Matters of Interest

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (15:25): Today, 2 December, marks the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Although modern slavery is not defined in law, we use it as an umbrella term covering practices such as forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage and human trafficking: essentially, situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception and/or abuse.

More than 40 million people worldwide are victims of modern slavery, and part of that number can be attributed to Australia. There is an assumption by many that South Australia is immune from modern slavery and that practices of exploitation happen somewhere else, only in developing countries. However, the recent release of the federal Modern Slavery report and the continued work of Professor Marinella Marmo at Flinders University has uncovered that South Australia, and Australia more broadly, has ties with acts of modern slavery.

Under the federal Modern Slavery Act 2018, companies are required to self-report and review their supply chains and check if workers face human trafficking, servitude, forced labour, deceptive recruiting or other poor or substandard work conditions. Under Woolworths' review alone, 332 Australian fruit and vegetable suppliers were identified to have slave-like conditions within their supply chain. Their report found that stone and berry farms were more likely to rely on labour hire firms, which have been highly linked to wrongdoings in the past. Berries and citrus had the most sites classed as at risk of slavery, though grapes had a large number relative to the number of suppliers.

Coles also released their report and identified that some farms at the start of the supply chain were not covered by their ethical sourcing program, leaving many workers without protections. Although the federal Modern Slavery Act alludes to what is happening in Australia, there is still a lot more to be investigated. As Associate Professor in Law at the University of Adelaide, Dr Howe stated:

…self-reporting is public relations for these large companies unless there is accountability on the claims that they make in their statements.

There are currently no penalties attached to the Modern Slavery Act if a company is found to have slavery-like practices within their supply chain.

Issues of modern slavery have been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. Professor Marmo, who I have spoken about previously on her report into slavery-like practices in South Australia, has uncovered more cases of worker exploitation during the pandemic through her research and is concerned that the issue has increased. In an article by the ABC she stated:

We were made aware international students were picking (fruit) for $8 to $10 an hour, forced to live in very basic and crowded accommodation, and paying $100 per person per week [for accommodation].

They lost their job at the beginning of the year in hospitality and commercial cleaning in Adelaide and so they moved into the regional area to fill a market with no competition coming in from either overseas or interstate.

The situation is the pandemic has accelerated the cycle of vulnerability and has expanded to include these people who were less vulnerable before.

This pandemic has made a lot of changes to all of our lifestyles and has cast a shadow of instability and vulnerability over many. We cannot idly sit by and watch these instances of modern slavery happen. We must act.