Modern Slavery

Transcript

Welcome everyone to our third Justice Talks event for 2022. Tonight, as you know, we're focusing on modern slavery. I apologise for starting a couple of minutes late, but as you are probably aware, we had a couple of difficulties with the link to the Zoom event.

My name is Jane Wangmann and I'm the Faculty Co-Director of the Brennan Justice and Leadership Program, and I'm one of your hosts for this evening. I'm joined tonight by one of my co-directors from the Law Students' Society, Monica Keech, who will help facilitate the questions at the end. We also have Crystal Meikle, our Program Administrator, Sivaan Walker, our Student Programs Officer, and most importantly, our special guest and presenter for this evening, Professor Jennifer Burn.

To start our event this evening, I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are sitting and participating in this Zoom event. I am coming to you from the unceded land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past and present. Because this is a Zoom event, I know that many of you may be participating from other traditional lands, and I would like to extend my respect to the Elders of those traditional lands as well. I'd also like to extend a very warm welcome to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are participating in this event this evening.

Welcome everyone. We have a really large number of Brennan students participating tonight, as well as alumni, which is fabulous to see. I imagine that many of you, just like me, are very excited and keen to hear about Professor Burn's significant work and that of Anti-Slavery Australia.

Before I introduce Professor Burn, I'm going to take a moment to mention some housekeeping for the event. I know after years of COVID restrictions, you're probably quite well-versed in these, but I'll mention them just in case. Please remember to mute your microphone if you are not speaking. If your bandwidth allows and you feel comfortable, it would be great to see your camera on, particularly during question time—it's just really nice to see some friendly faces, but only if you're comfortable. If you do have your camera on and you find the recording starting to freeze, just turn your camera off and it usually frees up some bandwidth.

We will have question time at the end and you can either ask your question in person, post it in the chat as we go along, or post it in the chat at the end. Lastly, as Crystal mentioned, for Brennan students, in order to get your five ROJ points, please add your full name to the chat box and one of the Brennan team will mark off your name so you get the points.

Now it is my very great pleasure to introduce our special guest for tonight, Professor Jennifer Burn.

Professor Burn is the Director of Anti-Slavery Australia and a Professor here in the Faculty of Law. Anti-Slavery Australia is a legal and research centre based here at UTS. Here, Professor Burn leads a dedicated team of researchers, educators and lawyers, all working towards eliminating all forms of human trafficking and slavery through research, direct service delivery and advocacy programs.

Professor Burn has had an active involvement in the development of Australia's response to human trafficking and slavery for decades. Her work is significant and has been recognised through awards such as the 2016 UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Impact and the 2020 Law Council of Australia's Outstanding Migration Lawyer of the Year Award. Jennifer was appointed to the inaugural Australian Government National Roundtable on Human Trafficking in 2008 and continues to serve in that role. She has been a member of multiple working groups for this roundtable, including groups focused on transparency in supply chains and labour exploitation. Professor Burn has also served as the Interim Anti-Slavery Commissioner for New South Wales from 2019 to 2020. She is currently a board member of the Mercy Foundation and a member of the Advisory Group for the Centre for Research on Modern Slavery at the University of Auckland Business School.

So please join me, everyone, in welcoming Professor Burn in giving this presentation tonight.

Thank you very much, Professor Wangmann. Please do call me Jennifer tonight; that would be really lovely.

I'm speaking to you from my office in the Faculty of Law at UTS, and in a discussion about modern slavery in Australia, the acknowledgement of Country is particularly significant. I recognise that long before the enunciation of recent concepts of human trafficking and modern slavery, Aboriginal people experienced harms of the type that we would now understand to be slavery, servitude, forced labour and forced marriage. I pay my sincerest respects to the Traditional Owners of the land here, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, past, present and emerging.

As you heard from Jane, I'm very privileged to lead Anti-Slavery Australia at UTS. We are a strong team of academics, lawyers, researchers, educators and students committed to eradicating modern slavery through a steadfast commitment to survivors and to human rights. We prioritise the lived experience of survivors in shaping our legal work, research and training programs. In our work, we engage with many anti-slavery partners in civil society and government to amplify our shared advocacy, law and policy work, and awareness-raising initiatives. You can find out more about us by having a look at our website.

This evening, I'll speak with you a little more about Anti-Slavery Australia, and I really would like to encourage you to join us—particularly Brennan students and law students at UTS. You are very welcome to contact us and to join us in our mission of eradicating slavery and trafficking.

I will address the concept of trafficking and slavery globally and in Australia, and provide narratives from research into slavery and trafficking. I'm going to outline what's meant by modern slavery and distinguish it from substandard working conditions. I'll illustrate this by showing you several short animations that we have developed to raise awareness about the shocking exploitation that is modern slavery. Some groups are vulnerable to slavery, and understandings of slavery and trafficking continue to emerge. I will speak with you about new forms of trafficking.

But remember, please, that in every apparent new manifestation of slavery, there is at the core a form of control that has existed for thousands of years. Slavery is not a historical artefact, but it is a heartbreaking reality for millions of people around the world, and it has been such for thousands of years. Slavery is exercising control over a person as if they were an object—just a thing to be bought and sold. The consequence is that people can be dehumanised and commodified.

Tonight, I will review some of the indicators of modern slavery in Australia and around the world, and touch on a couple of emerging issues, such as the review of the Australian Modern Slavery Act. Then I'll finish by speaking with you about the first Australian case of servitude and link that to international developments, and then I'll speak about some really exciting projects that you might like to get involved with. I'm going to encourage you again to join us in some way, perhaps in the PLT program, but there are plenty of opportunities for you to join us.

I wanted to begin by speaking to you about Sir Mo Farah. Some of you may have read about his case recently. In July this year, people around the world were surprised and shocked to learn that the legendary English Olympic hero, Sir Mo Farah, had had a completely different upbringing to the account that had been previously published. Sir Mo had recounted that he and his family travelled from Somalia to the UK as refugees and sought asylum there. In fact, his story was quite different. He has told his story to raise awareness about human trafficking in the UK and to give heart to those who are experiencing this kind of abuse.

Sir Mo said that, in fact, Mo Farah is not his real name. He had been trafficked to the UK as a child and forced to work in domestic servitude. His real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin. He told the BBC that when he was nine, he was taken from his home on the east coast of Africa to the UK and then enslaved. He said for years he kept blocking it out, but you can only block it out for so long. He said his mother and brothers have never been to the UK and they live in Somaliland.

His story is a story of trafficking, and this links exactly to the UN Trafficking Protocol definition of human trafficking. Just before he was taken to the UK, he was introduced to a woman who would escort him there. He'd never met her and he wasn't related to her. He explained that he was excited to be flying to the UK and looked forward to meeting his relatives there. It was this woman who gave him the new name of Mohamed Farah. She had travel documents in that name, but as soon as they arrived at their destination, those documents were ripped up. She said to him, "If you ever want to see your family again, don't say anything." He said, "Often I would just lock myself in the bathroom and cry." He didn't go to school until he was 11.

There, everything changed because his outstanding and exemplary skills as an athlete were recognised and nurtured in the school where he was enrolled. Eventually, he told his PE teacher the truth, and the PE teacher contacted social services and there was an intervention. He, of course, went on to—and continues to be—a highly respected athlete in the UK. He is an Olympic hero. He is now a citizen. But he decided to tell his story to challenge myths about slavery and trafficking.

He was so fortunate that he had a rare ability—you know, he could run. He was recognised and valued throughout the UK. Eventually, he was able to reunite with his mother, Aisha, and his brothers, and he's taken his own son to Somaliland to meet his family. But many are not so lucky.

So this is a story of human trafficking that is exactly and precisely linked to the Trafficking Protocol, and trafficking can emerge in many unexpected contexts. It was very brave of him to speak about his trauma and his experience, and he did this at some risk to himself because, of course, to obtain citizenship in the UK under the name of Mo Farah, he presented false documents. He was at legal risk. The government has said they will not take action against him, but again, many are not so fortunate.

So now I want to look at human trafficking and slavery in Australia. Although there are now initiatives to establish mechanisms to engage survivor leaders and inform the development of law and policy through survivor advocacy, to date there has been very little direct evidence of the survivor experience. Rather, available accounts have been published by media or advocacy groups.

In a paper that I wrote, I draw on material published in two coronial inquiries to bring light to precarious migration pathways and the experience of trafficking and slavery in Australia. In this research, I was able to draw on my colleague Professor Tracy Booth's research on narrative analysis and victim impact statements. Tracy's with us tonight—thank you, Tracy.

You've heard the story of Sir Mo, but now let me outline two narratives of trafficking and slavery, this time in Australia. The narratives are drawn from two coronial inquiries into the deaths of two people who were never legally recognised as being trafficked to Australia.

Phoungthong Simaplee died in the Villawood Detention Centre in 2001, and Manjit Singh died in a Sydney hospital ten years later. The facts surrounding Phoungthong Simaplee—her life and trafficking experience—have always been contested. Yet it became clear that at some stage in her childhood in Thailand, she was sold by her parents and then trafficked to multiple locations, including possibly Sydney. Phoungthong Simaplee was identified by immigration authorities as a person who could not establish her identity, and she was taken to Villawood, where she died three days later.

The coroner examined her death, and the coronial inquiry helped to push human trafficking onto the Australian national agenda. The coroner found that her death was caused by the consequences of narcotic withdrawal, combined with the antecedent causes of malnutrition and early acute pneumonia. The coronial inquiry attracted intense media interest and a lot of commentary. This was partly in response to the inquiry through the work of a Victorian NGO called Project Respect and journalists Natalie O'Brien and the then Elizabeth Weinhausen. There was a huge outcry in Australia that Australia could be a destination country for victims of trafficking.

A parliamentary inquiry was convened, and very soon after that, Australia established a series of initiatives designed to investigate trafficking and provide support to people who had been trafficked. It was at this exact time that we at UTS started to respond to international and Australian efforts to eradicate trafficking and to directly support people affected by trafficking. We've been actively involved in Australia's response since 2003. That started at what was then called the UTS Community Law and Research Centre. Students have always had an involvement in this part of our work here at UTS.

So Phoungthong Simaplee's death really was instrumental in changing the Australian response to human trafficking.

Ten years after her death, Manjit Singh died. He came to Australia on a gold standard temporary work visa called a 457 visa. He came here in 2006 to work in an Indian restaurant. He was optimistic about the chance that he had to come to Australia and to make a life here. Early in his life, he had contracted TB and had recovered, and he was screened to be allowed to come to Australia. But in Australia, his TB activated and eventually he died following an operation that was intended to assist him.

Manjit Singh provided the Australian Federal Police with three statements about his experiences in Australia. The statements were never tested in a court of law, and there's never been a final legal determination about his experience. The coroner drew on the statements in the coronial inquiry and explained that Manjit Singh was one of four children. His parents had a small farm in northern India—a 10-acre farm. He was able to obtain a diploma in food service, and he was sponsored to Australia, where he came with optimism and hope in his heart. He was offered certain working conditions as were required by a sponsored visa, but in fact, the circumstances that he described to the Australian Federal Police were completely different.

He said that he worked seven days a week from 8am until midnight. He slept in the storeroom of a restaurant and was locked in overnight. He didn't have a key. He was given very little food. He didn't have a bathroom; he bathed in the restaurant restroom. He had no food, no phone, no computer.

The coroner found that there was evidence that he had been deceived in coming to Australia. He had never been paid, and he suffered terribly. The coroner reflected on Manjit Singh's death and said it's difficult to imagine what must have gone through his mind at that time. He was lying in a hospital bed thousands of kilometres from home and his loving parents. His hopes of providing for his family and perhaps establishing a new life in Australia had turned to dust. He was only 33. He had no close relatives with him. The fact that this happened in one of the richest countries in the world is desolating.

As I said, he died before the conclusion of the criminal justice process, and the facts were never tested in a court of law. Yet these facts would also go to evidence human trafficking, testing these facts against both the Trafficking Protocol and the offence of trafficking in the Commonwealth Criminal Code.

Let me now speak about Anti-Slavery Australia. It's in response to stories like these that we established, in a very small way, back in 2003. Building on that work, we became a centre of the faculty in the university in 2011, and that's when we formally became Anti-Slavery Australia.

Everything we do is based on research. Our policy is evidence-based and informed by survivors. As part of the Faculty of Law, we feel we have a very strong connection to the Brennan Program, and we do welcome students to join us in our work.

We have three core areas of work. One of our main areas of work is that we provide access to free legal and migration advice to victims and survivors of modern slavery in Australia. Although we're based here in our Faculty of Law, we have a national reach and support victims and survivors all over Australia. The areas of work that we cover are diverse: victims' compensation, migration. We help people navigate complicated processes in criminal justice and, of course, try and find certainty and security in their lives through legal processes.

We also run Australia's response to forced marriage through a website called My Blue Sky. There's been a lot of recent media around My Blue Sky and forced marriage. If you wanted to look at that, it's mybluesky.org.au.

Flowing out of this foundational work, we research and develop advocacy, which is informed by the direct experiences of our clients—the people that we work with. Reflecting national interest and engaging more with survivors on a formal basis, we will establish within Anti-Slavery Australia a very small Survivors Advisory Council to advise us on the development of law and policy.

We do a lot of education and awareness-raising. We do a lot of work with communities, both online and face-to-face, and with government. On our website, antislavery.org.au, there are two free courses you can do: one about modern slavery, and the other, just released a few weeks ago, called Modern Slavery in the Home, which speaks about the forms of modern slavery that can take place in a domestic environment.

There are so many challenges that we and our clients face, and our mission is to help our clients obtain justice. We will navigate complex pathways to help them do that.

I'm sorry about this photograph or drawing showing one of our legal team. It's not at all accurate, but it's intended to show a professional yet informal and approachable person.

We do welcome students, as I've said, and if you're interested, keep an eye out for a recruitment notice, which will be placed in Student In Brief in early October.

I've been using the phrase 'modern slavery' quite a bit. Let me just speak briefly about what it is. Firstly, every single one of those icons represents a serious crime set out in the Commonwealth Criminal Code. There have been 31 convictions for slavery and related offences since 2004.

Slavery and trafficking occur in all industries and sectors. It can be hidden in homes, found in restaurants, on farms, building sites—all these forms of slavery have been identified here in Australia.

It's a very serious and grave and potentially distressing area that we work in, but we have found through the work that we do, helping vulnerable people obtain certainty and protection in their lives through legal processes, they can find recovery and peace. The work that we do is so important and helps vulnerable people take a new direction in their lives. People who have experienced complex trauma probably never recover, but by being able to provide certainty, security and protection, people can take a step forward. That's what we've been able to see in our work here.

I wanted to distinguish between slavery and a decent job. Hopefully, if you're working, you have wonderful working conditions, you're paid properly and you work in a safe environment. But as we know, many people in Australia are underpaid. Another one of our colleagues, Dr Laurie Berg, has researched in this area and has written on wage theft. This is a very serious issue in Australia where people are underpaid, work hours that are too long, or work in an unsafe environment. Wage theft is almost systemic, as Dr Berg has shown.

But slavery is something else. It is that element of control and commodification that takes a leap from a civil breach of law into criminal exploitation. The essence of slavery is control and commodification.

I'll now show you a short video that really highlights how this works in the Australian context.

[Animation: Modern slavery happens in Australia. Jai trained as a chef in India. Jai's boss owned a restaurant in Australia and organised Jai's visa and flight. When Jai arrived in Australia, his boss took his passport. Jai had to work and sleep in the restaurant. At night, he was locked in the storeroom and had no key or access to a bathroom. He was not allowed to leave. Jai had limited food, few breaks, and worked from 8am to midnight. Jai's boss told him that he would not be paid until he paid off the debt he owed for his flight, visa and board. Eventually, Jai was able to get help, but he was very poor in health and died a few years later. To learn more, visit antislavery.org.au.]

You've already heard a number of stories of slavery and trafficking. From what we've discussed tonight, you can see that some people are particularly vulnerable—typically migrants, people on temporary visas, people who work in jobs that are often not recognised, refugees and asylum seekers, and of course children and young people. Women and girls are also particularly vulnerable. These are occupations like cleaning, domestic work, security work, hospitality and agricultural work—all areas where there is an extra level of vulnerability. When that is combined with some of these other factors, like holding a temporary visa, the risk becomes amplified.

There are risk factors: poverty, countries with a weak rule of law, natural disaster. These can all be risk factors that can make a person or community vulnerable to trafficking. But so often, trafficking is an individual process where there is a person who takes advantage of the unique vulnerabilities of an individual. You've seen some of those examples tonight.

Let's have another look at another form of trafficking, which is called exit trafficking.

When Australia first started to act in response to trafficking, we said that we were a destination country. It's a rubric that's used to describe trafficking and divides countries up into source, transit or destination countries. Sometimes countries have more than one of those characteristics. We always thought that Australia was a destination country, but over the last few years we've now identified another form of trafficking, which is called exit trafficking. It can affect Australian citizens and residents taken overseas for forced marriage, or it can affect a person in Zara's situation—a temporary visa holder.

[Animation: Modern slavery happens in Australia. Zara came to Australia to live with her new husband. Zara was looking forward to her new life with her husband, but soon after she arrived, he became very abusive and controlling towards her. While in Australia, Zara gave birth to their child. One day, Zara's husband bought her and their child a one-way flight back to Zara's home country. He told her to pack her bags and threatened to kill her if she did not go. Zara felt that she had no choice and boarded the flight. After Zara left Australia, her husband tried to cancel her visa. He gave false information to the Australian immigration authorities, including impersonating her. A few months later, Zara and her child managed to return to Australia and sought help. This is an example of how someone can be trafficked out of Australia. To learn more, visit antislavery.org.au.]

I wanted to just reflect with you on the cases that we've heard about and just touch on some of the indicators, particularly the indicators of slavery. If you look at this list up on the screen, you'll already recognise a number of these indicators that we've discussed through some of the stories I've recounted tonight: a person who has no discretion over their life, they're controlled, have limited freedom of movement, monitored, guarded or confined, living at their workplace, living in an abusive situation, having their documents taken away from them, working long hours, subject to deception. These are all indicators of modern slavery.

Let's have a look briefly at how big a problem this is. These statistics that you can see on the screen have been developed by the International Labour Organisation and Walk Free. They are credible statistics using the best available material, but of course they are estimates. You can see here that the numbers are extraordinary: the ILO said over 40 million people living in slavery around the world, almost 25 million in forced labour, 15 million in forced marriage, and 73 million children in the worst forms of child labour. These are astonishing and profoundly distressing figures, and these were all researched and published ahead of COVID.

I have absolutely no doubt that these figures would be substantially more now as a result of COVID and the crash of global economies where there is still not recovery.

In Australia, again, we don't really know what the true estimate is. We are assisting 400 people here. The Australian Institute of Criminology said there's just over 1,500 people in slavery, but importantly, they say only one in five is ever identified. This is a huge wake-up call for us as we work to raise awareness about modern slavery in Australia.

There are more reports to the Australian Federal Police of forced marriage than any other form of modern slavery in Australia. The majority are Australian citizens or residents facing a forced marriage, with significant numbers of reports in other forms of modern slavery.

Let me now just touch on the Modern Slavery Act. This was introduced on 1 January 2019 and was intended to transform the business community's response to modern slavery. It is groundbreaking legislation that was introduced in Australia. It requires large entities like the University of Technology Sydney, for example, but also large businesses, to give the government a modern slavery statement each financial year addressing certain mandatory criteria. Organisations have to describe the risk of modern slavery, describe the actions they're taking to address the risk, assess the effectiveness of those actions, and so on.

This is important legislation— incredibly important legislation. It is subject to review now, and there will be a review process that will begin with a consultation paper issued shortly. I can touch on some of the big key issues in a moment.

Just moving towards the end, I wanted to show you another video, this time about an illegal call centre established in two very palatial houses in Brisbane.

[Animation: Modern slavery happens in Australia. Tom came to Australia on a working holiday visa. Tom's boss took his passport and mobile phone. Tom was kept inside a house with many others and had to work long hours, seven days a week. The work involved calling people overseas to extort money from them. Workers were forced to learn a script. Tom worked 15 hours every day. He and others had to follow strict rules in the house, were verbally abused, threatened and told it was impossible to leave. Tom was not paid any wages for his work. Eventually, Tom managed to escape from the house, flagged down a motorist and contacted police. Police responded and found 23 other exploited people who'd been coerced and controlled. To learn more, visit antislavery.org.au.]

I'm trying to now link this to some global news. You may have seen media reports last week that presented a story exactly like this, but in Cambodia. There, The Guardian reported that hundreds of people had been trafficked to Cambodia from various countries in the Asian region, including Taiwan. People held captive in a criminal call centre, forced to learn a script, people recruited over Facebook and social media, offered a job, accommodation, and then they're sold into slavery. This is a global phenomenon.

Coming up to the end now, just touching on two important projects that we've got here at UTS. The first is a project on establishing a national compensation scheme for people who have experienced trafficking. This is a very important scheme for us, and we're fully committed to the establishment of this scheme. We've been working very closely with a number of people, including Fiona McLeod SC in Victoria, who provided pro bono representation to the very first child who was able to obtain a recognition payment for her experience that resulted from being trafficked to Australia when she was aged 13 and exploited in servitude. So this Justice for All is a critically important project for us.

We also have Seeking Freedom, which is our newest project, ensuring that children are protected and respected within the context of modern slavery. Children are forgotten in so many policy areas, but there are certainly gaps in the Australian response and children are not being identified.

This is now my last slide, and I'd like to thank you all for being here tonight. If you do want to find out more, please do contact us. I'd be delighted to speak with you, as would other members of our team. I'd like to thank you, Jane, and thank you to all the Brennan community who are here tonight.

Thank you so much, Jennifer. That was so incredibly informative and moving. I will hand over to my colleague, Monica Keech, who will facilitate some questions. For those of you in the audience, if you'd like to, you can either ask orally or post them in the chat to get us going. So handing over to you, Monica.

Thank you, Jane, and thank you, Jennifer, for such an engaging presentation. I definitely think that modern slavery is an area of the law that we don't hear enough about or in enough depth, so thank you so much for speaking with us tonight. Like Jane said, please feel free to put any questions in the chat, or you're welcome to turn on your camera or raise your hand to ask in person. Does anyone have a question?

Perhaps I could start. Thank you so much, Jen. That was just a really interesting, if shocking, talk. I think all of us are still reeling a bit. One question that I had: you mentioned that there's been 31 convictions—is that right—of slavery-related offences? How many prosecutions have there been?

Oh, not 31. I do have a table, but I don't have the figure on the top of my head, but it's significantly less than that. I'd say it's around 20.

And that's, as you suggested, that really one in five—we only really know about one out of five.

The reason is that for some of these court cases, there are multiple people convicted in some of the actions.

Yeah, okay. Thank you.

Most of the convictions have been in sexual servitude. Very few in human trafficking, and one in servitude, which was the call centre case, and one in a restaurant case. But the majority have still been sexual servitude.

But not that restaurant case where the poor man died.

Not that case.

Thanks.

Okay, Anita has a question in the comments.

Thanks, Monica. I put mine in chat, and I won't repeat it now verbally, but I wanted to exercise my chat rights and ask the question in chat. But, Jennifer, thank you very much. Wonderful presentation. My question's also challenging, so you may not feel up to it, but just wanted to pop it in.

Would you like me to answer the question? I can read Anita's question, our Dean's question, which is asking me what the greatest challenge is, professionally or personally.

There have been so many, Anita, so many challenges, both professional and personally. But I've been really so fortunate to be able to work with incredible people in the Anti-Slavery Australia team. To have such outstanding colleagues and partners and friends within Anti-Slavery really lifts us all and supports us all.

For the cases that have been particularly challenging, they have been profoundly challenging, and although I speak about optimism and