Alert on guest-worker 'slavery'

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Alert on guest-worker 'slavery'

Anne Davies, Washington correspondent
June 13, 2007 - 8:05AM


A US report has raised concerns about the abuse of temporary guest workers brought to Australia from India, China and South Korea.

While Australia retained its status among the top-ranked countries in dealing with people trafficking, US State Department investigators said they had reports about workers "whose labour conditions amounted to slavery, debt bondage amd involuntary servitude."

While the report praises Australia's efforts in tackling sex slavery and sex tourism, it says: "The Australian Government should devote more attention and resources to addressing allegations of labour trafficking, including in connection with its 457 (temporary visa) worker visa program."

The Howard Government recently toughened penalties for employers who exploit foreign workers. Last year former immigration minister Amanda Vanstone temporarily halted the granting of worker visas to the meat industry amid concerns of abuse.

This included employers demanding repayment of large placement fees, contracts that forbid contact with unions, and sub-standard living conditions.

A departmental officer, Yole Daniels, told a senate estimates committee meeting this month that, of 12,000 current sponsors of the 457 program, about 500 had been brought to the department's attention and scrutinised more thoroughly.

The US report looks at all types of human trafficking, from people who are coerced into bonded labour, bought and sold in prostitution, exploited in domestic servitude, enslaved in agricultural work and factories, and captured to serve unlawfully as child soldiers.

Driven by its own heritage of slavery, the US has made people trafficking one of its focus areas and has a special ambassador responsible for monitoring the trade in human beings as well as taking other nations to task.

Releasing the report Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had noticed a greater commitment from nations to confront and tackle the issue.

"Many countries are now seeing it for what it is: a modern-day form of slavery," she said.

According to US Government estimates, about 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and about 80 percent of them are female. Up to half are minors. These figures do not include millions who are trafficked into labour and sexual slavery within national borders.

Many of the case studies in the report were harrowing. Ambassador Mark Lagon said the report had been dedicated to 22-year-old Ko Maung, who left Burma with his new bride to find work in a neighbouring country. But a job he took on a fishing boat for two years cost him his life.

"He was promised good money - $70 per month - but that boat stayed at sea for three years and the workers were fed only fish and rice. Not getting enough vitamins, they began to starve. They were denied medical care or passage home. The good job turned out to be a floating death camp. One by one, the men began to perish, including Ko Maung. His body was dumped overboard. So were the exhausted, malnourished bodies of 29 other modern-day slaves," he said.

The 60 fishermen who survived weren't paid and police refused to prosecute because there were no bodies, he said.

The annual report assesses 164 country's performances, putting them one of two tiers, with a watchlist category for some countries in the second tier. A third tier is reserved for countries that fail to meet basic standards on forbidding and prosecuting the traffic in humans.

Burma was again listed in the third tier, along with several Gulf states, Algeria, Cuba Iran, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Venezuala and Malaysia.

Malaysia was included among the worst performers because of its failure to take action to curb the trade in workers and women from Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam and China.

Ambassador Lagon said it was also very dissapointing to see so many rich Persian Gulf states on the tier three list.

" Saudi Arabia is on tier three for the third year. These are countries in that region that rely extensively on foreign migrant labourers. Sponsorship laws give employers extensive personal authority over workers, allowing them to control movement and legal status," he said.

But when asked whether the US would be prepared to apply sanctions to allies like Saudi Arabia and India, which also fared poorly because of its extensive use of child labour, Ambassador Lagon ducked the question and said the matter was vigorously raised in diplomatic discussions.

Among Australia's neighbours, Cambodia and Fiji were also listed on the watch list.

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