Rosie Ayliffe - 'Farm Work and Backpackers'

Abuse of women is everywhere. In every workplace, impacting every woman.

Coming up on In The Spirit of Things we talk with Rosie Ayliffe whose daughter Mia Ayliffe-Chung was only 20 years old when she was fatally stabbed in a Queensland backpacker’s hostel in 2016.

UK resident, Mia was on a gap year in Australia, attempting to complete 88 days of farm work – a requirement for a second-year working visa in Australia (known as a 417 Visa).

When Rosie travelled to Australia to retrieve Mia’s body, she heard stories about the terrible, exploitative treatment of young workers like Mia, including reports of widespread sexual and financial exploitation of workers.

Filled with grief and fury, Rosie decided to take a stand and began a years-long campaign to make sure no other parents would lose their children this way.

Rosie’s story is about fight for justice and an account of loss and survival.

She explores the grief that she thought would ruin her, but made her stronger, and offers answers in the quest for meaning for anyone who has lost a child.

It’s also a story about a deeply flawed system in our ‘lucky country’. Rosie offers a blistering indictment of a system that made her daughter so vulnerable, and a cry for justice for the many backpackers harmed within it.