‘I’m All About My Child’: Supporting Modern Slavery Survivors as Parents

ABSTRACT

Survivors of modern slavery have diverse and complex support needs. These needs are often intensified for survivors with children given the caregiving roles they play. To date, minimal research has been conducted into survivor parental support needs, the barriers to meeting those needs, and the implications for survivors if those needs are not met. This article presents the findings of a research project which aimed to understand the parental support needs of survivors of modern slavery in Australia. The research involved an analysis of case work data for survivors on the government funded Support for Trafficked People Program (STPP), semi-structured interviews with nine modern slavery survivors with dependent children, and interviews with 29 case workers and service providers working with key survivor support organizations in Australia and overseas. There are four main findings from this research: survivors who have children have a complex layer of parental support needs that exist in addition to fundamental survivor support; there are multiple structural barriers that prevent parental support needs being met; survivors with children prioritize the needs of their children above their own needs; and there are significant implications for a survivor’s recovery journey if parental support needs are not met. These findings highlight that survivors' parental support needs must be considered holistically to adequately support survivors with children and to break the cycle of vulnerability to abuse and exploitation.

KEYWORDS:

• Survivors
• modern slavery
• dependents
• children
• support needs
• service provision

Disclosure statement

Dr Nerida Chazal was engaged by Australian Red Cross, through University of South Australia, to undertake this research. Australian Red Cross facilitated the research component involving survivors and case workers and facilitated the funding for the project from Department of Social Services. Kyla Raby worked for University of South Australia as a research assistant on this project while she was on leave from Australian Red Cross where she worked as a staff member within the STPP team. Kyla was not involved in the direct collection of research, but rather supported the analysis of findings.

Notes

¹ This article uses the term “modern slavery” to refer to diverse forms of exploitation including human trafficking, forced marriage, forced labor, exit trafficking, debt bondage, and slavery and servitude. While the authors acknowledge that these crimes are diverse in nature and therefore the impact on survivors experiences is variable, the use of the term reflects the prevalent discourse in Australia and the Australian response to these crimes.

² This article uses the term “victim” only when referring to official processes of identifying victims through the criminal justice system. Otherwise, the term “survivor” is used throughout.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Social Services, Australian Government.