Senate committee recommends the Australian government ban all imports made with forced labour
The Human Rights Law Centre has welcomed a Senate Committee report recommending a ban on the importation of any goods produced with forced labour into Australia.
The Senate inquiry into the Customs Amendment (Banning Goods Produced by Uyghur Forced Labour) Bill 2020, which tabled its report in Parliament on Thursday, heard chilling testimony of mass internment and forced labour by Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China.
The inquiry report made more than a dozen recommendations, including resourcing for a special investigations unit within the Australian Border Force to help enforce the imports ban and measures to strengthen Australia’s current modern slavery and procurement laws.
Human Rights Law Centre Senior Lawyer Freya Dinshaw said:
“We welcome the Senate Committee’s recommendations. The grave situation in Xinjiang has been a wake-up call for Australia to ensure companies are not profiting from abuse.
“The Inquiry heard the harrowing testimonies of the Uyghur community and responded with a set of clear, compelling actions the Australian government should take to ensure that Australian businesses are not complicit in forced labour in Xinjiang or any other part of the world.
“We particularly welcome the Committee’s recommendation that Australia adopt a broad ban on imports produced with forced labour. Similar legislation has been in place in the US for many years and has been used successfully to investigate and target companies sourcing from suppliers with well-known links to forced labour.
“We also welcome the other measures proposed by the Committee to strengthen the enforcement of Australia’s modern slavery laws. If we want to eradicate forced labour in Australia’s supply chains, we need to move beyond voluntary reporting and compel companies to take meaningful action.
“There are 25 million people – roughly the same as Australia’s entire population – trapped in situations of forced labour globally, and almost two-thirds of them are in our region. Every single one of those people are being abused, whether they are trapped on a Thai fishing vessel or in bonded labour making rubber gloves in Malaysia.
“We call on the Australian government to immediately implement the Senate committee’s recommendations. We should all be able to have confidence that the goods we purchase are not made at the expense of other peoples’ freedom.”
Read the Human Rights Law Centre’s submission to the inquiry here.
Media contact:
Evan Schuurman, Media and Communications Manager, 0406 117 937, evan.schuurman@hrlc.org.au