Vulnerable migrants having abortions due to visa fears
Migrant women working in rural Australia are carrying unplanned pregnancies, having unwanted abortions or even giving their babies to authorities due to fear, poverty and poor healthcare coverage.
This is the "unseen population" that NSW general practitioner Trudi Beck wants every Australian to know about.
Dr Beck, a GP obstetrician from Wagga Wagga, told a NSW parliamentary inquiry into modern slavery that she routinely sees pregnant Pacific Islander workers, who are not entitled to free or subsidised healthcare in Australia.
The vast majority of those women opted for an abortion, though it didn't always appear to be their preference, Dr Beck said.
The women, who are usually working under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, fear they will breach their visa conditions if they cannot work due to pregnancy.
"I find it really difficult to provide termination services for a woman where that's not her deeply-held desire ... that's the crux of the matter for me," Dr Beck told the inquiry sitting in Griffith on Thursday, in sometimes emotional evidence.
"If this woman was in her home country and had the means to live above the poverty line, she would have this baby.
"That is just such an ethics and values clash for me and that's what makes me want to reach out to people to say: can we make this better?"
Some women who could not access abortion services in time gave birth in their home countries while on annual leave, Dr Beck said.
The inquiry has been told PALM workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because their visa does not allow them to change employers, forcing some to abscond.
Many disengaged workers have settled in the NSW Riverina, where they live in hiding, Leeton Multicultural Support Group chairman Paul Maytom said.
Mr Maytom said 10 pregnant migrants have approached the organisation for help, including one woman who gave her prematurely-born baby to authorities after her older child was also taken in as a ward of the state.
"She said, 'I didn't know what to do because I have no money, so I agreed to it, but I want my babies back', Mr Maytom said.
"That's tough."
Griffith domestic violence service Links For Women supported 47 female PALM workers in 2023-24.
The women were assaulted by either male employers or their co-workers, forcing them to flee, manager Madeleine Rossiter said.
It's estimated more than 40,000 people are enslaved across the nation, subject to violence, threats, punishing hours, low pay, poor housing and restricted movements.
More than 16,000 are believed to be trapped in modern slavery in NSW, one of the few states that does not regulate the hire companies central to migrant recruitment.
The inquiry continues.
Reports of modern slavery can be made to 1800 FREEDOM (1800 37 333 66)
Migrant women working in rural Australia are carrying unplanned pregnancies, having unwanted abortions or even giving their babies to authorities due to fear, poverty and poor healthcare coverage.
This is the "unseen population" that NSW general practitioner Trudi Beck wants every Australian to know about.
Dr Beck, a GP obstetrician from Wagga Wagga, told a NSW parliamentary inquiry into modern slavery that she routinely sees pregnant Pacific Islander workers, who are not entitled to free or subsidised healthcare in Australia.
The vast majority of those women opted for an abortion, though it didn't always appear to be their preference, Dr Beck said.
The women, who are usually working under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, fear they will breach their visa conditions if they cannot work due to pregnancy.
"I find it really difficult to provide termination services for a woman where that's not her deeply-held desire ... that's the crux of the matter for me," Dr Beck told the inquiry sitting in Griffith on Thursday, in sometimes emotional evidence.
"If this woman was in her home country and had the means to live above the poverty line, she would have this baby.
"That is just such an ethics and values clash for me and that's what makes me want to reach out to people to say: can we make this better?"
Some women who could not access abortion services in time gave birth in their home countries while on annual leave, Dr Beck said.
The inquiry has been told PALM workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because their visa does not allow them to change employers, forcing some to abscond.
Many disengaged workers have settled in the NSW Riverina, where they live in hiding, Leeton Multicultural Support Group chairman Paul Maytom said.
Mr Maytom said 10 pregnant migrants have approached the organisation for help, including one woman who gave her prematurely-born baby to authorities after her older child was also taken in as a ward of the state.
"She said, 'I didn't know what to do because I have no money, so I agreed to it, but I want my babies back', Mr Maytom said.
"That's tough."
Griffith domestic violence service Links For Women supported 47 female PALM workers in 2023-24.
The women were assaulted by either male employers or their co-workers, forcing them to flee, manager Madeleine Rossiter said.
It's estimated more than 40,000 people are enslaved across the nation, subject to violence, threats, punishing hours, low pay, poor housing and restricted movements.
More than 16,000 are believed to be trapped in modern slavery in NSW, one of the few states that does not regulate the hire companies central to migrant recruitment.
The inquiry continues.
Reports of modern slavery can be made to 1800 FREEDOM (1800 37 333 66)
Migrant women working in rural Australia are carrying unplanned pregnancies, having unwanted abortions or even giving their babies to authorities due to fear, poverty and poor healthcare coverage.
This is the "unseen population" that NSW general practitioner Trudi Beck wants every Australian to know about.
Dr Beck, a GP obstetrician from Wagga Wagga, told a NSW parliamentary inquiry into modern slavery that she routinely sees pregnant Pacific Islander workers, who are not entitled to free or subsidised healthcare in Australia.
The vast majority of those women opted for an abortion, though it didn't always appear to be their preference, Dr Beck said.
The women, who are usually working under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, fear they will breach their visa conditions if they cannot work due to pregnancy.
"I find it really difficult to provide termination services for a woman where that's not her deeply-held desire ... that's the crux of the matter for me," Dr Beck told the inquiry sitting in Griffith on Thursday, in sometimes emotional evidence.
"If this woman was in her home country and had the means to live above the poverty line, she would have this baby.
"That is just such an ethics and values clash for me and that's what makes me want to reach out to people to say: can we make this better?"
Some women who could not access abortion services in time gave birth in their home countries while on annual leave, Dr Beck said.
The inquiry has been told PALM workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because their visa does not allow them to change employers, forcing some to abscond.
Many disengaged workers have settled in the NSW Riverina, where they live in hiding, Leeton Multicultural Support Group chairman Paul Maytom said.
Mr Maytom said 10 pregnant migrants have approached the organisation for help, including one woman who gave her prematurely-born baby to authorities after her older child was also taken in as a ward of the state.
"She said, 'I didn't know what to do because I have no money, so I agreed to it, but I want my babies back', Mr Maytom said.
"That's tough."
Griffith domestic violence service Links For Women supported 47 female PALM workers in 2023-24.
The women were assaulted by either male employers or their co-workers, forcing them to flee, manager Madeleine Rossiter said.
It's estimated more than 40,000 people are enslaved across the nation, subject to violence, threats, punishing hours, low pay, poor housing and restricted movements.
More than 16,000 are believed to be trapped in modern slavery in NSW, one of the few states that does not regulate the hire companies central to migrant recruitment.
The inquiry continues.
Reports of modern slavery can be made to 1800 FREEDOM (1800 37 333 66)
Migrant women working in rural Australia are carrying unplanned pregnancies, having unwanted abortions or even giving their babies to authorities due to fear, poverty and poor healthcare coverage.
This is the "unseen population" that NSW general practitioner Trudi Beck wants every Australian to know about.
Dr Beck, a GP obstetrician from Wagga Wagga, told a NSW parliamentary inquiry into modern slavery that she routinely sees pregnant Pacific Islander workers, who are not entitled to free or subsidised healthcare in Australia.
The vast majority of those women opted for an abortion, though it didn't always appear to be their preference, Dr Beck said.
The women, who are usually working under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, fear they will breach their visa conditions if they cannot work due to pregnancy.
"I find it really difficult to provide termination services for a woman where that's not her deeply-held desire ... that's the crux of the matter for me," Dr Beck told the inquiry sitting in Griffith on Thursday, in sometimes emotional evidence.
"If this woman was in her home country and had the means to live above the poverty line, she would have this baby.
"That is just such an ethics and values clash for me and that's what makes me want to reach out to people to say: can we make this better?"
Some women who could not access abortion services in time gave birth in their home countries while on annual leave, Dr Beck said.
The inquiry has been told PALM workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because their visa does not allow them to change employers, forcing some to abscond.
Many disengaged workers have settled in the NSW Riverina, where they live in hiding, Leeton Multicultural Support Group chairman Paul Maytom said.
Mr Maytom said 10 pregnant migrants have approached the organisation for help, including one woman who gave her prematurely-born baby to authorities after her older child was also taken in as a ward of the state.
"She said, 'I didn't know what to do because I have no money, so I agreed to it, but I want my babies back', Mr Maytom said.
"That's tough."
Griffith domestic violence service Links For Women supported 47 female PALM workers in 2023-24.
The women were assaulted by either male employers or their co-workers, forcing them to flee, manager Madeleine Rossiter said.
It's estimated more than 40,000 people are enslaved across the nation, subject to violence, threats, punishing hours, low pay, poor housing and restricted movements.
More than 16,000 are believed to be trapped in modern slavery in NSW, one of the few states that does not regulate the hire companies central to migrant recruitment.
The inquiry continues.
Reports of modern slavery can be made to 1800 FREEDOM (1800 37 333 66)
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Receptors for the hormone spread throughout the body, even in the brain, where they trigger a feeling of fullness and decrease appetite. A once-weekly dose of semaglutide, plus lifestyle changes, led volunteers in a phase 3 trial to lose 14.9 per cent of their body weight over 15 months. GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy essentially copy that human hormone. That makes them fragile. They need to be kept refrigerated, and injected subcutaneously rather than taken by mouth – as the stomach's acid would quickly break them down. An oral version of semaglutide has been developed, but only 1 per cent of the drug actually makes its way to the target receptors, and it appears less effective than the injectable version for weight loss. Loading Researchers at Japan's Chugai Pharmaceutical Co figured out a way around this problem. They designed a small molecule that can bind to the same receptor as GLP-1 and trigger it. It mimics the effect without mimicking the structure. 'It's a development I never would have thought feasible,' said Professor Michael Horowitz, a University of Adelaide researcher who authored a commentary on the drug in the Lancet. Chugai licensed the molecule to US-based Eli Lilly in 2018. Last week, the company reported participants on the highest dose in a clinical trial lost 7.9 per cent of their body weight over 40 weeks. The full details of the trial have not yet been reported, and whether the weight loss is maintained over the longer term is unclear. More than a quarter of patients reported diarrhoea, 16 per cent nausea and 14 per cent vomiting. The preliminary results are 'close enough to broadly call it similar' to semaglutide, said Professor Jonathan Shaw, who led the Australian arm of Lilly's trial at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne. 'I don't think we can confidently say it's better or worse. It's definitely in the same ballpark.' It's also not known if the drug will offer the range of other benefits that GLP-1 inhibitors provide in addition to weight loss, like reductions in cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's risk (and maybe even addictive behaviours). Horowitz said the efficacy data was promising, but he wanted to see more information about adverse effects, which he said were understated generally across semaglutide trials because they relied on patients to report their own side effects. 'It hasn't served the interests of pharma to quantify how well this is tolerated.' Pfizer was developing a similar once-daily GLP-1 pill but cancelled the program in April after a patient in a clinical trial suffered liver damage. A pill should, theoretically, be cheaper and easier to make than an injector – Novo Nordisk, maker of Wegovy and its diabetes drug antecedent Ozempic, has struggled to keep up with demand for semaglutide – and dramatically easier to transport. At present, the drug must be kept refrigerated right from European factories to a patient's home. 'That all adds to the cost,' said Shaw. There could also be cost benefits from increased competition as more drugs are approved – possibly pushing the price down far enough for governments to consider subsidising it. Lilly expects to apply for regulatory approval for the drug later this year. While orforglipron has attracted the most excitement – Eli Lilly's shares have surged since they announced the trial results – it is just one of several new drugs in late-stage development. These drugs might be of particular value to 15 per cent or so of people whose bodies do not seem to respond to semaglutide. And people don't seem to stay on the injectable drugs – less than half are still using them a year later, per a study 2024 study – despite the fact weight rebound is likely if you stop using them. 'Is it the injection? Is it the cost? Or is it due to adverse effects? We don't know,' said Horowitz. The new drugs might also offer weight-loss benefits. Mounjaro, for example, mimics both GLP-1 and the gastric inhibitory polypeptide, which increases metabolism and appears to lead to better weight-loss results. The new drugs, like Lilly's retatrutide, target even more receptors, with the hope of even greater effects. It's all good news for Rochelle McDonald. She does not mind taking a weekly injection – 'the stabby-stab' – now she's found ways of coping with the side effects. But paying $240 a month for her current dose of the medicine is 'a commitment in itself'. 'I think a daily pill would be good,' she said. 'If it comes in at a good price point.'
