St Joseph's College, Echuca

Dress Down for ACRATH

How Comfortable Are You? 

 

Our senior student leaders and their fellow year 12s led the way on Wednesday, advocating for the continued campaign against human trafficking and modern day slavery. 

 

The senior leaders, who are also our senior #Justice Leaders, organised a 'Dress Down for ACRATH' day, with the aim of promoting our education program regarding the elimination of human trafficking and modern day slavery, and to fundraise for ACRATH (Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans), who St Joseph's have supported for many years now. 

 

Our year 12s themselves dressed up (in lieu of the Athletics Day Dress Up they missed) but clearly maintained their message: Dressed Up or Dressed Down: Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery is Not OK. 

ACRATH's mission is to eliminate human trafficking and the harm it causes, in Australia, the Asia Pacific region and globally. ACRATH has been a strong voice in the Australian Catholic sector in the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery since 2005. 

 

Sadly, their work is necessary because Australia is a destination country for people who have been trafficked. In Australia, human trafficking leads to exploitation in a number of forms including sexual exploitation, forced labour, visa exploitation, forced marriage and domestic servitude. Each of these is characterised by deception, coercion, force, threat and abuse, and each is an issue of human rights and in many cases, child protection and gender inequality. 

 

ACRATH has skills and experience across many sectors to fight against this:

  • accompanying and advocating for people who have been trafficked or exploited in Australia; 
  • supporting and advocating for those in exploited and forced labour; 
  • advocating for systemic change; 
  • educating parishes, schools and community groups about slavery in supply chains. 

But ACRATH depends on donations to continue in this work against Human Trafficking and Slavery. 

 

Fundraising by students at St Joseph's will allow ACRATH to:

  • Make this invisible crime visible – especially in Australia and our Asia/Pacific Region
  • Provide direct services to the women, men and children who have survived trafficking and slavery
  • Establish sound rehabilitation, repatriation and re-integration practices for survivors and their families
  • Set in place effective national and international networks and so challenge this crime that is world wide
  • Continue to lobby and advocate at State, National and International Government levels. 

We are proud of our students commitment to fight for justice and the betterment of those less fortunate than themselves. It demonstrates that in their time here at St Joseph's, students have learned from our core values of Courage, Compassion, Justice and Hope. 

 

If you would like to donate to ACRATH, please use the online portal in the letter sent home to parents via Operoo, or donate directly to ACRATH at https://acrath.org.au/donate/ 

 

Claire Hogan 

Educator for Justice