When you talk about the topic of slavery, the image that comes up is usually something related to America or Africa. Thing is, Australia has a seedy history when it comes to slavery, which begins right back during our early convict days.
However, slavery didn’t just apply to the convicts who came over on the boats. The early stages of British colonisation of Australia saw Indigenous Australians be used as unpaid labour across many sectors and this awfulness existed right up until the 1970s. So yeah, Australia has a terrible record when it comes to slavery, which shouldn’t surprise anyone given our sketchy past.
You’d think that historical slavery is just a topic in history textbooks these days but the fact of the matter is that it still exists in the form of “modern slavery” and it remains a big problem.
The Conversation dived deep into the topic and the sad truth is that Australia is still wrestling with “modern slavery”, which is a term used to describe human trafficking and slavery-esque practices like forced labour, domestic servitude, and forced marriage.
Anti-Slavery Australia has gathered stats and offered legal assistance to those who’ve experienced modern slavery over the last 17 years but the numbers show that the problem is likely worse than we all thought. The Australian Institute of Criminology estimates that only one in five victims are detected and combine this with the 123 people Anti-Slavery Australia helped in 2018 alone, what we’re seeing is that Australia’s slavery problem is more widespread than it seems.
As for what modern slavery looks like in Australia, The Conversation explains each different example using several brilliant yet confronting comics – all of which are based on real life cases – that I’ll attempt to sum up in words.
Slavery/Domestic Servitude
This essentially involves situation where a person is controlled like they were someone’s property. For example:
- A non-English speaking person comes over to Australia to work for a family as a domestic worker, only for the family to force them to work 12 hour shifts at their shop before doing domestic work at home afterwards. The person is forced to work seven days a week, weren’t allowed to leave the shop or house, and was threatened by their host family to not alert the police.
Servitude/Forced Labour
This form of modern slavery occurs when a person is unable to stop working or leave their workplace due to threats, coercion, and/or deception; and the person is deprived of their freedom outside of work. For example:
- A person comes to Australia on a working holiday visa to work for someone. Their boss confiscates their passport and phone before locking them in a house with many other people on working visas. The person is forced to work long hours, seven days a week with no pay and could only eat, sleep, and shower when their boss told them to.
Forced Marriage
Forced marriages occur when a person is forced to get married without their consent due to threats, coercion, and/or deception. It can also occur when a person is unable to understand marriage ceremonies due to their age or mental capacity.
Now the difference between a forced marriage and an arranged/sham marriage is there’s consent in the latter two while the former doesn’t. An example for a forced marriage would be:
- A person is forced to leave Australia and return to their home country to marry someone against their wishes by their own family. The person was threatened into it due to threats against the person’s partner and partner’s family, and were forced to assist in their new spouse’s Australian visa application before returning to Australia.
The explainer comics by The Conversation go in-depth into modern slavery in Australia and explains the topic far better than I just did so you should definitely have a look at them right here.
The one thing that’s clear is that Australia is still wrestling with its slavery problem and there’s a whole heap of work that still needs to be done so that it’s gone forever. This has been such a heavy topic to sit through so here’s a puppy to cleanse your palette.
