Human trafficking in Australia: The challenge of responding to suspicious activities

This paper relates to the Australian government's community awareness campaign, as part of the Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons, which was announced in October 2003 in response to evidence of human trafficking in Australia. The authors explore the challenges that are likely to be encountered during the implementation of the campaign using empirical data from two Victorian studies, the first of which explored community awareness of trafficking and the second of which examined Victoria Police and local government's responses to trafficking. We conclude that there are significant barriers to both the community and authorities identifying suspicious activities and acting on reports by community. In addition, institution challenges faced by Victoria police and local government in dealing with referred information appropriately will jeopardise the success of the initiative.