A newly released toolkit aims to help Catholic parishioners in Brisbane stamp out exploitation practices.

It also aims to raise parishioners' awareness of the significant presence of slavery in Australia today.

Brisbane archdiocese's Legal, Governance and Risk team developed the modern slavery toolkit in conjunction with the Australian Catholic Anti-Slavery Network.

The horrible truth

There are an estimated 41,000 people experiencing modern slavery in Australia.

Worldwide, there are about 50 million enslaved to others.

About 54 per cent are women and children. They are often trapped in forced labour arrangements or forced marriages.

The modern slavery toolkit

The Evangelisation Brisbane Inclusion team says the modern slavery toolkit was released during Laudato Si' Week.

Timing it in this way was a "concrete step in empowering our agencies to act ethically in our world".

The toolkit includes strategies and procedures to help the agencies function, while caring for people vulnerable to exploitation and slavery.

"It is now important that all in the Archdiocese use these strategies and continue our dedication to eliminating modern slavery in all its forms" the team says.

The toolkit includes a guide about how certain consumer-lifestyles and goods are more likely to rely on modern slavery practices than others.

A calculator which can be used to work out "how many slaves work for you" is included in the toolkit guide.

A lifestyle example the toolkit presents is that of the "modern mum". The calculator estimates 66 slaves work for her.

It calculates 3.5 slaves to produce a pram, milk bottles use 1.1 slaves and nappy bags 1.4 slaves apiece.

The number of slaves used to produce goods quickly adds up if ethically-sourced goods are not sought.

Australia's slaves

In Australia, certain industries are most likely to be staffed by slaves.

Those at greatest risk of modern slavery are likely to work in agriculture, meat processing, cleaning, security, hospitality and construction sectors.

They are also likely to be duped by industries that use labour hire and multi-tiered subcontracting.

These industries rely on vulnerable people.

Their workforces include temporary migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, working holiday makers, international students and sponsored workers from the Pacific.

Learn, help, share concerns

Brisbane's Catholic parishioners are being encouraged to learn more about modern slavery and its risk factors.

They are also being encouraged to celebrate the feast day of St Josephine Bakhita, the patron saint of victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.

Parishioners can contact the Sydney archdiocese agency Domus 8.7 if they are concerned about someone in their community at risk of or experiencing modern slavery.

Source

• Catholic Leader

Preaching during his Liturgical Reception of him as Archbishop of Brisbane in the Cathedral of St Stephen he said, "Our greatest challenge is to become a more missionary Church - and this at a time when a certain institutional diminishment can tempt us to circle the wagons in some supposedly self-protective manoeuvre."

The cathedral was packed with a congregation including 37 bishops from every state and territory of Australia, two bishops from New Zealand - Bishop Denis Browne of Hamilton and Bishop Charles Drennan of Palmerston North - and one from Sri Lanka Bishop Cletus Perrera of Ratnapura.

Archbishop Emeritus John Bathersby, who retired late last year as Archbishop of Brisbane was there to offer words of welcome to his successor.

Archbishop Coleridge's family and friends joined the celebration.

Archbishop Coleridge said all the Church's structures, strategies and services "must be geared to this new surge of Gospel energy, this new evangelisation, which can come only from a new and deeper encounter with the Lord crucified and risen".

"The Church is wounded; the Church is always wounded in one way or another, though never unto death," he said.

"The wounds of this time will be healed only if we come to Jesus, through whom flows the power that can turn all our wounds to fountains, all our weakness to strength.

"Only then will we be equipped, indeed empowered, for the mission, the new evangelisation, to which not just the Popes but the Holy Spirit is now summoning the whole Church.

"We need to be born anew from the wounded side of Christ."

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