Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have been a proud member of Zonta for many years and I am an advocate of our Zonta Says No campaign, which aims to combat violence against women on an international scale. Part of this is our 16 Days of Activism, a campaign against gender violence. The campaign runs between 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and 10 December, International Human Rights Day, to reinforce the message that violence against women is a human rights issue. Today is day 6, which focusses on human trafficking. You may wonder why I am talking about human trafficking in Australia in this day and age, in the 21st century, in 2015. It is estimated that between 300 and 1,000 people a year in Australia are trafficked, and 80 per cent of them are women. In fact, just recently there has been a report of a 'slave house' on Brisbane's south side where 27 people were crammed in and forced to work as call centre operators. There is not enough time to go into more detail now, but a quick scan of news articles reports slavery right in our midst in Brisbane.

We all need to work to raise more awareness of these issues and all the issues affecting human rights and gender violence. 16 Days of Activism is an important campaign that does just that and I am proud of Zonta's advocacy for these issues. Zonta says no.

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