Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All of us in this House have come with great enthusiasm to represent our local electorates and to make very important decisions both on a local and a national level. Indeed, the debate we have just witnessed regarding the issue of age pensions certainly highlights the matters of national significance that we discuss. But I do not believe there is any issue that is more important for us as elected members of this parliament and as citizens of this country to discuss, debate and move to eradicate than that of human trafficking. We cannot call ourselves a civilised society when human beings are traded as if they are simply goods or chattels. None of us can celebrate our freedom when we live in a world where human beings are exploited and are held in bondage and slavery.

Unfortunately, this is not a minor issue. In fact, human trafficking is the second largest criminal activity in the world, next to drug dealing. It is something that we all as individuals and as people who have some responsibility and influence must talk about—and we must encourage every campaign at every level to eradicate this very insidious crime. The US State Department estimates that every year around 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders—a staggering figure. What is even more staggering is that it is estimated that there are millions of people—around two to four million more people—trafficked within their own countries. Of course, what is most frightening about those statistics is that there are more people who are victims of human trafficking today than there were at the height of the African slave trade. This is a startling acknowledgement of how far we believe we have progressed but, on what is a very basic, essential human right, we still have a long way to go.

Of course there are many reasons why people are victims of human trafficking: force, fraud and coercion are all very insidious methods that see many people taken against their will, exploited and forced into situations over which they have no control. We know that it is often women and children who are the greatest victims of this. In moving this motion, I want to encourage the government to continue its campaign to be involved in ending this terrible crime. I am so pleased that the Minister for Home Affairs has established the National Roundtable on People Trafficking. This matter is of such importance and significance that we need everybody around the table working together to eradicate this crime. We need more than just one government or one entity to be able to resolve this situation. The roundtable brings together all of the key voices in this country who have long had the knowledge, the expertise and, indeed, the compassion and concern to campaign against this crime. Members include three ministers, many of the NGOs, service providers, victims of crime organisations, religious bodies, unions and employer groups. It has brought together all those people who can contribute so much.

We also have a strategy to end trafficking. As a country we have developed a strategy to combat it which includes comprehensive antitrafficking laws, specialised teams in the AFP, enhanced visa arrangements for potentially trafficked persons, a victim’s support program, funding for the Institute of Criminology, and so many more initiatives.

We also have to acknowledge that as individuals we also have some responsibility. I urge all Australians to avoid using those products which are on our shelves as a result of child slavery and human trafficking. We know that there are areas such as coffee production and chocolate production where slave labour is used and I encourage all Australians to check out the fair labelling website to end this crime. (Time expired)

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Bonner for bringing forward this private member’s business motion here this evening. It should be a part of the role of every member of parliament to be very actively involved in this bipartisan effort to ensure that people are protected. In my case, I raise the issue of child trafficking.

Child trafficking is one of the gravest forms of child abuse in the world today. Over 1.2 million children are trafficked each year and it primarily happens in poor countries. Many of these children are from our Asia-Pacific region. There are factors like the lack of laws against trafficking or like domestic violence, which makes children more at risk of trafficking. Girls are especially at risk because in many cultures they often have a lower status than young boys. Children are trafficked because—and make no mistake about it—there is a demand for their labour or a demand for their bodies. It is wealthy countries that are at times the greatest perpetrators of these crimes. Wealthy countries are part of the problem as their citizens provide demand for the trafficked children. For example, Australians have been identified as sex tourists in 25 countries. Places like Bali and East Timor are emerging as easy targets for those who would exploit children for their own gratification.

There are many issues surrounding the trafficking of children. Currently I have a young intern working with me doing a project on birth registration. It is a fact that if we could assist countries in developing models and proposals and bringing forward ways in which children could be registered at birth then it would be far less likely that they would be able to be trafficked with nobody knowing where they had been sent.

What we have is the most dire and disgraceful situation where you have children trafficked out of places like Cambodia, Thailand and Burma into other countries where they are put into the sex industry or into other slave labour industries—but primarily in the sex industry—where they then become victims of HIV-AIDS. Instead of being treated and assisted, these children are then thrown out on the street because they can no longer earn their people traffickers money because of their possible HIV-AIDS infection. They are then treated like criminals. They are treated as illegal immigrants in that country where they have been violated and taken without their parents’ consent, most of the time. Most of the time parents in poor countries believe that they are giving their child an opportunity. They are given some story by the trafficker that they will put the child in domestic service or they will teach them how to be employed, and they will be able to send money home to their families. Sometimes these very poor village people are tricked into providing their children as victims in horrendous crimes against humanity. Sometimes we see these children physically abused and physically violated and maimed, such as having limbs removed or having acid thrown into their faces. We have all seen shocking programs on children who have had acid thrown into their faces so that, by begging on the corners of streets or on church steps, they can earn money for these violators of people. The tourist feels sorry for the child and hands over money.

This is a crime against humanity, a crime that needs to be stopped, and one of those very important factors will be to see impoverished nations being able to put in place registration of children for birth. That would be a major step forward to protecting these children. If their existence were known it may be just that little bit more difficult to traffic these children. I applaud all of those NGO organisations who work tirelessly on the ground—UNICEF, World Vision. All of these NGOs work in the most difficult of scenarios. I am aware that in Indonesia we have some great workers in UNICEF who have been able to implement the beginnings of registration of children for birth, and that will make an enormous difference. I again congratulate the member for Bonner. This is an issue that we should all be involved in. (Time expired)

Belinda Neal (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion by the member for Bonner and also join in congratulating her in taking up this very important initiative. Human trafficking is the sanitised term for slavery. In the modern world often women and children are bought or stolen into slavery. The type of trafficking that has the greatest visibility is the trafficking of women for the purposes of prostitution. There are also incidences of trafficking for forced labour, for domestic servitude and, most offensively in my mind, for the removal of organs. This obviously is a demand of the Western world.

The scope of the problem is difficult to measure due to the nature of the crime. These people, largely women, are in positions of powerlessness, often having crossed borders illegally, and there is great difficulty with, firstly, detection and then successful prosecution due to the clandestine nature of the operations and, often, links with underground criminal activity. The level of human trafficking is therefore uncertain, but the US Department of State estimates that in 2006 between 600,000 and 800,000 people were trafficked world wide.

The greatest concern for us in the Australian parliament is that this is not just happening in some remote part of the world; this is happening here in Australia. The estimates of the number of Australians involved vary between 100 and 1,000. Obviously because of the nature of the crime, it is difficult to be certain. But there certainly are many women and children—and, in some cases, men—who are affected by human trafficking. In Australia there have been 117 investigations into human trafficking since January 2004 and only four convictions. In fact, of these four convictions, three are under appeal.

At this stage I wish to acknowledge the Erina Community Baptist Church from my home on the Central Coast, part of the Catalyst Social Justice Committee, for raising this issue with me earlier in the year. Their concern for those suffering in these circumstances is recognised and applauded. I also wish to acknowledge the contribution to this issue of ACRATH, the Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans, who visited me last week. The Rudd government takes the crime of human trafficking extremely seriously.

The two areas that I believe need particular attention are, firstly, improving the success of prosecutions for trafficking; and, secondly, the transformation of the visa system for those who are trafficked, from a largely criminal investigation basis to a more humanitarian basis. Presently, Australia’s efforts to combat trafficking in persons are focused on prevention, detection and investigation, criminal prosecution, and victim support and rehabilitation.

The government has a $38.3 million anti people-trafficking strategy which provides for a range of measures, including additional trafficking prosecutions and training; the victim support program in its third phase, with victim witnesses returning to Australia to assist with prosecutions, organised through the Office for Women; two additional senior migration officer compliance (trafficking) positions in the Asian region; and research into trafficking trends in our region at the moment to try to ascertain the scope of the problem.

The government has established a National Roundtable on People Trafficking comprising government, anti-people-trafficking NGOs, service providers and victims of crime support organisations, as well as the legal, employer and union sectors. The government values the views of stakeholders and has conducted a review of the people-trafficking visa framework, which includes discussions with a range of non-government organisations. The outcomes are currently being considered.

This is an important issue. I take great heart in the bipartisan approach in the Main Committee today. I feel that, with the enthusiasm and support from all sectors of the parliament and the community, we can make strides. I look forward to working with everyone to achieve that.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to commend the member for Bonner for her fine motion that is before us today on the insidious act of human trafficking in Australia. Indeed, human trafficking does occur within Australia. It is something all of us need to be aware of and to be ready to take action on in the most bipartisan fashion. I have spoken recently in the House on sex slavery and the trafficking of people in Australia. At that time we were awaiting a High Court decision. There have only been four successful trafficking prosecutions in the last eight years. There is a real sense that we need to examine and constantly re-examine the adequacy of the laws in relation to people trafficking and whether the laws are working or not. While I cannot comment specifically on the outcome of that case, because it is subject to appeal, with only four trafficking prosecutions in eight years we need to do more in this place to strengthen the laws in Australia and ensure that people who are engaging in this insidious activity are captured.

Recently I was lobbied by groups in my electorate. The Baulkham Hills Baptist Church, which forms part of the Catalyst group, and the Starfish Ministries from St Paul’s Anglican Church at Castle Hill are very committed, caring and compassionate people. They have committed themselves to ensuring that we do the best we can in this country to look after the innocent victims of this terrible industry and ensure that we afford them all the compassion we can give them from the government.

I want to congratulate decision makers in the current government for the establishment of the national round table—I think it is a fine initiative—and in the previous government for action on eradicating trafficking. Important action was taken. In 2004 the Australian government’s action plan to eradicate trafficking comprised a number of positive measures, including the appointment of a Federal Police task force, participation in the Bali regional process that combated trafficking and revision of the protection measures for victims. While this was a positive move forward, I am pleased to see the national round table. I think there is more that we can all do in this place to see more achieved.

One of the major concerns I have raised previously is that, with the immigration system at the moment, we treat victims of trafficking in this country as people who are only useful to us in the form of witnesses against the perpetrators of these acts. We need to take a more compassionate approach with people who are victims of such horrific crime. There is room for change in the immigration system to cater for people who are victims of horrendous acts such as people trafficking and sex slavery. I recommend we look at that as part of this national round table review. Immigration is one intricately linked area that will require improvement if we are to do something positive.

Poverty is one of the major drivers of trafficking and exploitation of human beings. We have a role to play in our region. If you look at the statistics, the Asia-Pacific region has 79 per cent of the forced labour slavery problems in the world. Between 13 million and 27 million people, depending on the estimates, are trapped in slavery in the world. The International Labour Organisation says that a conservative estimate is about 12.3 million people. The other NGOs that work in this field say it could be as high as 27 million. Indeed, in Australia today there are 100 people in such circumstances at any given time, and that is if you take the conservative estimates. Some people suggest that it could be up to 1,000 people trapped in slavery within our own country, within our own borders. That is why I welcome the motion by the member for Bonner. I commend any government that seeks to take further action to ensure that we eradicate this practice.

All members here would be familiar with the movie Amazing Grace. We can take inspiration from legislators in previous parliaments who worked for generations to achieve freedom from slavery. That can inspire us all as modern-day legislators to continue that work and to work in a bipartisan fashion to achieve better outcomes for the unfortunate victims trapped in this horrific industry. Indeed, I feel we can make some big improvements as part of this government’s process, especially in the areas of immigration and the adequacy of the law in prosecuting perpetrators of these acts.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whilst I am happy to add my voice to that of the honourable member for Bonner—and I commend her for bringing this motion before the House—I cannot say that I am happy to talk about what I consider to be the most heinous of crimes; that is, human trafficking. As the motion notes, it is the second largest criminal activity globally—and that speaks volumes. The very name and the very idea are repulsive. It goes against the grain of the moral fibre of humanity. Can you imagine people plotting and planning to traffic people? That is what they do. That is their job. That is how they make money.

If we lived in another country, it could be our sister or our brother. It is not just women; it happens to girls and boys, men and women, our neighbours. It is in our neighbourhood and in the broader Asia-Pacific region—not solely there but the figures are high there. Can you imagine the sort of people who traffic? They are people without a conscience, people without what I call a moral compass. I have had the misfortune to come face-to-face with a few traffickers in my time and in my work. They were in our neighbourhood, up on the borders, and also, unfortunately, in Australia. As the honourable member before me said, there are at least 100 people at any given time in Australia who are trafficked. Yes, trafficking happens and some of them end up in Australia. The fact that they get here is a cause of concern for all of us—that they still get here with the systems we have in place.

I have met quite a lot of women and some young boys who have been trafficked. They were primarily overseas, but some were here. The fact is that if people end up here due to human trafficking then we as a nation, as communities and as governments have an obligation to treat them with the greatest of care and the greatest of respect, and that goes also to our visa system—and I know that is an evolving area. I know that when we give visas it is generally to people who will be witnesses to help effect prosecutions. That is very important, but we also have to give visas for care, protection and compassion. I know that that is one of the issues on the agenda with regard to trafficking and the roundtable.

We have to be really clear about the definition of ‘trafficking’. In practice, when we are dealing with trafficking, it can become confused with smuggling. Sometimes we tend to mix them up. It is important that we keep focus. Smuggling leads to trafficking; you cannot really have the trafficking without it. However, smuggling can happen for other purposes. The definition is this:

‘Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

So it is quite a broad definition. That definition comes from the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. We have to be mindful of that broad definition when we are thinking of it and not confuse it with prostitution and other things.

I would like to commend the government for the roundtable that has been convened and commend the Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon. Bob Debus, for his work in that area. I take the approach that this is something that requires absolute bipartisan, multipartisan, support to make sure that we respond in the appropriate ways and respond to the criminality of this—because it is a crime—as well as to the human dimension, where we have to provide that care and protection. I would like to say thank you to the honourable member for Bonner for bringing it to our attention. (Time expired)

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bonner for bringing this motion to the House and for raising the issue of human trafficking once again in this place, as it continues to be a matter of great shame to the international community. The inability of the international community to come to terms with this is a comprehensive failure of modern governments.

I would like to touch on the issue of trafficking in children in particular. I have spoken on this matter before in this place and I participated in the UN convention on the rights of women, in Beijing in 1995, where the matter just raised by the member for Riverina, the registration of children, was hotly debated, with a commitment to try and do more to make sure that was achieved. Nineteen ninety-five is a long time ago and we still have not achieved it.

More particularly, I speak as leader of the delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and as the permanent delegate in the last parliament. I led a delegation to Cambodia early last year; the member for Riverina was part of that. I was once again confronted—we were all confronted—by this terrible trade in children. In Cambodia we met a young woman who had been picked up by the aid agency Caritas and who had been sold into prostitution, into a brothel, when she was still in preschool. At the age of 19 she had full-blown HIV-AIDS and was tossed out into the street with no support, no medication and inadequate food—nothing at all. If it had not been for Caritas, no doubt she would have continued living on the streets and would have died on the streets. It was Caritas that picked her up, and thank God that there are agencies like Caritas who do this incredible work. But I felt that somebody should have to pay. Why can’t we work together in regions and as parliaments, as international partners, to try and put laws into place that stamp out these practices, that prosecute brothel owners who take children into this terrible trade?

After that I wrote to all 142-odd members of the IPU, who met in Bali shortly after that visit to Cambodia. I did so with the full support of the member for Riverina, the current Speaker of the House of Representatives and Senator Marshall in the Senate, who were also part of the delegation. I received about 20 responses from members of countries represented at the IPU meeting in Bali. We talked about what we could do. I spoke also at a UNICEF meeting in Bali and, after I spoke, I had quite a reaction from the African women and from the women of South America, who were deeply distressed at the number of children who are simply disappearing in South America. It is really a shocking situation. They felt the need to come together on a regional basis to try and get some cross-border policies, similar to the ones that we negotiated when we were in government—and I am pleased now to see the Rudd government continuing this—to make sure we have a regional approach to this so that we can strengthen and we can prosecute.

I felt ashamed, after talking to some of our federal policemen in Bali, that so many Australian people are the ones who are demanding these children to satisfy their own strange tastes. That is why there is a continuation of this trade—because the demand is there. The demand is coming from people that you and I probably bump into every day. That is very disturbing. We should be very worried about it. We should be very worried about it in this parliament and we should be very worried about it as part of an international community. More must be done to stop it. It simply has to be stopped.

As the member for Bonner said, there is nothing worse than this trafficking. We thought that we had stamped it out 140 years ago. We did not; it is worse than ever. The fact that it involves so many children is a matter of great shame to each of us as members of the international community, and we should be able to do something about it. I would like to say a lot more on this subject but time does not permit. UNICEF and many other United Nations agencies and non-government agencies have worked for decades to prevent abuse and to offer support to the abused. Our resolve to strengthen laws and law enforcement is essential to further and to give effect to these efforts. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion put forward by the member for Bonner and I commend her for the initiative. I also thank the member for Pearce for her contribution. As someone married to someone who has worked in child protection for 19 years—and I will celebrate my 13th wedding anniversary tomorrow—I understand her passion in speaking out against these horrible things.

Child exploitation and slavery are things that we all should be concerned about. Human trafficking is today’s slavery. Traffickers use violence, threats and abuse to force people to work against their will and they use people as commodities for another’s gain. Typically, victims are forced into prostitution, domestic service, forced marriage or even forced manual labour. More than half of all people trafficked are children who are forced into manual labour, trained as soldiers or—I am sad to say—sexually exploited.

UNICEF estimates that around 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide every year. Human trafficking denies people their basic human rights and is a sickening crime that represents the absolute worst of humanity. As Abraham Lincoln said way back in 1864:

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel.

That sounds like a logical thing to say now, but we have to understand the context in which it was said in 1864. It was something that ultimately led to Abraham Lincoln being assassinated.

We need more people of courage to speak against this horrendous crime, people like Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce. We need our modern-day versions. Thankfully, we have organisations like the Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans organisation. I met with representatives from ACRATH here in parliament last week. While as a child it was quite a harrowing experience to be in a room alone with two nuns, I found this to be a wonderful experience. It was great to see their commitment to such a wonderful cause. I admire them for their courage and for what they are trying to do. ACRATH is only a small part of the global struggle to eliminate human trafficking in Australia, the Asia-Pacific and internationally. ACRATH’s cause involves protecting victims of trafficking; amending the visa structure for trafficked persons—protecting the victim, basically; making community education accessible to trafficked people; improving community education for the wider community; and advocating better training for prosecutors and the judiciary.

The Rudd government is committed to eliminating people trafficking at home and abroad. We realise that to do this we need to take up the fight on a number of fronts: prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution and victim support. Australia has ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. We are also party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Australia has tough laws in place to deter traffickers, a victim support program, enhanced visa arrangements for potentially trafficked persons and specialised investigation units in the Australian Federal Police. These measures are helping to keep people trafficking in Australia relatively low. The Australian Federal Police have undertaken 150 investigations into trafficking allegations since 2004. This has led to 34 charges, including eight convictions, with 14 still before the courts.

However, people trafficking is still growing in some parts of Europe and South Asia. That is why Australia needs to work with our neighbours and non-government human rights agencies to help fight people trafficking. That is also why the Minister for Home Affairs convened the first national roundtable of people trafficking in June this year. The roundtable brought together non-government organisations, victims-of-crime organisations, religious groups, community legal centres, unions and government agencies. As a result, a working group was established to develop guidelines for NGOs dealing with trafficking victims.

Through AusAID, the Rudd government is also delivering a $21 million program to help combat people trafficking in Asia. AusAID is working with countries like Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Burma and Vietnam to reduce the number of human-trafficking victims, help the recovery of victims and prevent the exploitation of children. I particularly commend the efforts of some of the Thai representatives I met recently. Many people would be shocked to know that, more than 200 years after Lincoln and Wilberforce first led the cause against slavery, human trafficking and human exploitation are still happening throughout the world. This is totally unacceptable and should not be ignored.

I thank the member for Bonner for bringing this matter before the House and acknowledge her efforts to uphold the cause of the oppressed. It is obviously up to us and governments around the world to do more. (Time expired)

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.