For decades Moe Turaga stayed silent on what happened to him in his teens.
Though the physical scars have healed, the emotional wounds still hold weight.
“The trauma of it never goes away,” he told ABC.
Mr Turaga arrived in Australia in the late 1980s, in search of making money to send home to his family in Fiji.
“When I was 13, Dad died and my siblings and I watched Mum struggle to make ends meet,” Mr Turaga said.
“At 17 I was approached by one of my cousins to go to Australia for an ‘opportunity’ to support my family.”
For over two years in Australia, Mr Turaga had no contact with his loved ones back home in Fiji. (ABC News: Adam Griffiths)
His cousin promised him and other boys from their village that they could study and earn more than $25 per week to send back to loved ones.
“This cousin was a church minister and someone not to be questioned. I saw no signs that anything was wrong.”
‘Whatever we were told to do, we did it’
In April 1988, Mr Turaga and 13 fellow teenage boys arrived in Australia. His cousin had arranged the travel.
Upon arrival, their passports were taken off them and given to a migration agent.
They were told they had a debt to pay off due to the travel and visa costs.
Mr Turaga was sent to work as a machinist in Western Sydney. Seven months later, he and nine of the boys were taken to a regional grape farm on the Victoria/NSW border.
His cousin had assured the boys he would send money to their families back home, as did the farm’s owner.
“We were good workers — we picked lettuces, watermelons, grapes and rockmelons. All our effort was towards our families’ betterment.
“They’d say our families were well and getting money.”
Moe Turaga and nine other boys would work dawn to dusk seven days a week on the grape farm but were not properly paid. (AAP)
The boys all lived in a small pickers hut situated on the isolated farm.
In winter, the 10 workers would turn the oven on and leave its door open to sustain warmth.
They were given $100 a week to pay for all their toiletries, essentials and groceries. It was barely enough money to keep their stomachs full.
“We’d work over 60 hours a week, seven days. I never saw a pay cheque or contract.”
For two and a half years, this cycle continued. A phone call home changed everything.
‘We never knew it was slavery’
Mr Turaga and the boys had no contact with their Fijian families while on the farm.
They had no phones, weren’t allowed to use the farm owner’s landline and the nearest payphone was hours away and cost money.
“One day we decided to try the wire coat hanger trick and managed to make a call on the town’s payphone without paying.
“I called Mum first and she asked ‘Are you going to send any money?’ I thought she was joking. She wasn’t.”
Mr Turaga said he found comfort in his religion, amidst being mistreated by his employer. (ABC News: Adam Griffiths)
All the boys rang their own families. None of their relatives had received money or been in contact with the cousin at the centre of the slavery plot.
“That phone call broke my heart. We didn’t know what to do next.”
Mr Turaga and the boys — then aged 19 — were too scared to go to the police and feared retribution from the farm owner.
“We were scared of our farm’s owner. We thought he could shoot and leave us in the paddocks and no-one would know.”
The only thing that brought them comfort was attending church services on occasional Sunday afternoons in Mildura.
“When we had the chance, we’d walk to church and the ladies there would bake. One of them paid attention to us and sensed things were off. We felt safe to tell her our story,” Mr Turaga said.
“She spoke to us like a mother.”
That woman’s name was Audrey. She offered for the boys to come to her farm, where she would employ and pay them.
Mr Turaga met Audrey at St. Andrew’s Mildura Uniting Church, who helped him find safety. (ABC News: Emile Pavlich)
“One night we snuck out to Audrey’s farm, a two-hour walk away. It was a silver lining from God that I met her.”
On Audrey’s farm, the boys were treated respectfully.
Slowly but surely, Mr Turaga made a life for himself, as well as working for a wage and securing his passport and visa.
At the time, he figured he had been the victim of an awful scam. He didn’t realise what he’d experienced was a form of modern slavery.
What is modern slavery?
Exploitative practices like human trafficking, slavery, servitude, forced labour, debt bondage and forced marriage are all considered modern slavery under Australian law.
Jennifer Burn is the founding director of Anti-Slavery Australia — a Sydney-based team and research centre who provide free confidential legal and migration advice to to people who have experienced or are at risk of modern slavery in Australia.
“Modern slavery is about control, coercion and using a person as if they were an object,” she said.
“It takes away their human rights.”
Jennifer Burn says her team’s aim is to help clients rebuild their lives as much as possible within the scope of legal and migration assistance. (Supplied)
Professor Burn said her trauma-informed team had helped thousands of migrant workers over 20 years.
“Everybody who is working in Australia has the right to be paid properly in accordance with Australian law, to not be threatened at work or be made to work in an unsafe environment. That is whether the person is a citizen or non-citizen.”
The Fair Work Ombudsman urged anyone with concerns about pay or entitlements to contact their office or the Australian Federal Police.
People can also contact the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s confidential hotline, which provides support and assistance.
Rebuilding after trauma
Today Mr Turaga has a safe life for himself in Australia, and he is an advisory panel member for the Office of the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner.
“I’m a dad of four kids, and up until recently I had never told my story because I wanted to protect them from knowing what I’ve gone through. But if this is still happening in Australia, I’m willing to share my journey.”
Mr Turaga said neither the farm owner, his cousin nor migration agent ever faced legal justice.
“My mum has since passed, and I think about the impact it had on her. She was always praying for us kids,” he said.
“It’s the deception of the cousin that I struggle to comprehend. I never thought a family member could do that to us.”
Moe Turaga aims to make change, as an advisory panel member for the Office of the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner. (AAP)
James Cockayne is the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner.
His role is to report to the parliament on whether the state’s systems, which identify and support people who are victims of modern slavery, are actually effective.
“The idea that there are 16,400 people in NSW who are victims of modern slavery is really difficult to fathom,” Dr Cockayne said.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work to raise awareness, and that seems to have contributed to more people coming forward.”
In September, Dr Cockayne released a report on the situation of migrant workers.
It found patterns of conduct related to debt bondage, forced labour, servitude, deceptive recruiting and human trafficking in the NSW agriculture, horticulture and meat processing industries.
He said improving compliance in these sectors is a priority.
“The more we can do to equip workers with information about what their rights are, and ensuring that the channels we set up work in practice, the better off we’ll all be,” he said.
James Cockayne released a report on the situation of migrant workers. (ABC News: Adam Griffiths)
Addressing the issue nationally has also become a focus, with the appointment of Australia’s first national anti-slavery commissioner.
The report of the review into the Modern Slavery Act was published in May, 2023. Eighteen months later, this December, the Albanese government finally released their response to this report.
Dr Cockayne said NSW was “a real leader” on this issue, but that states and territories need to be given the opportunity to work closely with federal leaders to scale efforts.
“We want to see [the government] continue to put its money where its mouth is, frankly, and back up its rhetorical commitment to take action.”
He added that “it’s critical to have people with lived experience at the table”.
“Moe and other survivors are being given the opportunity to safely speak up,” he said.
“These are people who are able to take some of the darkest things that can happen to a human being and spin them into gold — they are a source of wisdom and strength that is a benefit to all of us.”
