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Mission to fight modern slavery
A Nun on a Mission
Queensland-born Good Samaritan Sister Pauline Coll is passionately certain that creating awareness of the evils of human trafficking is a powerful agent for change.
She is part of a rising network of religious women outraged that exactly 200 years after the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Act, human trafficking is still with us.
Relaxed and fashionable in a bright, floral summer dress, the 68-year-old looks nothing like a nun on a mission to alert others to the ills of modern human slavery and its many guises.
For that reason nail shops are in her sights. The lacquer that's so artfully and skilfully applied in these situations could well be adding a layer of misery to someone else's life.
The notion might seem far-fetched to a woman just after a little pampering, but Sr Coll sees it as a burgeoning Australian industry employing mostly young Asian women.
Just how these shops could be a front for modern-day slavery is not that difficult to imagine after Sr Coll explains some of the weaknesses in entering Australia.
"When these women come into Australia on a student or holiday visa, the people meeting them will take everything," she said.
"And they are told they have this enormous debt to repay.
"Some of the customs people would be suspicious of some of the young people coming in ... (but) if they have a legitimate visa and a passport you really can't touch them," Sr Coll said.
When the women's visas have expired they become illegal overstayers whose whereabouts become unknown to immigration.
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Copyright © L. Page, The Catholic Leader, 18 February 2007
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