Since our last update in March the world has been even more upside down than usual. We have been watching various seminars on the effect of COVID-19 on the world's most vulnerable people. Migrant workers in particular are stuck away from home, often having lost their jobs but being unable to travel, and unable to access health care and other social support. They become even more vulnerable to exploitation. I am also often thinking about children currently stuck at home with their abusers.
Bella and I have been praying for and financially assisting the front-line workers trying to support those on the exploited margins of capitalism. If you are considering your own financial support we could point you towards some worthy causes.
The Freedom Keys Research Project continues to build relationships with other anti-slavery organisations globally: to encourage them, and to challenge the lack of attention given by the whole anti-slavery movement to perpetrators. If we cannot change the hearts of slaveholders, traffickers and the consumers of slave-produced goods and services, the problem is not ever going to be resolved.Asia Region Anti-Trafficking conference
Given travel restrictions, most of that networking happens via the internet, including conversations during online conferences. I recently "attended" the Asia Region Anti-Trafficking conference and the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation 2020 Online Global Summit. Both had some amazing speakers and gave me opportunities to engage with others around this core idea of understanding perpetrators' internal motives and external drivers in order to create strategies for changing perpetrator behaviour.
In the previous update, I said that one goal for this year is to increase the credibility of our contribution by publishing in academic journals. I have two journal articles written and both are in the process of refinement through the normal peer review process. Although I have published academic work previously, this is the first time in a humanities discipline and I am finding the process harder than expected.
As part of writing one of those papers, I wanted to include some empirical data about the ways anti-slavery organisations currently think about and interact with perpetrators. I ran a very successful online survey which showed that although the majority of anti-slavery organisations find themselves dealing with perpetrators, they do so without any prior theoretical framework, organisational interest, or intentional organisational capacity.
I also spent considerable time during June and July helping another anti-slavery organisation with a meta-analysis of recent research into one particular aspect of child slavery. Meanwhile, Bella continues to grow her sustainable social enterprise selling coffee in Tumut, which generates enough income to feed us both, and creates a wonderful platform for community and advocacy.
So overall we are pretty busy!
Thanks for your continuing support. Please pass this email on to your friends and colleagues, and point them to our website.
—Matt and Bella