Australia has recognized – and prosecuted – a new form of human trafficking that focuses on the departure, instead of the arrival, of the victim.

As another prosecution of “exit trafficking” is secured, The Guardian tells the stories of victims who were tricked out of the country, through using deception as a means of coercion.

Resilience amidst abuse

Priya’s story reveals the manipulative and coercive control perpetrators deploy to get their victims to leave the country. At home in Australia, Priya’s* husband, on whom her visa status depended, kept her isolated through the threat of being killed and subjected her to relentless abuse.

He abandoned her the day before a planned trip together to Thailand. With her visa about to expire and his warning to leave, Priya felt she had no choice but to take the trip with no clear way to return.

In a recent prosecution, the perpetrator was a Melbourne man who abandoned his wife in South Sudan without her passport, taking their children and leaving her stranded for two years. He was convicted of “exit trafficking” and faces up to 12 years in jail.

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