Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Conner will lead a roundtable on labour trafficking and has flagged tougher laws.
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Conner will lead a roundtable on labour trafficking and has flagged tougher laws. Photo: Rob Homer
In the past decade sensational stories about "sex slaves" have captured the public imagination. Meanwhile, the problem of labour trafficking has been over-shadowed and under-reported.
Today, the third annual Australian government National Roundtable on People Trafficking will bring together key government agencies, anti-trafficking NGOs, unions and industry to talk about a problem we know too little about.
Labour trafficking in Australia is under-reported and, sometimes, unrecognised, according to a report released this month from the Australian Institute of Criminology. The report, by human trafficking expert Fiona David, exposes the gaps in our understanding of labour trafficking and brings into focus the broader picture of the mistreatment of marginalised workers.
The report shines a spotlight on the story of a young construction worker who was unpaid, beaten and left with brain damage. Then there are the 10 Filipino women who travelled to Australia to work as nurses and found themselves forced to work as cleaners. And the Indian chef found bruised, burnt and crying in the gutter.
Labour trafficking exists on a spectrum of exploitation – from gross underpayment and sexual harassment to trafficking, forced labour and slavery. Only the worst forms of exploitation attract criminal sanctions under Australia's anti-trafficking laws. But the backdrop to criminal exploitation is the more pervasive problem of substandard working conditions for marginalised workers.
Migrant workers from poor countries can be easy prey for traffickers who coerce their victims into slavery, forced labour and debt bondage. Crushing debts, family obligations, threats of deportation, an alien legal system and language barriers can leave migrant workers easy to intimidate and control.
Sometimes labour and sexual exploitation are part of the same abusive relationship. On the northern tip of Queensland, a young Filipino woman worked up to 18 hours a day as unpaid help for a married couple. The day she met her "employers", the husband raped her. After numerous appeals, in February 2010 the husband and wife were jailed for slavery offences, although the wife has since lodged another appeal.
The picture of labour trafficking in Australia is still in soft focus. Solid statistics do not exist. Only a handful of cases have been prosecuted and, as Fiona David acknowledges, there are still "critical gaps in information". Even frontline agencies and services are sometimes unaware that Australia's anti-trafficking laws can apply to the worst cases of labour exploitation.
In the lead-up to the National Roundtable, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor flagged the prospect of new criminal laws targeting the exploitation of hospitality, construction and farm workers.
Criminal laws are a critical element of any effective anti-trafficking strategy. But prosecutions cannot remedy the harm trafficked people have suffered or change the substandard working conditions in which marginalised workers become vulnerable to abuse.
The core issue is access to justice. In principle, laws that protect workers from abuse and discrimination and criminalise extreme exploitation such as slavery and sexual servitude apply to all workers, regardless of their immigration status.
But for vulnerable migrant workers these laws are literally a foreign language: unknowable and inaccessible. In the shadows of the black economy the law is simple: it's what the boss says it is. The threat of deportation is a powerful silencer; people will suffer beatings, destitution, sickness, and work without pay rather than appeal for help.
The head of the International Labour Organisation's Special Action Program on Forced Labour, Roger Plant, argues that an effective anti-trafficking strategy should address the full spectrum of exploitation. The rationale is simple and empowering. Protecting the workplace rights of vulnerable workers can help change the abusive conditions in which exploitation thrives.
If exploited migrant workers return home or are deported without coming to the attention of the Fair Work Ombudsman or, in the most severe cases, the Australian Federal Police, unscrupulous employers remain free to profiteer, while their victims are left destitute, uninformed about their rights to recover unpaid wages or seek compensation.
The exploitation of migrant workers is an ugly secret. While the Fair Work Ombudsman has had success recovering unpaid wages for overseas workers, the more extreme the exploitation, the harder it is to seek help.
Investment in targeted multilingual services and information is essential, as is allaying the fear of immediate deportation. Special visa arrangements exist for suspected trafficking victims who help police. The status of undocumented workers who complain to the Fair Work Ombudsman is murkier and should be clarified.
The Australian government has made it clear it's keen to do more to tackle labour trafficking. There's plenty to do.
Frances Simmons and Jennifer Burn work at the Anti-Slavery Project at the University of Technology, Sydney, a legal service for people who