Modern day slavery.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 August 2013
• Author: Levett, Coral

At the recent International Council of Nurses (ICN) Congress held in Melbourne, I attended a very interesting panel presentation titled Modern Day Slavery. The panel included speakers Joy Johnson from Canada, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo from Nigeria, and Jintana Yunibhand from Thailand. Like many people in the room, I had made some assumptions about slavery being a thing of the past for the most part, acknowledging the practice may still be present in some developing nations that are not so much under the international microscope. It conjured up thoughts of chains and shackles, imprisonment and deprivation. But this is only the slavery of those who have known liberty.

Despite the abolition of traditional forms of slavery and slave labour, slavery-like practices remain a persistent problem in many countries, and...