Australia’s moment to tackle modern slavery

By means of: Justine Nolan, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute and Professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW Sydney.

Fifty million people worldwide are trapped in modern slavery, more than half of them in the Asia-Pacific region. New laws are forcing greater efforts to eradicate it.

Australia is at a critical juncture in tackling modern slavery.

Federal modern slavery legislation was first passed in 2018. This year, an amendment established the role of a national anti-slavery commissioner, with an appointment expected in the coming months.

Current legislation has raised awareness of the problem, but corporate responses remain largely symbolic.

But soon things could get a lot harder.

New European legislation requires action and compliance, not just reporting, to eradicate modern slavery and labour exploitation. This change will affect companies outside Europe that supply or trade directly or indirectly on EU markets.

Europe and the US have also imposed bans on foreign goods suspected of involving modern slavery.

The Asia-Pacific region is estimated to have the largest number of people in modern slavery: over 29 million.

It is therefore a good time to re-evaluate Australia’s approach to modern slavery. It is a complex issue that can sometimes remain hidden from view.

A series of exploitative practices

Modern slavery is a global problem: it occurs all over the world, in developing and developed countries.

In 2013, the non-profit Walk Free published its first Global Slavery Index, which found that an estimated 29.8 million people were victims of modern slavery.

Ten years later, that number had risen to 50 million, of whom 28 million were forced into labor and 22 million were forced into marriage.

There is no globally recognised definition of modern slavery and the concept is not always well understood. It is an umbrella term that covers a range of serious exploitative practices, including human trafficking, slavery, forced labour, debt bondage, deceptive recruitment for labour or services, forced marriage and the worst forms of child labour.

Forced labour is the form of modern slavery most often associated with workplace exploitation. It involves work that people are forced to do against their will, under threat of punishment.

Modern slavery is best understood as existing on a “continuum of exploitation.” Such a view recognizes that people can be exposed to exploitative practices that gradually worsen, sometimes leading to modern slavery.

The Australian situation

Estimates of the prevalence of modern slavery in Australia vary widely. According to Walk Free, 41,000 people are victims of modern slavery.

Although the number of officially recorded cases of modern slavery is low, it is generally believed that such cases represent only a fraction of the true prevalence. Serious exploitation occurs on farms, in factories, businesses and in homes in Australia.

In 2024, a man was charged with enslaving crew members on a fishing boat in Queensland, and in 2021, a couple was found guilty of forcing a woman to labor in their business and home for more than three years.

The number of reports received by the Australian Federal Police each year is increasing. In 2022-23, the AFP reported that the three most prevalent forms of modern slavery in Australia were forced marriage (90 reports), sexual slavery and exploitation (73) and forced labour (43).

The Australian government has adopted a ‘market-based disclosure model’ to regulate modern slavery in corporate operations and supply chains.

The Modern Slavery Act 2018 establishes a reporting requirement for relevant entities to publish annual public statements on their modern slavery risks and the steps they have taken to address those risks in their operations and supply chains.