Australian parliament is evaluating a modern slavery act, based on the UK’s 2015 legislation that led to increase in convictions

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

An estimated 4,300 people are now enslaved in Australia, a parliamentary inquiry has been told, but Australian companies are also linked to slave-like supply chains overseas, where tens of millions work in bondage.

Thirty million people are estimated to be held in slavery or slave-like conditions across the Asia-Pacific region: major trading partners and supply countries such as India, China and Bangladesh have some of the largest slave populations in the world.

The Australian parliament is now evaluating a modern slavery act, based on the UK’s 2015 legislation.

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Speaking in Sydney on Wednesday, the UK’s independent anti-slavery commissioner, Kevin Hyland, said Britain’s Modern Slavery Act had proven a powerful law enforcement tool that had profoundly changed the lives of slavery victims.



Since the introduction of the legislation, there had been a 63% increase in the number of victims coming forward – to more than 4,000 referrals last year – and a 77% increase in convictions.



“The act … consolidates and simplifies existing legislation, and makes it easier for law enforcement and prosecutors to understand and apply,” Hyland said. “[It] creates new bespoke reparation orders, which enables courts to ensure that money taken from convicted criminals goes directly to the victims.”



Hyland said the sheer scale of the global slavery problem – the number of slaves worldwide is estimated at 45.8 million – sometimes obscured the humanity at the heart of the issue.

“It is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that, behind each of these numbers, it is a woman, or a man, or a child, being brutally abused, treated as a mere commodity, often for the financial gain of organised criminals or opportunistic exploiters,” he said.

“In few other crimes are human beings being used as commodities over and over for the gain of others.”



He said while slavery was often carefully obscured from consumers and from law enforcement, its impacts were pervasive.



“We sometimes say this is a hidden crime but actually, once we start looking, it’s not so hidden. Sometimes it’s in our high streets, sometimes it’s in our pockets, on the phone that was manufactured as a result of a child in a mine in India or the Congo.”



Australia has had slavery provisions in the commonwealth criminal code since 1999. But only 17 people have been convicted of slavery and people-trafficking offences, despite nearly 700 referrals to federal police since 2004. Most of the convictions and referrals relate to women trafficked into sexual slavery.

The Global Slavery Index estimates 4,300 people are now enslaved in Australia.



In a submission to the parliamentary inquiry, the Salvation Army’s Freedom Partnership detailed a broad range of modern slavery offences occurring in Australia, including “slave houses” in Australia where migrant workers are forcibly held against their will; workers unpaid for more than a year told they will be deported if they complain or quit; and imported domestic workers held in slave-like conditions and assaulted when they tried to escape.



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“Contrary to popular belief, slavery didn’t end with the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade,” the submission says. “In fact, it is more prevalent today that at any time in human history.”



The Freedom Partnership says an Australian modern slavery act, including the establishment of an anti-slavery commissioner, would help identify and eliminate slave-like practices.



“While Australia has taken great strides to develop a strong foundation for anti-slavery efforts, both domestically and regionally, much more remains to be done to address the challenges.”



The Human Rights Law Centre has told the inquiry the responsibility of Australian companies extended beyond the shoreline and that many were implicated in supply chains which involved slave-like working conditions.



“Contractors supplying Australia’s major supermarkets, for instance, have been found to have been complicit in the serious exploitation of migrant labour … with workers reporting gross underpayment over many months, assaults and harassment, and some female workers being propositioned for sexual favours in exchange for visas,” it said.

“The more common scenario in which Australian companies are likely to be implicated in relying on forced labour, however, is through second or third-tier suppliers and contractors overseas. The globalisation and fragmentation of production in recent decades means that Australian companies are increasingly reliant on labour from countries where labour standards are poor or poorly enforced and where violations such as excessive working hours, insufficient wages and restrictions on freedom of association, discrimination and occupational health and safety risks are rife.”

In March a report from the Australian Institute of Criminology found temporary migrant workers in Australia were at particular risk of exploitation, including: being lied to about the nature of their work, conditions and pay; being forced to work unpaid overtime; having passports confiscated; having unreasonable deductions made from salaries; being forced to live in substandard accommodation; or being denied medical care.



Seafarers working Australian sea lanes are also vulnerable to exploitation.

In April the Fair Work ombudsman commenced legal action against a Norwegian shipping company, alleging it underpaid foreign crew more than $255,000 while working in Australian waters.

The 61 crew on the MT Turmoil, mostly Indian and Filipino nationals and aged as young as 21, were paid as little as $1.25 an hour on voyages between Australian ports. The ship was under charter by two Australian companies, BP Australia and Caltex. The ombudsman did not make any allegations against BP and Caltex.

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Senate estimates this week discussed conditions and health checks for Pacific Islanders brought to Australia to work under the seasonal workers program. The vast majority work in the horticultural sector.



There have been consistent reports of exploitation within the seasonal workers program, including underpayment of workers, unreasonable deductions, harsh conditions, inadequate food and medical care.



Government officials disclosed to estimates this week that seven seasonal workers have died in Australia since the seasonal workers program began in 2012. Three of those have died due to heart disease, two in motor vehicle accidents and the cause of death has not been determined in two cases.



A 40-year-old Tongan father of two, Paulo Kivalu, died in October 2016 picking fruit in Bowen in Queensland. Sione Fifita, 22, also from Tonga, died in May this year, after working in Childers.

Just over 4,000 seasonal worker program visas have been granted this financial year.

