip to Perth, Australia for the City to Surf Marathon.
“We cannot allow the young generation to be exploited. They must be protected as the most vulnerable sector of our society.”
I’ve set a goal of raising $15,000 in sponsorships to support IJM’s work alongside the Philippines National Police to end cybersex trafficking of children. To help me reach my goal—and to do your part in the global fight against slavery—you can make a tax-deductible donation at https://ijm.akaraisin.com/goingthedistance/2018. As Senior Superintendent Villamor Tuliao, chief of the anti-trafficking unit of the Philippines National Police has said, “We cannot allow the young generation to be exploited. They must be protected as the most vulnerable sector of our society.” Winning the global battle against modern slavery will be the most epic journey of all.
Unless otherwise noted, all text and photos © Edwin Wilson. Banner image: Auckland skyline at sunset by Yutaka Suzuki, some rights reserved.
