DOCSLIB.ORG

Hidden in Plain Sight

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Hidden in Plain Sight PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Hidden in Plain Sight An inquiry into establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade December 2017 CANBERRA © Commonwealth of Australia ISBN 978-1-74366-753-8 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-1-74366-754-5 (HTML Version) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Contents Foreword.............................................................................................................................................ix Members ...........................................................................................................................................xiii Terms of Reference ..........................................................................................................................xix Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................................xxi List of Recommendations............................................................................................................xxvii The Report 1 Introduction...............................................................................................................1 Overview of inquiry ...............................................................................................................2 Combatting modern slavery.....................................................................................2 Support for addressing modern slavery .................................................................2 Summary of evidence ................................................................................................3 Conduct of the inquiry...........................................................................................................4 Previous inquiries.......................................................................................................4 Delegation to the UK..................................................................................................5 Interim report..............................................................................................................5 Outline of report .....................................................................................................................6 2 A Modern Slavery Act for Australia?...................................................................9 UK Modern Slavery Act.........................................................................................................9 Offences, prevention orders and enforcement.....................................................10 Prevention ................................................................................................................11 iii iv Protection of victims ................................................................................................11 Transparency in global supply chains...................................................................12 Whole-of-government anti-slavery measures......................................................12 Australia’s response to modern slavery............................................................................14 Offences, prevention orders and enforcement.....................................................14 Whole-of-government anti-slavery measures......................................................15 Key differences .....................................................................................................................20 Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner............................................................21 Transparency in supply chains ..............................................................................21 Protections for victims.............................................................................................22 Support for an Australian Modern Slavery Act ...............................................................23 3 Defining and measuring modern slavery .........................................................29 Definitions of modern slavery ............................................................................................29 ‘Modern slavery’.......................................................................................................29 International law ......................................................................................................31 UK Modern Slavery Act ..........................................................................................34 Australian law...........................................................................................................36 Defining modern slavery ........................................................................................41 Prevalence of modern slavery.............................................................................................48 Global estimates........................................................................................................48 Prevalence of modern slavery in Australia ..........................................................55 Prevalence of modern slavery in Australian supply chains ..............................63 4 Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner ........................................................73 UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner .................................................................73 International equivalents.....................................................................................................75 Europe – National Rapporteurs .............................................................................75 United States .............................................................................................................77 Support for an Australian Commissioner.........................................................................78 Current Australian Government roles ..................................................................79 v Proposed role in Australia ......................................................................................82 5 Transparency in supply chains............................................................................93 International developments ................................................................................................93 Australian Government proposed model .........................................................................94 Committee views on the proposed model ........................................................................95 Legislative basis........................................................................................................95 Terminology..............................................................................................................96 Timeframe for reporting..........................................................................................99 Approval of modern slavery statements ............................................................101 Threshold.................................................................................................................101 Focus of reporting ..................................................................................................104 Reporting areas.......................................................................................................107 Guidance for business............................................................................................117 Monitoring and evaluation ...................................................................................123 Compliance mechanism ........................................................................................131 6 Support for victims ..............................................................................................141 Victim-centred approach ...................................................................................................141 Victim support measures...................................................................................................147 Support for Trafficked People Program..............................................................147 Human Trafficking Visa Framework ..................................................................152 Defence for victims.............................................................................................................160 Principle of non-punishment................................................................................161 National compensation scheme........................................................................................164 Additional supports...............................................................................................171 7 Criminal justice responses .................................................................................181 Identifying, investigating and prosecuting modern slavery........................................181 Barriers to addressing modern slavery ...............................................................183 Relevant provisions of the UK Act...................................................................................196 Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner..........................................................198
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Politics of Ambiguity Conditional Manumission, Labor Contracts, and Slave Emancipation in Brazil (1850S–1888)*
    Sidney Chalhoub The Politics of Ambiguity Conditional Manumission, Labor Contracts, and Slave Emancipation in Brazil (1850s–1888)* Introduction The historical process that made liberalism, old and new, the guiding ideology of Western societies brought with it the invention of new forms of unfree labor. Lib- eralism and free labor, ancien regime and serfdom and/or slavery are no longer unproblematic pairs of historical intelligibility. The first half of the nineteenth century did not see the weakening of slavery in the Americas at all, but just the partial relocation of it. The institution of slavery gradually disappeared in the British and French Caribbean while it became stronger in Brazil, Cuba, and the US South.1 In the second half of the nineteenth century, as the nightmare of an international order based on slavery was finally defeated in the American Civil War,2 there emerged extremely aggressive racist ideologies that justified Western imperial expansion and the persistence of forced labor in Africa and elsewhere. Actually, it boggles the mind to think that for so long it seemed possible to con- ceive of the nineteenth century as a time of transition from slavery to freedom, from bondage to contractual and/or free labor. In fact, contract labor, however diverse in its forms, was often thought of as a form of coerced labor, with workers * This article was first published under the same title in International Review of Social History, Vol. 60 (2015), pp. 161–191 doi:10.1017/S0020859015000176 © 2015 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, published by Cambridge University Press, reproduced with permission.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Trafficking in America's Schools
    Human Trafficking in AMERICA’S SCHOOLS 2015 JANUARY Human Trafficking in AMERICA’S SCHOOLS i This report was written under U.S. Department of Education Grant Number Q184L070139 by Jeneé Littrell of the Grossmont Union High School District. Eve Birge served as the grant monitor. This report was designed for the U.S. Department of Education under Contract Number EDESE12O0035 with American Institutes for Research, Inc. Rita Foy Moss served as the contracting officer’s representative for the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments technical assistance center (NCSSLE). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the Department of any product, commodity, service or enterprise mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred. For the reader’s convenience, this publication contains information about and from outside organizations, including hyperlinks and URLs. Inclusion of such information does not constitute the Department’s endorsement. Office of Safe and Healthy Students David Esquith Director January 2015 This report is in the public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be U.S. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Healthy Students, Human Trafficking in America’s Schools, Washington, D.C., 2015. This report is available for free at http://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/human-trafficking-americas-schools. Availability of Alternate Formats Requests for documents in alternate formats such as Braille or large print should be submitted to the Alternate Format Center by calling 202.260.0852 or by contacting the 504 coordinator via email at [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • Victims of Early and Forced Marriages
    5 Chapter 1: Victims of early and forced marriages The purpose of this chapter isn’t to deal term provides a clearer definition, among exhaustively with the issue of forced marriages other things, of the control exerted over a in connection (or not) with human trafficking. person within the framework of a forced marriage, with a view to their exploitation4. Instead, it aims to provide an introduction to the problem, specifically concerning minors, Forced, arranged, sham, early, customary, based on several cases that came to Myria’s white, or grey marriages: these terms are attention. frequently used and sometimes confused. What is the current situation regarding these 5 1. The concept of forced marriage terms ? The aim of European directive 2011/36 on Also note that these concepts are a particular human trafficking1 is to tackle recent source of debate when they concern couples developments in trafficking by including forms where one or both partners don’t have Belgian nationality, given that family migration of exploitation such as forced begging and the 6 exploitation of criminal activities. In this is one of the only legal migration channels . respect, preamble 11 of the directive specifies that the definition also includes other behaviours “such as illegal adoption or forced 1° for the purposes of the exploitation of prostitution or marriage, insofar as they fulfil the constitutive other forms of sexual exploitation; elements of trafficking in human beings”. 2° for the purposes of the exploitation of begging; 3° for the purposes of work or services, in conditions contrary to human dignity; The Belgian legislator, on the other hand, 4° for the purposes of organ harvesting in violation of decided not to explicitly include illegal the Law of 13 June 1986 on the harvesting and adoption or forced marriages in the definition transplantation of organs, or human biological material of trafficking and, more particularly, as a form in violation of the Law of 19 December 2008 relating to 2 the collection and use of human biological material of exploitation .
    [Show full text]
  • Orphanage Entrepreneurs: the Trafficking of Haiti's Invisible Children
    Protecting Children. Providing Solutions. Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti’s Invisible Children 2 Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti’s Invisible Children Authors Georgette Mulheir with Mara Cavanagh and colleagues. Contributors and researchers Eugene Guillaume, Jamie McMutrie, Ali McMutrie, Morgan Wienberg and Matthew Thomas. Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti’s Invisible Children 3 Contents Executive Summary 5 Purpose of this document 7 A forgotten history 7 The harm caused by institutionalisation 8 Violence and abuse in children’s institutions 9 Institutionalisation and trafficking 10 Definitions 11 Children in orphanages and institutions in Haiti 12 Trafficking in Haiti 13 The international and national legislative and policy framework 14 Research evidence on institutionalisation and trafficking of children in Haiti 15 Case evidence of trafficking children in institutions in Haiti 17 Patterns of abuse and trafficking in institutions 26 How to close an orphanage that is trafficking children 28 Outcomes of the Lumos intervention in three orphanages 30 Money: part of the problem and a possible solution 30 Faith-based funding and support of orphanages 34 Conclusions 35 Recommendations 36 4 Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti’s Invisible Children Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti’s Invisible Children 5 Executive summary An estimated 32,000 children live in orphanages in Haiti. More than 80% are not orphans. 80 years of research demonstrates the harm caused by raising children in institutions. As a result, most countries in the developed world moved away from this form of care decades ago. The Haitian government has prioritised reducing reliance on orphanage care, to ensure children can be raised in families.
    [Show full text]
  • Survivor Stories
    Survivor Stories The Sound of Freedom | Sakdouri Village Story It’s called the “brick belt” of India, a notorious region where debt bondage slavery is rampant and devastating. Enslaved villagers are threatened, degraded, shamed and sometimes beaten to death. It sounds like an impossible challenge for human rights activists. But it isn’t. The villagers of Sakdouri are proof. Slavery’s Cruel Grip Eighteen families from Sakdouri were trapped in bonded labor slavery at a local brick kiln, forced to work in brutal conditions, terrorized by violence. “Someone promised us jobs at the brick kiln and said the owner was a good person,” says Durga, a Sakdouri slavery survivor. “They said he would pay us well, but we didn’t even get water to drink. He didn’t pay us or even give us fuel to cook our food. When we asked the owner, he threatened and beat us.” “The brick kiln owner and his supervisor threatened to throw me in the brick kiln furnace,” says Shagir, a Sakdouri slavery survivor. In debt bondage, slaves are chained to an illegal financial obligation that they are forced to repay through endless labor. An entire family—men, women and children—is forced to work for the person who holds the debt. Those in slavery cannot walk away, even if they could pay off the loan more quickly by working elsewhere. Debt bondage has been outlawed in India, but impoverished villagers do not know their rights—and many have no choice but to borrow funds when a family emergency arises. A Daring Break for Freedom Brave Sakdouri slaves ultimately managed to make contact with residents of a previously freed village, who in turn notified a Free the Slaves front-line partner organization.
    [Show full text]
  • 9 Aug 2021 Understanding Modern Slavery
    MODERN SLAVERY WHAT IS MODERN SLAVERY? Modern slavery is an umbrella terms and includes: “ Modern slavery refers to situations where one person has taken away another human trafficking person’s freedom – their freedom to control slavery and slavery-like offences their body, their freedom to choose to servitude refuse certain work or to stop working – forced labour so that they can be exploited. Freedom is debt bondage taken away by threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power and deception. The net worst forms of child labour result is that a person cannot refuse or deceptive recruiting for labour or services leave the situation.” forced marriage Please see page 2 for definitions of modern slavery Modern slavery affects every country, region, business and for many businesses – their supply chains. Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates 40.3 million people live in modern slavery globally. 24.9 million victims work in forced labour and one in four victims are children. For further information visit, www.minderoo.com.au/walk-free Photo credit: John Salvino DEFINITIONS OF MODERN SLAVERY Human Trafficking: Debt Bondage: The recruitment, harbouring and movement of a Situations where the victim’s services are pledged person for exploitation through modern slavery. as security for a debt and the debt is manifestly excessive or the victim’s services are not applied to liquidate the debt, or the length and nature of the Slavery: services are not limited and defined. Situations where the offender exercises powers of ownership over the victim, including the power to make a person an object of purchase and use their Worst forms of child labour: labour in an unrestricted way.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization
    IA SCIEN M T E IA D R A V C M A PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SOCIALIVM ACTA 20 S A O I C C I I F A I T L I N V M O P Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization The Proceedings of the 20th Plenary Session 17-21 April 2015 Edited by Margaret S. Archer | Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo Libreria Editrice Vaticana • Vatican City 2016 Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Acta 20 The Proceedings of the 20th Plenary Session Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization 17-21 April 2015 Edited by Margaret S. Archer Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo IA SCIE M NT E IA D R A V C M A S A I O C C I F I I A T L I N V M O P LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA • VATICAN CITY 2016 The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Casina Pio IV, 00120 Vatican City Tel: +39 0669881441 • Fax: +39 0669885218 Email: [email protected] • Website: www.pass.va The opinions expressed with absolute freedom during the presentation of the papers of this meeting, although published by the Academy, represent only the points of view of the participants and not those of the Academy. ISBN 978-88-86726-32-0 © Copyright 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, pho- tocopying or otherwise without the expressed written permission of the publisher. THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA VATICAN CITY In recent years, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, thanks to the efforts of its President, its Chancellor and a num- ber of prestigious external collaborators – to whom I offer my heartfelt thanks – has engaged in important activities in defence of human dignity and freedom in our day.
    [Show full text]
  • Hidden in Plain Sight: Escalation Control and the Covert Side of the Vietnam War
    Hidden in Plain Sight: Escalation Control and the Covert Side of the Vietnam War Austin Carson University of Chicago [email protected] 3 February 2017 Abstract: American military operations in Laos during the Vietnam War are a classic case of an “open secret.” Within a year of the program’s start, news reports in major media outlets about U.S. covert operations, including specific bombing missions, were routine. Despite widespread knowledge, American leaders maintained the program and consistently refused to affirm their role for over five years. This is puzzling behavior. Open secrets, by definition, fail to alter the distribution of knowledge; this is secrecy’s central function in intuition, theories, and assumptions about private information, deception, and so on. To solve this puzzle, this article takes exposure seriously, offering an escalation control theory of the political value of open secrecy. I theorize the independent role of acknowledgement, as opposed to knowledge, and link its presence or absence to conflict escalation dynamics. Empirically, the article analyzes the covert Laos operations by drawing on new archival material that provides an unusually candid window into management of a covert action program. I provide evidence top U.S. leaders anticipated leaks and saw non-acknowledgement as useful in shaping whether events in Laos would trigger a wider regional war, specifically linking it to Soviet, Chinese, and domestic Laotian reactions. In addition to conceptual and theoretical innovation, the article sheds light on recent and important cases of open secret covert state behavior, such as Russian involvement in Eastern Ukraine, Iranian support for insurgents in civil wars in the Middle East, and American drone strikes in Pakistan.
    [Show full text]
  • Inquiry Into Establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia Submission
    P a g e | 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3 2. Summary ......................................................................................................................... 3 3. Methodology & Terminology .......................................................................................... 5 4. Terms of Reference ......................................................................................................... 5 5. History and Background ................................................................................................. 6 5.1 A Short History of Modern Slavery and its Discontents ................................................................ 6 5.2 International Efforts to Combat Modern Slavery: A New International Standard ....................... 8 5.3 Regional Efforts to Combat Moderns Slavery ............................................................................... 9 5.4 Country Efforts to Combat Modern Slavery & Supply Chain Abuses ......................................... 10 5.5 Other Non-Binding Civil Society Developments ......................................................................... 12 5.6 Australian Business Developments to Address Modern Slavery ................................................ 12 6. Modern Slavery: The Australian Context..................................................................... 14 6.1 Identifying the Problem: Recent Concerning Trends
    [Show full text]
  • What Is Human Trafficking?
    DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS What is human trafficking? Over the past 15 years, “trafficking in persons” and “human It is critical to understand that a person’s initial consent to trafficking” have been used as umbrella terms for activities participate in prostitution is not legally determinative: if an involved when someone obtains or holds a person in com- individual is thereafter held in service through psychological pelled service. manipulation or physical force, that person is a trafficking victim and should receive the benefits outlined in the United The United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act Nations’ Palermo Protocol and applicable laws. (TVPA) describes this compelled service using a number of different terms: involuntary servitude, slavery, debt bondage, and forced labor. Under the TVPA, individuals may be traf- ficking victims regardless of whether they once consented, participated in a crime as a direct result of being trafficked, were transported into the exploitative situation, or were sim- ply born into a state of servitude. At the heart of this phe- nomenon are the myriad forms of enslavement – not the ac- tivities involved in international transportation. Major forms of human trafficking include: Forced Labor Recent studies show the majority of human trafficking in the James Wasserman world takes the form of forced labor. Also known as invol- Bonded Labor untary servitude, forced labor may result when unscrupulous One form of coercion is the use of a bond, or debt. Often employers exploit workers made more vulnerable by high referred to as “bonded labor” or “debt bondage,” the practice rates of unemployment, poverty, crime, discrimination, cor- has long been prohibited under U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Australian Parliamentary Inquiry Into Modern Slavery
    AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY INTO MODERN SLAVERY Prepared in collaboration with 1 Position Overview 1.1 Human rights protection has traditionally been a matter for the State. However, 1due to globalisation, the liberalisation of trade and the immense economic power of corporations, it is now well recognised that there is a crucial link between the way in which businesses conduct their operations and human rights. In the list of the world’s top 100 economic entities, 31 are nation states and 69 are corporations.1 1.2 STOP THE TRAFFIK Australia is part of a global coalition that aims to stop and prevent human trafficking and slavery. In Australia, this coalition consists of 30 organisations. We collectively aim to work with corporations to increase transparency in their supply chains and introduce measures to eliminate human trafficking, slavery and slavery like practices. Our efforts are particularly focused on the cocoa, tea, garment and fishing industries, although our work is not confined to these sectors. 1.3 We very much welcome the Joint Standing Committee’s inquiry and applaud the Australian government’s efforts to identify international best practice in preventing human trafficking, slavery and slavery like practices. Human Trafficking, Slavery, and2 Slavery-like practices in corporate supply chains. 2.1 The United Nations defines trafficking in persons as ‘the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through the use of threats, force, coercion, abduction, fraud or deception, for the purpose of exploitation.’ This definition has thus far also been employed in the Australian context.2 2.2 From the outset, we consider it pertinent to note that the term “Modern Slavery” has gained popular usage.
    [Show full text]
  • Forced Labour and Institutional Change in Contemporary India*
    chapter 4 Forced Labour and Institutional Change in Contemporary India* Christine Molfenter Introduction Article 23 of the Indian Constitution of 1950 prohibits the practice of begar, the Hindi word for forced labour or corvée, and similar forms of forced la- bor. Forced labor or slavery in India most commonly refers to debt bondage or bonded labor. In 1976 the Indian Parliament adopted the first state-wide law banning bonded labor with the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act (blsa). In the subsequent years, both governmental and non-governmental actors became proactive in implementing these newly developed laws. The First Agricultural Labour Enquiry, conducted from 1950–51 by the Government of India, and the Summary of the Report on Forced Labour of 1956, revealed the gap between the legal norm of freedom from enslavement and the reality of many agricultural labourers, tribal people and lower caste members in India. The effective implementation of bonded labor laws remains a pressing issue in India today. The Government of India identified about six million individuals as bonded labourers between 1977 and 2008,1 and the Walk Free Foundation estimated that about 14.28 million people worked as slaves in India in 2013.2 Regarding this implementation gap, Kara claimed that reports on bonded labor in India demonstrated the “utter contempt and disregard for justice for bonded labourers across the nation.”3 The United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons (tip) report on Indian labor and anti-forced la- bor laws concluded: “[L]aws were ineffectively enforced, and their prescribed penalties– a maximum of three years in prison – are not sufficiently stringent.”4 * My research on this topic has developed out of my work on my dissertation.
    [Show full text]