Family pull together to fight trafficking

NZ Herald

21 Sep, 2015 05:00 PM3 mins to read

Petra Bagust says the challenge to live off $2.25 a day brings everyday convenience into focus. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Petra Bagust's daughter Venetia is the same age as the average victim of human trafficking - just 12 years old.

"It's almost too horrible to bear," Bagust says.

This week, to help raise awareness and money to help TearFund's fight against human trafficking, she and her family - including kids Theo, 8, Jude, 10 and Venetia - will live off just $2.25 per person of food and drink a day.

Funds raised by Kiwis doing The Live Below the Line challenge, which began yesterday, go towards rescuing victims of trafficking and prosecuting the perpetrators.

This is Bagust's second year taking part in the five-day campaign.

"Mathematically very challenging and relatively confronting in terms of a loss of freedom - you can't snack when you feel like it, or go for a coffee when you feel like a coffee - it takes the unconscious and makes it conscious. It brings everyday convenience into focus.

"For me I'll go and go and go, and then I'll hit a wall and my decision-making ability and patience starts to evaporate," she said of doing the challenge last year.

"You feel like your ability to function mentally and physically has become compromised."

She said that made her think about her reasons for taking part.

"I've been to some of the countries where the funds raised will go, and when you're in those places you see people eating rice - and it's a treat if they get soy sauce with it. There are so many things that we are used to - so it's confronting to see the lack of choice, abundance and freedom among people who are eating solely to survive."

Bagust's kids are taking part only for breakfast and dinner, meaning they'd still take packed lunches to school. "It's such a good topic of conversation with the kids - they don't know that butter and milk are a luxury, that it is a privilege that the water they drink is clean."

Last year Bagust went to Nepal and saw first-hand some of the people who had been targeted by traffickers. "They are very vulnerable people, not because they choose to be, but due to the place of their birth and the socio-economic status of their country."

The Live Below the Line challenge runs until Friday.