Australia's Moment to Take On Modern Slavery
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13 September 2024 10:35 WIB
By: Justine Nolan, the Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute and a Professor in the Faculty of Law & Justice at UNSW Sydney.
Fifty million people worldwide are trapped in modern slavery, more than half of them in the Asia-Pacific. New laws are forcing greater efforts to stamp it out.
Australia is at a critical point on the way to tackling modern slavery.
Federal legislation on modern slavery was first passed in 2018. This year, an amendment established the role of a national anti-slavery commissioner, with an appointment expected in the coming months.
Current laws have succeeded in raising awareness of the problem, but corporate responses remain largely symbolic.
Soon, however, things could get much tougher.
New European legislation requires action and compliance, not just reporting, to weed out modern slavery and labor exploitation — a change affecting companies outside Europe that supply to or trade in EU markets, directly or indirectly.
Europe and the US have also adopted bans on foreign goods suspected of involving modern slavery.
The Asia-Pacific region is estimated to have the largest number of people in modern slavery — more than 29 million.
It is therefore a good moment to reassess Australia’s approach to dealing with modern slavery, a complex problem that can sometimes hide in plain sight.
A range of exploitative practices
Modern slavery is a global issue — it occurs in every region of the world, in developing and developed countries.
In 2013, the non-profit organization Walk Free published its first Global Slavery Index, which estimated 29.8 million people were victims of modern slavery.
Ten years later, the number had increased to 50 million, including 28 million people in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriage.
There is no globally recognized definition of modern slavery, and the concept is not always well understood. It is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of serious exploitative practices that include human trafficking, servitude, forced labor, debt bondage, deceptive recruiting for labor or services, forced marriage, and the worst forms of child labor.
Forced labor is the form of modern slavery most often associated with workplace exploitation and refers to work people must perform against their will under the threat of punishment.
Modern slavery is best understood as existing on a "continuum of exploitation". Such an outlook recognizes people can be exposed to exploitative practices that gradually worsen, sometimes leading to modern slavery.
The Australian situation
Estimates of modern slavery's prevalence in Australia vary widely, with Walk Free claiming 41,000 people are subject to modern slavery.
While formally recorded cases of modern slavery are low, it is generally considered such cases reflect only a fraction of their true prevalence, and serious exploitation exists in farms, factories, businesses, and homes in Australia.
In 2024, a man was charged with the slavery of crew members on a fishing boat in Queensland, and in 2021, a couple were found guilty of keeping a woman in forced labor in their business and home for more than three years.
The number of reports the Australian Federal Police receive each year has been increasing. In 2022-23, the AFP reported the top three forms of modern slavery in Australia were forced marriage (90 reports), sexual servitude and exploitation (73), and forced labor (43).
The Australian government has adopted a ‘market-based disclosure’ model to regulate modern slavery in corporate operations and supply chains.
The Modern Slavery Act 2018 establishes a reporting requirement for relevant entities to publish annual public statements on their modern slavery risks and the steps taken to address these risks in their operations and supply chains.
