Pointing the finger of blame at the wrong (and easy) target
Recent events that have seen 39 people die in a lorry in the United Kingdom prompted the debate on a hotly contested topic: human trafficking and modern slavery. In a recent interview to the Times, the independent anti-slavery commissioner called for a new approach to this abhorrent crime.
What happened in Essex was yet another human tragedy that quickly grabs the news headlines. However, it is also a tragedy that stays there for only a few days. We, the public, immediately look into the actors that are closely associated with or involved in the act. We focus on perpetrators (in this case, human smugglers) and victims. We want justice for the victims. We want punishment for those we deem so inhumane that we think we should lock them in and throw away the key. We streamline the complex world of poverty, abuse, exploitation, vulnerability, hopelessness and despair into a simple dichotomy of a good and a bad. On paper, everything looks simple: catch the offenders as soon as possible, or even prevent them from offending, and rescue the victims. Put more police officers on the streets. Have more cameras scanning lorries as they cross the Channel.
However, we do not talk about the elephant in the room: we do not talk about what makes people so desperate that they put their children in that lorry, knowing they might not make it? How desperate does one have to be, as a parent, as a human being, to do that to your flesh and blood? What agony does one have to experience to sell everything they own, or not even do that - they run for their life? How inhumane our migration systems are, that put the most vulnerable people into harm's way? That push men, women and children to cross deserts and seas in small caravans and dinghies? That makes a father hold his child so hard, that even when he drowned, he was still hugging his boy?
However, we do not talk about the elephant in the room: we do not talk about what makes people so desperate that they put their children in that lorry, knowing they might not make it? How desperate does one have to be, as a parent, as a human being, to do that to your flesh and blood? What agony does one have to experience to sell everything they own, or not even do that - they run for their life? How inhumane our migration systems are, that put the most vulnerable people into harm's way? That push men, women and children to cross deserts and seas in small caravans and dinghies? That makes a father hold his child so hard, that even when he drowned, he was still hugging his boy?
Why are we so insensitive to this suffering? Do we not see how complicit we are in all this? Are they less worthy? Or is it saying that this is all done by some evil people out there absolving us from responsibility?
Listen to this to find out more on the topic. In this podcast, Associate Professor Leanne Weber and Dr Gabriella Sanchez chat with Phillip Adams on Australian Radio National, Late Night Live:
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