In 1999, the Commonwealth amended the Criminal Code Act 1995 to implement the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime relating to slavery, sexual servitude and deceptive recruiting ...
Criminalising human trafficking
Division 270 also criminalises slavery-like practices, including servitude, forced labour, and deceptive recruiting for labour or services. These offences can apply to the exploitation of a person's labour or services in any industry, or to exploitation within intimate relationships.
Australia's strategy to combat human trafficking and slavery was implemented in 2003. It focuses on prevention and deterrence, detection and investigation, prosecution and compliance, and victim support and protection.
Slavery-like offences include servitude, forced labour, deceptive recruiting and forced marriage. To date, the majority of victims identified by Australian authorities and matters we have prosecuted have involved women working in the sex industry.
In Australia, the offences associated with modern slavery fall to be dealt with under the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 and come from within Divisons 270 and 271, with sentences ranging up to a maximum of 25 years imprisonment.
The 2023 Global Slavery Index estimates that on any given day in 2021, there were 41,000 individuals living in modern slavery in Australia. This equates to a prevalence of 1.6 people in modern slavery for every thousand people in the country.
The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) (the Act) came into force on 1 January 2019. The Act requires larger companies and other entities in Australia to report on how they are preventing and addressing modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains.
But as is the case in many crimes of exploitation and abuse, human traffickers often prey upon members of marginalized communities and other vulnerable individuals, including children in the child welfare system or children who have been involved in the juvenile justice system; runaway and homeless youth; unaccompanied ...
Australia (Tier 1)
The government continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts during the reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Australia remained on Tier 1.
Traffickers employ a variety of control tactics, the most common include physical and emotional abuse and threats, isolation from friends and family, and economic abuse.
Human trafficking is a heinous crime that exploits the most vulnerable. The victims, who are mostly women and children, are deprived of their normal lives and compelled to provide labour or sexual services, through a variety of coercive practices, often for the direct profit of their perpetrators.
The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking and Slavery 2015–19 (National Action Plan) provides the strategic framework for Australia's response to human trafficking and slavery over the five years from 2015 to 2019.
And, as already mentioned, trafficking is a crime that often takes place across borders. The international nature of the crime is not only difficult to comprehend, it leads to further complications in prosecuting traffickers. This is because it usually takes place in more than one country.
1-888-373-7888 National Human Trafficking Hotline
Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline, a national 24-hour, toll-free, multilingual anti-trafficking hotline.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is responsible for investigating human trafficking and supporting the victims of this crime.
Sexual exploitation and forced labour
The most common form of human trafficking detected by national authorities is trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Sex and Labor Traffickers Make False Promises.
One of the most effective ways traffickers recruit victims is by making false promises. They may offer romantic involvement or a job opportunity. They may give the person a feeling of security, giving them hope for a better future.
Human trafficking is the fastest growing and second largest criminal industry in the world.
Traffickers look for people who are easy targets for a variety of reasons, including: Psychological or emotional vulnerability. Economic hardship. Lack of a social safety net.
There is no evidence that traffickers are more likely to be of a particular race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. They may be family members, romantic partners, acquaintances, or strangers.
Avoiding eye contact, social interaction, and authority figures/law enforcement. Seeming to adhere to scripted or rehearsed responses in social interaction. Lacking official identification documents. Appearing destitute/lacking personal possessions.
Slavery has been illegal in the (former) British Empire since the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade of 1807, and certainly since 1833. Slavery practices emerged in Australia in the 19th century and in some places endured until the 1950s.
Australia, like many countries, is a signatory to 7 core International Human Rights Treaties, which include the right to freedom from slavery and forced labour; under article 8 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Some 62,000 Melanesian people were brought to Australia and enslaved to work in Queensland's sugar plantations between 1863 and 1904. First Nations Australians had a more enduring experience of slavery, originally in the pearling industry in Western Australia and the Torres Strait and then in the cattle industry.