Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the very important subject of human trafficking, particularly for sex slavery. My attention was drawn to two articles in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. In fact, the story on the front page, ‘Brothel Slave Case Collapses’, disturbed me greatly. It concerned a long investigation by the Australian Federal Police into sex trafficking, and, at the final hurdle, the DPP was unable to go ahead and prosecute the case. I want to highlight the good work that the AFP does in this area, leading on from a coalition commitment in 2003 to fight this most heinous crime.

People trafficking is not the same as people smuggling. Traffickers use a variety of methods to recruit their victims. They target vulnerable individuals, mainly from South-East Asia, by placing advertisements for comparatively well-paid employment positions in destination countries—for example, as dancers, waitresses or domestic workers. But, once the individuals arrive, they find that they have been deceived about the work they are required to do. Traffickers have a number of ways of preventing their victims from escaping—amongst them are debt, bondage, threats and violence, detention and the withholding of personal documents. They threaten to hurt or kill a victim’s children or family in their home country. Further uncertainty about their migration status and fear of being detained or deported makes victims reluctant to seek help.

The second article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph suggested that some women who come to this country and find themselves described as ‘sex workers who have been trafficked’ are in fact telling lies and using their position to get a migration outcome. This article describes one such case. I cannot comment on that case because I do not know about it. But, no doubt, these things have taken place. However, I think it is most important that we recognise that this is not a problem of anyone’s imagination. The Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission conducted an inquiry into the trafficking of women for sexual servitude in 2004, and it did indeed find that most of the women trafficked into Australia are recruited from South-East Asia and China for the sex industry. Traffickers facilitate the women’s entry to Australia, providing them false passports, funds and visas. They are then sent to brothels around the country, where their movements are restricted. It is not unknown for women to be forced to repay debts of up to $40,000.

In October 2003 the Australian government announced a $20 million package of additional anti-trafficking measures, including a new AFP unit—the Transnational Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Team—new visa arrangements for trafficking victims; and victim support measures, including counselling and legal and medical support, to be administered by the Office for the Status of Women. Following the highlighting of this issue in the press this week, I would like the government to recommit to this package. I would like the government to recognise that, although it is not necessarily a frequent crime, it is an extremely serious one. In the case that I mentioned—against the Sydney brothel madam Kwang Suk Ra, which collapsed yesterday—apparently, the evidence did not amount to ‘exploitation involving threat, force or deception’. That decision by the DPP followed on from a previous decision, handed down in late August, regarding a Melbourne brothel owner—and that redefined what is and is not exploitation.

We need the laws to change so that, where a young woman is trafficked into Australia for the purposes of sex and held against her will, denied her documents and denied access to medical, legal and personal help—in fact, trapped in a condition of modern-day slavery—she is actually able to get help and that the laws of this country are amended to provide that help. It is not uncommon that, as judgments take place, amendments to laws have to follow. We clearly cannot let the work of our AFP team of tireless workers, in what is a horrendous working environment, come to nought. It is simply not good enough. And I want to pay tribute to the AFP for their hours of investigation, the telephone intercepts and their hard work on behalf of the most defenceless women in the world today. This serious crime of people trafficking needs to be prevented in Australia, because we are a civilised country. We would not let our own citizens be treated in this manner overseas and we have absolutely every obligation to prevent foreign citizens who come to this country from experiencing what these young girls are currently experiencing.

Question agreed to.