Login
Senate inquiry should look beyond forced labour in China: human rights lawyers
Human rights lawyers have argued that potential new laws targeting forced labour in China should be broadened to target the 25 million people trapped globally.
Naomi Neilson
The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) has called on the Senate committee inquiring into the Customs Amendment (Banning Goods Produced by Uyghur Forced Labour) Bill 2020 to look both in and outside China when considering penalties against Australian businesses that stock products made under forced labour conditions.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
“Our response should target the crime, not the country,” HRLC senior lawyer Freya Dinshaw said. “There are 25 million people trapped in situations of forced labour globally, and almost two-thirds of them are in our region. Each of these people, whether they are trapped on a Thai fishing vessel or in bonded labour in an Indian factory, is being abused. The law shouldn’t single out imports from just one country.”
HRLC said there has been evidence of mass internment, widespread forced labour and other atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang that provides an urgent case for action by the Australian government to ensure that local businesses are not complicit in serious human rights abuses.
The human rights centre is calling on the federal government to establish a special investigations unit within Australian Border Force, to strengthen existing modern slavery laws through the addition of penalties for non-compliance and an independent commissioner. It has also requested that Australian companies sourcing from high-risk locations undertake human rights due diligence.
Ms Dinshaw said that countries like the US and Canada had already implemented a global import ban on forced labour and Australia should do the same.
“The US system enables confiscation of goods where investigations reveal reasonable evidence of forced labour – such as with cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang – and pushes the onus back onto importers to show their goods are slavery-free. And it works. We’ve seen significant pressure pushed back onto suppliers to lift their game,” Ms Dinshaw added.
