Modern Slavery Flashcards
What are three forms of contemporary slavery?
Forced Labour - work performed under the threat of a penalty, most vulnerable are domestic and factory workers (25 million globally)
Debt Bondage - where a person is forced to repay a loan with labour instead of money, and the value of the labour is not properly applied
Sexual Slavery - repeated sexual abuse/forcing the victim to provide sexual services; victims are usually women and children
What is the definition of human trafficking?
Refers to the commercial trade or trafficking in human beings for the purpose of some form of slavery
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (2000) was adopted by the UN and has 173 signatories
Australia is primarily a destination country for people trafficked from Asia
Human trafficking must be distinguished from people smuggling, where people voluntarily pay a fee for the smuggler’s service
What is the global extent of human trafficking?
UN Office on Drugs & Crime estimates that there are 2.5 million international victims, not including the millions trafficked within countries
Sexual exploitation is the most documented type of trafficking, and 57.6% of victims are women and girls
Reasons behind it include poverty, exploitative employers and corrupt officials - the profits from human trafficking worldwide are US$150 billion
What have been international responses to human trafficking?
Article 4 of the Declaration of Human Rights (1948) prohibits slavery
The main international instrument is the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (2000), designed to foster and enhance close international cooperation in order to tackle international crime
Attached to this was the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (2000)
Coming into force in December 2003, it was the first global legally binding instrument with an agreed definition of human trafficking, designed to ensure domestic and international responses to the issue were synchronised
What have been Australia’s responses to human trafficking?
The Australian government established a human trafficking strategy in 2003 and since then has dedicated almost $60 million to tackling the problem
Australia ratified the Protocol in 2005
Current provisions against sexual-slavery are in Divisions 270-71 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) and include up to 25 year’s imprisonment for some offences
In 2008, the government introduced new measures under the Commonwealth Government Anti-Trafficking Strategy, including greater training for the AFP and DPP and increased victim support measures
One of the serious issues in Australia’s enforcement campaign is the threat of deportation of victims on discovery by authorities
What has been the role of the Modern Slavery Act 2018 Cth in combating human trafficking?
Calls for corporations worth $100 million and over to report on slavery in their supply chains in a public repository
Eligible Australian & foreign entities carrying on business in Australia must submit ‘modern slavery statements’ every 12 months
Human Rights Watch claims that the Act does not go far enough, and that the qualifying threshold should be dropped to $25 million
The Act does not support large businesses to work towards due diligence in human rights and does not penalise non-reporting
What has been the role of NGOs in combating human trafficking?
NGOs such as Human Rights Watch fight to raise awareness/encourage action
The media plays an important role in informing the public of the issue; SBS documentary Trafficked (2006) was watched by over 500,000
UTS has an anti-slavery project which collaborates with government agencies and community groups in a fight to eliminate modern slavery in all its forms
