Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently met with two fine young members of the Mornington Peninsula community, Sacha Skinner and Matthew Brincat. They are young human rights campaigners, and their concern is the global issue of child slavery and how we can deal with it in Australia through the actions of this parliament and through our actions as individuals. The issue is this: child slavery globally represents about 8.4 million young people who are held without recourse to escape, who are held against their will and who are forced to participate in acts of physical coercion which ultimately, in many cases, shorten their lives; which, in all cases, are against their will; and which, in the vast majority of cases, are oppressive and difficult. The problem of child slavery is exploitation on a grand scale in the 21st century, a problem which should be an issue related to the 19th century. It is a sad fact that it exists and continues today.

The campaign that Sacha and Matthew brought to my attention is the Oaktree Foundation’s End Child Slavery campaign, which is about young people acting to help young people abroad. Whilst they are two people, they represent a group of young people from the Mornington Peninsula, who represent a group of people throughout Australia who are part of the Oaktree Foundation’s End Child Slavery campaign.

The facts are these: there are 8.4 million child slaves throughout the world; approximately 300,000 of these children are currently forced child soldiers; 30 per cent of these children are active in areas of conflict; about 700,000 people annually are trafficked to other countries for a life of slavery; and about one million of these children, mostly girls, are sold into the sex industry as slaves and are forced into prostitution and pornography. That is the scope of the problem.

One element of the problem is the cocoa industry, which the End Child Slavery campaign wishes to address. It is something which we in Australia can have an impact on. I am advised that the cocoa industry represents about 100,000 children in the Ivory Coast who are in forced conditions, contributing to confectionary products. The message is very simple: we must act responsibly in the way in which we consume confectionary products—and we will have more to say on that later—and we must campaign to have international standards enforced. We can do that. I want to give credit to Sacha and Matthew and to the End Child Slavery campaign. (Time expired)