Attorney General Mark Dreyfus has announced the federal government will set aside $8 million over four years to fund the new role of Anti-Slavery Commissioner.
The bill establishing the role has been introduced to Parliament.
The commissioner will investigate modern slavery in Australia and overseas, focusing on exploitation such as human trafficking, forced labour, and forced marriages.
Mr. Dreyfus told Parliament that “modern slavery is present in Australia,” citing the case of a Melbourne couple who “secretly enslaved an elderly woman in their suburban home for close to a decade.”
In that case, Angie Yeh Ling Liaw, 29, and Chee Kit Chong, 44—also known as Max Chong—were charged in June with slavery-related offences in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
The Point Cook couple allegedly kept the woman as a slave in their home until medical staff contacted police with concerns she might be a victim of human trafficking.
Court documents show that police allege the couple used coercion and threats to control the woman. The alleged victim in that case has recently received a terminal diagnosis.
“Other cases include individuals trafficked into sex work, and a young girl at risk of being sent overseas for a forced marriage,” Mr. Dreyfus added. “We must continue to tackle these crimes.”
The Home Affairs Department has little data on forced marriage in Australia, saying it is hard to detect and under-reported, and has statistics that date back to 2013.
Research undertaken by the National Children’s and Youth Law Centre (NCYLC) identified cases of forced child marriage in every state and territory of Australia.
Of the 91 government and non-government respondents who were surveyed, 55 percent had directly or indirectly encountered child clients in, or at risk of forced marriage in the preceding 24 months, with those experiences estimated to have involved more than 250 cases.
Authorities prosecuted 16 alleged traffickers, compared with seven the previous year. They also continued prosecutions of 47 defendants, including 33 child sex tourists, initiated in prior years.
Nevertheless, it published 13 recommendations on how Australia could improve its response, including “significantly increas[ing] efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking crimes pursuant to anti-trafficking laws, and seek[ing] adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms.”
As well as “significantly increas[ing] efforts to proactively identify trafficking victims among vulnerable groups, such as undocumented migrants, asylum-seekers, agricultural and hospitality industry workers, visa holders, and domestic workers, and refer victims to care.”
The Department also urged Australia to “increase efforts to investigate and hold accountable foreign diplomats posted in Australia suspected of complicity in trafficking.”
It said traffickers exploit women and men in forced labour, and women and girls in sex trafficking, as well as a small number of children—primarily teenage Australian and foreign girls—in sex trafficking within the country.
The attorney general admitted that “measuring the true extent of modern slavery crimes is challenging crimes are often clandestine, sophisticated, and under-reported.
“The new independent anti-slavery commissioner will complement Australia’s response to modern slavery by working with others to raise the national profile of the issue of modern slavery,” he said, with the establishment of the commissioner providing a mechanism for victims and survivors to come forward.
The commissioner will be appointed for a five-year term.
