Soon after the Rudd election victory Attorney General Debus and Ministers Evans, Plibersek and Smith adopted practical systems of accountability and transparency on human trafficking policies. In that same spirit the Albanese government this week delivered on the promise of a commissioner for anti-slavery. But as former minister Evans takes up this newly formed role in December, the opaque challenge of Operation Inglenook and related Border Force powers surely looms large.
In recent months a semi-autonomous network led by Asian Migrant Sex Workers, AMSWAG (Asian Migrant Sex Worker Advisory Group) has been joined by more than forty civil society organisations, many from the modern slavery sector, calling for an end to the Inglenook gender and race profiling at the border.
For Asian migrant sex workers caught in the cross-fire of anti-slavery policy, Villawood detention centre has become ‘home’.