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MODERN SLAVERY A PRISON WITHOUT WALLS MOE TURAGA Moe Turaga is an advocate for ending slavery globally, a disability sector worker and an Independent candidate for the Central Queensland seat of Hinkler in the 2019 federal election.
I come from a settlement in Fiji near the capital, Suva. As you know, many people in Fiji are struggling to survive as Fiji is still a developing country. My dad was one of the only members of our family who had a stable job as a dock worker. This meant that in addition to supporting my mum and siblings he also supported 10-15 other family members on his $80-$90 per week salary. This is typical in Fiji. Unfortunately, my dad died when I was 13 years old and our family was left without a steady income.
As in many parts of the world, there is a lot of pressure on the eldest boy in the family to help their families survive by working. I loved school education and had good marks throughout. But, by the time I was 15, I had to drop out of school and look for work to earn money to help my mother with my two younger siblings. So, I worked in a shop as a retail assistant for $25 per week which I gave to my mother to help feed our family. When I turned 17, I was approached by a cousin to go to Australia where he said I could study and earn money – much more than $25 per week – which he would send back to my mother on a regular basis for them to live on. I was excited about the possibility of going back to school. Now, this cousin was a church minister and a respected and trusted man in our society and family. He was not someone to be questioned – he was someone that you would trust to do the right thing. So, I agreed to go to Australia. All of my travel was arranged by him and he brought me with him to Australia in April 1988. He had not allowed me to bring many clothes and I was unprepared for the cold weather in my shorts and sandals. When I arrived, he took my passport and gave it to a migration agent who he said would assist in our permits and legal issues. He also told me there was a debt that I had to pay off first for travel and visa costs and he sent me to work as a machinist in western Sydney. For a few months, I made over $400 per week there but I had to give it all to my cousin to pay back the debt – an amount that I never knew. He assured me he was sending money to my mother. After seven months, he took me to a farm in Victoria where we worked on grape farms on two properties owned by the same family. I lived in a two-bedroom pickers hut provided on that farm with six other cousins. I didn’t know how much money my cousin was getting for my labour. There was never any contract or accounting for my work. I jumped on the truck at 6am and pruned and picked grapes until 6pm or dusk, seven days per week. These grapes went to supermarkets and farmers’ markets in Melbourne and Sydney. When there were no grapes to pick or prune, I picked watermelons and lettuce at their other farms, some of which went to fast food restaurants.
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER | VOLUME 28: ISSUE 1 – MAY 2019
