Human Trafficking Around the World (44 page)

—LUIGI ACQUISTO, FILMMAKER

Australia’s Pacific Solution of 2001–2007 is no longer in existence, but it is important to mention the measures the nation has taken to fulfill its immigration agenda. John Pace, Amnesty International delegate, said Australia’s means of dealing with illegal immigrants during this time aided in the smuggling of human persons. “The policy has clearly failed to stop desperate asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia, and the people smuggling rings have not been broken,” said Pace in an Amnesty International press release. “While the government has been creating a ‘fortress Australia,’ hundreds of men, women and children fleeing persecution and attempting to reach safety are being arbitrarily detained in camps and on boats, often in very poor conditions” (Amnesty International, 2001).

Under the Pacific Solution, asylum seekers were sent to detention camps located on two Pacific island nations—Papua New Guinea and Nauru. The intent was not only to create a solution for dealing with illegal immigrants but also to deter illegal immigrants from attempting to seek asylum in Australia. The incident that triggered the Pacific Solution was the August 2001 rescue of 400 migrants from a sinking boat by a Norwegian cargo ship named the
Tampa
. The migrants were predominantly Afghanis fleeing the Taliban and religious persecution, hoping to seek asylum in Australia. The asylum seekers had paid thousands of dollars to smugglers who ensured them of a new existence in Australia. Instead, the
Tampa
was refused entry to the mainland of Australia, and the refugees were sent to detention camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea (BBC News, 2002, 2007).

In return for housing asylum seekers in detention camps, the two islands received significant financial compensation from the Australian government. According to the BBC, there are reports that the former president of Nauru, René Harris, received $20 million to house more than 1,000 asylum seekers (BBC News, 2002, 2007). Pace stated that diverting boats to other countries in exchange for aid and money amounts to a trade in human misery. “The Australian government should instead increase efforts towards an international solution that tackles root causes of refugee movements and people smuggling. It should treat asylum-seekers fairly and humanely, and not push boats away from Australian waters.” The Pacific Solution came to an end in 2007 (Amnesty International, 2007).

Although the two activities are often conflated, human trafficking and human smuggling are not the same. However, persons who are smuggled are often vulnerable to a variety of exploitations, including human trafficking. Furthermore, smuggled persons who are also trafficking victims are often deported without an adequate screening to determine whether they are trafficking victims. Human trafficking is prohibited under Divisions 270 and 271 of the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code. Division 270 criminalizes slavery, deceptive recruitment, and sexual servitude. Penalties are up to 7 years’ imprisonment for deceptive recruitment, 15 years for sexual servitude, and 25 years for slavery. In June 2005 Division 271 was added to the Criminal Code to include the offenses of child trafficking, internal trafficking, and debt bondage. These offenses also come with a penalty of up to 25 years in prison (University of Queensland, 2009c, 2009d). Children are particularly vulnerable to forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. With this in mind, the expanded legislation prohibits compulsory and forced labor of both adults and children. Furthermore, under the 1994 Australian Crimes (Child Sex Tourism) Amendment Act, it is an offense for residents or citizens to travel abroad for sexual commercial purposes with minors under the age of 16 (U.S. Department of State, 2007a). Initially those found guilty of child sex tourism faced a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison, but under the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offenses Against Children) Act, enacted in April 2010, prescribed penalties for child sex tourism increased to 20 years’ imprisonment and up to 25 years’ imprisonment for aggravated offenses (Parliament of Australia, 2010a; U.S. Department of State, 2010). In August 2007 the Migration (Employer Sanctions Amendment) Act went into effect. Under the act, employers face 2 to 5 years’ imprisonment for exploiting others for sexual servitude, slavery, or forced labor (U.S. Department of State, 2008). The law—through the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-Like Conditions and People Trafficking) Bill 2012—may soon expand again to create new offenses of forced labor, forced marriage, organ trafficking, and harboring a victim (Parliament of Australia, 2012).

While the anti-trafficking law is sufficiently stringent, enforcement is not. There are only a small number of prosecutions per year, and convictions are an even greater rarity. The prosecutions that do exist tend to be focused on trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. In 2010 the government convicted five sex-trafficking offenders and no labor traffickers. In 2011 the government obtained its first conviction against a labor trafficker.

AUSTRALIA AS A DESTINATION

Australia is primarily a destination country for human trafficking. Persons, mostly women and girls, are trafficked into the country for commercial sexual exploitation. Men and women are trafficked into the nation for forced labor (U.S. Department of State, 2009). A primary group of victims is foreign workers who migrate temporarily to Australia for work but upon arrival have their travel documents taken from them, face debt bondage, fraudulent recruitment, threats, and confinement. These victims are primarily from China, India, Ireland, the Pacific Islands, the Philippines, and South Korea. These abuses against migrant workers are just beginning to get recognized as human trafficking. In many cases the workers face conditions synonymous with forced labor and debt bondage. Some employers use the 457 Temporary Worker Visa Program as a means to subject workers to debt bondage and forced labor. In response the Department of Immigration and Citizenship moved to improve monitoring of the program. As a result, in 2007, 123 employers were temporarily prohibited from hiring migrant workers, and 273 employers received warnings for not paying laborers the minimum wage (U.S. Department of State, 2008).

In 2008 the commonwealth workplace ombudsman investigated a case of forced labor involving hundreds of Indian migrant workers in the country on tourist visas. Allegedly the Rorato Nominees tomato farm and factory in Jerilderie were using their workers as forced labor (ABC News, 2008). The Indian nationals were allegedly subjected to confinement, foul living conditions, and human rights abuses and were forced to pay thousands of dollars in job enrollment and housing fees. At least two migrant workers claimed that their supervisor, Sam Prassad, sexually assaulted them. Prassad was an agent sourced to Rorato by Primary Contracting Services (PCS). These were not the first alleged incidents of sexual misconduct filed against Prassad; three Australian nationals brought individual suits in 2002. The cases were settled out of court, and without admitting liability Rorato and Prassad paid each woman $8,102.07 in general damages (Duff, 2008a, 2008b, 2009).

One worker, Mahesh Prajapati, was maimed and injured for life by a forklift in the Rorato warehouse. Although Rorato claimed that the incident was Prajapati’s own fault, the company and PCS were prosecuted and found negligent for breaching the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Duff, 2008b). Rorato and its director were fined $75,961.73 and $7,596.42, respectively. PCS and its director were fined $70,899.96 and $7,090.02 (Gillis Delaney Lawyers, 2008). Prajapati described the inhumane living conditions that he and the other workers faced. “My wife and I lived with 15 others. No furniture, no beds. We all paid $60 each per week but it has since become $75” (Duff, 2008a).

The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault reported in 2005 that debt-bonded prostitution was the primary form of trafficking in Australia (Fergus, 2005: p. 3). The exact number of these persons trafficked for sex to Australia annually is disputed. Research by Project Respect indicates that the figure is at least 300, while the Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association, believes the number to be 10 (Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission, 2004: p. 21; Craig, 2007). Recognized as a form of slavery under the Australian Criminal Code, victims of debt bondage often face “debts” ranging between $40,523.62 and $50,651.26. In order to pay off debts, women are forced to have sex with roughly 18 to 20 men per day, often without condoms. The women are also frequently beaten, raped, and threatened with further harm if they attempt to run away. Those who attempt to run away are often starved and beaten (Fergus, 2005: p. 3). Women trafficked in the Australian sex trade are from China, eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Taiwan (U.S. Department of State, 2009). According to Project Respect, most women trafficked for commercial sexual purposes in Australia enter the country on Thai passports. Experts believe that many of these women may have already been trafficked to Thailand from Myanmar (Burma) (Fergus, 2005: p. 16). In 2011, of identified foreign victims who received services, most were from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand (U.S. Department of State, 2012).

Some women who are trafficked for sexual commercial purposes travel to Australia with the knowledge that they will be working in legal or illegal brothels. What they do not know is that upon arrival they will face debt bondage or involuntary servitude. Others travel to Australia under the promise of legitimate employment and are forced into commercial sexual exploitation upon arrival (U.S. Department of State, 2007a). One problem, as reported by the Australian Crime Commission (ACC), is the use of deceptive practices masking debt bondage in contract terms and conditions (U.S. Department of State, 2007a). Clearly, one cannot consent to indentured servitude or debt bondage, but the use of a signed contract can help employers to manipulate their victims into believing that they have done just that.

The government of Australia signed and ratified the 2000 UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, in 2002 and 2005, respectively. The United Nations General Assembly passed Article 3(b) to the Protocol in 2000, which states that the consent of a victim who has been trafficked is irrelevant when the trafficker threatens the victim or uses force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, or deception. In addition, consent is immaterial when the trafficker utilizes abuse of power “or of a position of vulnerability [of the victim] or of giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation” (Fergus, 2005: p. 4; UNODC, 2012). The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission did not appear to understand this distinction when it stated “Many of the trafficked women who are detected by DIMIA [Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs] or police have voluntarily come to Australia with the intention of working in the sex industry, and cannot be considered victims of sexual servitude” (Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission, 2004: p. 44).
¹

A landmark case that brought great media attention and pressure for legislative change in Australia was the one against human trafficker Gary Glazner in 2000. With the help of agents in Thailand, Glazner purchased women from Thailand for $15,195.97 to $18,237.68. Known as contract girls, the women agreed to Glazner’s three-option contract. Of course it was Glazner, not the women, who determined which option would be utilized. In each case, the women were indebted to Glazner until they paid off their contract through prostitution. According to their contract the women were to work off their debt by performing 500 half-hour sexual services without payment. Glazner earned roughly $31,843.43 from each contract girl (after deducting the purchase cost). There are 40 known victims, but officials suspect that there were four to five times more contract girls. If this number is accurate, then Glazner earned more than $5 million from human trafficking. Although the contract girls had willingly gone to Australia to work as prostitutes, Glazner restricted their movements, kept them in debt bondage, and withheld their passports. In order to prevent escape, Glazner confined the women. When one victim escaped by crawling down a tree from the second story of their living quarters, Glazner promptly cut down the tree and barred the windows. He also kept a loaded gun in sight to deter escape attempts (Ford, 2001).

Australian authorities say that sex-trafficking networks are composed primarily of individual operators or small organized crime groups. These organizations and individuals often rely on larger organized crime groups to secure fraudulent documentation for trafficked women (U.S. Department of State, 2007a). Glazner enlisted the help of two migration officers to obtain first temporary visas and then work permits for the women while their refugee status was being reviewed by DIMIA. Most of the visitor visas had expired prior to review of their status and work permit applications. As a result, many, if not all, of the women were in breach of their visa conditions (Ford, 2001).

While prostitution is licensed and legal or decriminalized in many areas, numerous other brothels are operated illegally. As a result there is not adequate regulation of the industry, and many trafficking victims slip under the radar (U.S. Department of State, 2007a). The lack of enforcement and regulation in the Australian sex industry is of greatest concern with regard to the forced sexual exploitation of minors. One such victim is Ning, who was barely a teenager when she was trafficked into Australia for commercial sexual exploitation. In 1995, when she was 13, traffickers took Ning from Thailand to Australia with the permission of her father; her expectation was that she would be employed as a nanny (Craig, 2007; Mercer, 2007). According to filmmaker Luigi Acquisto, it was later revealed that Ning’s father knowingly sold his daughter into sex slavery.
²

When Ning arrived in Australia, she was forced to pay off a “debt” of $35,182.07 through prostitution. Ten days after her arrival immigration officials raided the brothel, but by then she had been coerced into working as a prostitute. Ning states that she was forced to have sex with as many as 100 men during the period before the raid. During those days she was not allowed to leave the house where she and the other women slept. If the women did not cooperate, the traffickers took them to a beating room (Craig, 2007; Mercer, 2007). Although this story is like that of many trafficking victims, what makes it unique is that Ning is the first former child sex slave to be compensated as a victim of human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in Australia. In acknowledging the post-traumatic stress and depression that Ning faced on account of being trafficked into the Australian sex trade, the New South Wales (NSW) Victims Compensation Tribunal ordered that she be paid $50,244.05 from a government fund for crime victims (Craig, 2007; Mercer, 2007).