Posts Tagged ‘debt bondage’
30 Years Supporting Survivors
The UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery is celebrating 30 years of bringing survivors to the centre of recovery and prevention. The Fund was established by the General Assembly in 1991 (resolution 46/122) to bring relief to those whose human rights have been severely violated as a result of enrolment of children…
Read MoreDebt Bondage Payouts
For some time ACRATH has been concerned about migrant workers in the rubber glove industry in Malaysia. Along with St Vincent’s Health Australia and other NGOs, ACRATH engaged in advocacy to raise the plight of workers experiencing unethical recruitment, forced labour and debt bondage due to exorbitant recruitment costs. As a result of the Covid-19…
Read MoreIdentifying Modern Slavery
With the passing of the Modern Slavery Act in 2018 businesses operating in Australia with an annual consolidated income of over $100 million are required to report on the risk of modern slavery in their supply chain. Reports are uploaded to the Online Register for Modern Slavery Statements. The Monash Centre for Financial Studies has…
Read MoreSlavery Exists in Australia
The ABC recently ran an article on Modern Slavery in Australia, which featured Aranya’s story (name changed for privacy) of modern slavery for sexual exploitation in Victorian brothels. It’s a story we hear too often. Aranya found herself paying $100 a week to sleep on the floor of someone else’s kitchen, forced to cook, do…
Read MoreDebt Bondage in Mica Mining
It is highly likely that you own products that include mica as an ingredient. It is the mineral that makes our cosmetics, cars and phones sparkle. However workers mining mica are struggling to survive. Jharkhand state, India, is one of the world’s largest mica producers with an economy in which thousands of families are dependent…
Read MoreRubber Glove Industry During Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has meant unprecedented demand for rubber gloves. Consequently manufacturers are recording enormous increases in profit. However for the worker little has changed. In Malaysia, where approximately 60% of the worlds rubber gloves are manufactured, workers continue to experience exploitation and debt bondage. CNN Business recently reported: “Many of the serious forced labor…
Read MoreDoes Your Car Have Glittery Mica Paint
Perhaps the Mica was Mined by Children The Guardian has recently brought to light the fact that children in India are working in situations of child labour and debt bondage to mine the mica. The mica is being used in paint for automobiles. Child rights campaigners estimate that up to 20,000 children work in hundreds of…
Read MoreEradicating & Preventing Debt Bondage
Report of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery In her report to the thirty third session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slaver, Urmila Bhoola, spoke about debt bondage as a key form of slavery in our contemporary world. As well as defining…
Read MoreFree Anti-Slavery On-line Course
Start Learning Today The first free Australian online training program dealing with trafficking and slavery was recently launched by Sydney-based Anti-Slavery Australia at the University of Technology, Sydney. Funded by the Australian Government through the Proceeds of Crime program, the course offers comprehensive training on human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices including forced labour, debt…
Read MoreThree Charged with Labour Trafficking
Three People Arrested in Sydney Australian Federal Police have arrested and charged three members of a Filipino-Australian family for their alleged trafficking and exploitation of four young Filipino boxers. The men had been brought to Australian on sporting visas. They thought they were going to have professional boxing careers. Instead they found themselves forced into a…
Read MoreDebt Bondage in the Palm Oil Industry
Serious Human Rights Abuse Among the estimated 3.7 million workers in the palm oil industry are thousands of child laborers and workers who face dangerous and abusive conditions. Debt bondage is common, and traffickers who prey on victims face few, if any, sanctions from business or government officials. Palm oil and its derivatives are found…
Read MoreMadam Convicted for Sexual Servitude
“Treated Human Beings as Commodities” In Sydney a woman has been sentenced to a maximum of six years jail for forcing young Malaysian women into sexual servitude. In sentencing the woman the sentencing judge said the woman had been treated “not as human beings but as commodities – machines to make money.” The women had…
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