Australia works with other governments and organisations to prevent human trafficking, prosecute the perpetrators, and protect and support trafficked people.
Australia's strategy to combat human trafficking and slavery is founded on three equally important needs: to prevent human trafficking and slavery; the need to detect and prosecute offenders; and the need to provide support for trafficked people.
Australia (Tier 1)
The government continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts during the reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Australia remained on Tier 1.
If you have experienced human trafficking, forced labour or forced marriage, Red Cross can support you and help you recover. Our program can provide a caseworker, financial support, access to health and accommodation services, counselling and more.
Australia's strategy to combat human trafficking and slavery was implemented in 2003. It focuses on prevention and deterrence, detection and investigation, prosecution and compliance, and victim support and protection.
The National Action Plan will consolidate ongoing efforts of the federal government to combat human trafficking and introduce aggressive new initiatives to prevent human trafficking, identify victims, protect the most vulnerable, and prosecute perpetrators.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) lists Australia as one of 21 trafficking destination countries in the high destination category. The Australian Institute of Criminology has stated: Suspected victims of trafficking are in a unique position.
International Justice Mission is one of the largest organizations fighting human trafficking through policy change and training.
We identified their customers as being male drug dealers, members of law enforcement, lawyers, construction workers, truckers, businessmen, social workers, pastors, city employees and more. Purchasing sex online has also become big business.
Slavery-like offences include servitude, forced labour, deceptive recruiting and forced marriage. To date, the majority of victims identified by Australian authorities and matters we have prosecuted have involved women working in the sex industry.
Trafficking is used for a wide variety of purposes, such as domestic, agricultural or sweatshop labour, marriage and prostitution. Australia is a destination country for victims of trafficking, and evidence suggests the majority are women trafficked into debt-bonded prostitution.
Also, according to UNICEF and the International Labour Organization there are 40,000 child prostitutes in Sri Lanka. Thailand and India are in the top five countries with the highest rates of child prostitution.
Using this technique, it is estimated that the number of human trafficking and slavery victims in Australia in 2015–16 and 2016–17 was between 1,300 and 1,900. This means there are approximately four undetected victims for every victim detected.
Australia is founded on the rule of law and has a strong tradition of respect for the rights and freedoms of every individual. Human rights are recognised and protected across Australia through a range of laws at the federal and state and territory levels, the Australian Constitution, and the common law.
The Government is committed to implementing international standards to combat forced labour and has already ratified the most significant international treaties to abolish this element of modern slavery, the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105).
The 4AP program of research responds to five priority areas that represent the range of responses needed to tackle domestic, family and sexual violence, from primary prevention to improving service and support systems: Research priority 1: Primary prevention is key.
Many Human Trafficking Victims Are Brought in Through Force or Coercion. In some cases, traffickers use force or coercion to recruit their victims. It may be a threat of force or actual physical violence that makes someone comply with their demands.
Many factors make children and adults vulnerable to human trafficking. However, human trafficking does not exist solely because many people are vulnerable to exploitation. Instead, human trafficking is fueled by a demand for cheap labor, services, and for commercial sex.
Ashton Kutcher, Ricky Martin, Demi Moore, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Emma Thompson have all been extensively involved in anti-trafficking campaigns.
Sexual exploitation and forced labour
The most common form of human trafficking detected by national authorities is trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
In the 2021-22 financial year, the AFP received 294 reports of modern slavery and human trafficking, an increase from 224 in the previous financial year.
Direct serious and organised crimes were estimated to cost up to $37.3b in 2020–21. These are crimes that have a clear and direct link with serious and organised crime (eg illicit drug trafficking, human trafficking and organised financial crime).