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Scarlet Alliance "Scarlet Alliance Migration Project funded for another three years" 16 Sept 2011
Scarlet Alliance "Submission to the Victorian Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee" Oct 2009
Slavery & Trafficking Laws
Migrant Workers In Australia
This page relates to migration and trafficking issues in Australia. For a global view of the issue, link here
NEW!! Scarlet Alliance Submissions to the Attorney Generals Department 2011
Media Release: Scarlet Alliance Migration Project funded for another three years 16 Sept 2011
MEDIA: Australian sex worker group opposes moves to police industry
Briefing Paper March 2010 [in English] and [in Chinese].
Briefing Paper October 2010 [in English] and [in Chinese]
Australian Trafficking Issues 2008
Trafficking Briefing Paper July 2009
Trafficking Briefing Paper August 2008
Trafficking Briefing Paper April 2008
Scarlet Alliance Submission to the 2008 US State Department Trafficking In Persons Report Download PDF
Scarlet Alliance Migration Working Party Anti-Trafficking Activities and Advocacy for Migrant Sex Workers Download PDF
Guidelines for Working With Trafficked People In Australia, 2mb, download, 2009
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Australia has a very restrictive and arguably racist immigration policy that favours access to our country to those people with wealth. Therefore people from poorer regions and lower socioeconomic backgrounds are disadvantaged when trying to migrate here. Some sex workers from Asian countries enter into ‘contracts’ with people who will sponsor and assist their entry into Australia. This ‘contract’ arrangement is illegal under Federal Immigration & Sex Slavery Laws.
The illegal status of sex worker in Asian countries mitigates against many migrant workers in Australia from fully accessing their rights in terms of visas.
In the vast experience of Scarlet Alliance through its membership of State & territory sex worker organisations and projects the overwhelming majority of migrant sex workers have chosen to work in the Australian sex industry and have willingly entered into ‘contracts’ with agents to facilitate their passage and working arrangements whilst in Australia.
The coercive, ‘servile or slave-like ‘conditions that some sex workers find themselves in upon arrival are a direct result of the lack of access (percieved or real) to visas and sex workers reliance on third parties to organise travel and workplaces.
Therefore Scarlet Alliance recommends that the sex industry must be fully decriminalised in order to maximize OHS, industrial and other regulatory mechanisms.
Scarlet Alliance further recommends that the way to end "slavery" is to "free" the "slaves" by giving migrant sex workers rights and legal status, through legislation which will increase their power to reject slave-like contracts and conditions. Removal of the incentives and opportunities for "traders" to ‘traffic’ sex workers to Australia is created by an open, transparent visa system of entry to Australia for migrant sex workers. Taken from Sex Workers Outreach Project response to the Criminal Code Amendment (Slavery and Sexual Servitude) Bill 1998
It is clear that a punitive approach which targets the agents who facilitate passage into Australia of Asian sex workers will achieve little without the consideration of the complexity of the issues involved. The Australian Government must consider the rights of undocumented migrant sex workers as central to any public policy response… (Taken from Scarlet Alliance response to Discussion Paper #9, ‘Slavery’ Attorney General’s Committee)
Related Articles, Links and Submissions
Submission on Labour Trafficking March 2011 Scarlet Alliance strongly opposes the introduction of a criminal justice response, and/or special criminalisation for forced labour in Australia as an addition to current criminal justice responses to sex work and trafficking. Criminalisation and subsequent deportation has led to an increased dependence and at times worse debt contract situations being entered into as the criminal justice response does not address the debt that remains owing even after the worker is "rescued". If the aim of Government is to decrease reliance on debt contracts by those coming to Australia for work, there are methods that will provide these outcomes without criminalising the target group who are pushed into unfair work situations.Dowload submission here
Submission on Forced and Servile Marriage March 2011 Scarlet Alliance strongly recommends a substantial time and financial investment be made into community organisations who represent those perceived to be affected by forced and servile marriage prior to the discussion of legislative and/or non-legislative means to prevent, prosecute and deliver human rights to those allegedly affected by these crimesDownload submission here
Sex Work, Migration and Trafficking Identity Matters: Non-Sex Workers Writing About Sex Work, review essay by Elena Jeffreys
A review of Red Lights, The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China by Tiantian Zheng, Patpong Sisters, An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World by Cleo Odzer, China, Sex and Prostitution by Elaine Jeffreys and Sex Trafficking by Siddharth Kara. Read more of this article at Intersections Journal"Review of Employer Sanctions Legislation – Combating Illegal Work in Australia" June 2010 Download Submission to the Australian Government Inquiry, chaired by Mr Stephen Howells
WHY DON’T WE INTRODUCE MEDIA & RESEARCHERS TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TRAFFICKED? Briefing paper by Scarlet Alliance, May 2009 Download PDF
ANTI-TRAFFICKING MEASURES AND MIGRANT SEX WORKERS IN AUSTRALIA, 2009 One of the outcomes of anti-trafficking raids on brothels and increased policing in the sex industry is the negation of legislative benefits for migrant sex workers in Australia. There is concern that reduced rights for migrant sex workers, and therefore increased vulnerability to trafficking, are unintended consequences of anti-trafficking efforts in Australia. Link for full story.
DISPELLING MYTHS ABOUT SEX TRAFFICKING, 2009 Pornpit Puckmai is an articulate and proud sex worker from Empower Foundation, Chiang Mai, in Thailand. She spoke to CHERRIE Magazine in 2008 about mainstream feminists from Australia who would like to "rescue" her from sex work.Link to full story
TRAFFICKING PREVENTION - ITS TIME FOR ACTION, 2008 History tells us that punitive approaches to sex work have never been successful. Migrant sex workers are the collateral damage in this morally charged war against sex...Link to full story.
TRUTH AND VISAS WILL SET ASIAN SEX WORKERS FREE, 2008 The stereotype of the Asian sex slave captures the Australian imagination. When Puangthong Simaplee died in immigration detention in 2001, a story emerged of a girl trafficked to Australia at the age of 12 and forced to have sex as a slave. Her story was given under duress, after the Department of Immigration had taken her into detention, during the first phases of the pneumonia that eventually killed her...Link to full story.
Fiona David "Trafficking of women for sexual purposes" Australian Institute of Criminology, 2008 Link to paper
The other side of the sex slave debate, By Yolanda Corduff. First published in EROS Vol 5 Number 3. go to Eros article on external website
Link to R v Wei Tang (2007) Supreme Court of Victoria Court of Appeal Ruling, 27 June 2007, Court of Appeal Decision, 29 June 2007 and related media
Submission on Proposed Amendments to the Federal Criminal Code 2004 Scarlet Alliance expresses concern over the Attorney General (Phillip Ruddocks) proposals to broaden the reach of Australian law in relation to the sex industry, limit the movement of migrant sex workers across domestic borders in Australia, and in general put more pressure on the sex industry in Australia as a site of illegal migrant labour.
Submission to Parliamentary Joint Committee; Trafficking in Women for Sexual Servitude This submission draws on Scarlets' premier position as the single organisation in Australia that has the most contact with migrant sex workers. Presented in 2003, this inquiry was the precurser to the 2005 changes to the Federal Criminal Code.
Thai Senate Delegation on the process of public participation SWOP June 2002 This document is written by Thai sex workers about the need for sex workers to be at the centre of the public policy debate about migrant sex workers.
RESPONSE TO THE CRIMINAL CODE AMENDMENT (SLAVERY AND SEXUAL SERVITUDE) BILL 1998 Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) August 1998 This document was released to Members of Parliament during the debate around Sexual Slavery in 1998. It covers Contracts, Working Conditions, The Right to Work and Travel, Women’s experiences and media misrepresentation, the effects of the proposed legislation and alternative solutions from the perspective of the organisation closest to these workers.
Briefing Paper CHAPTER 9; OFFENCES AGAINST HUMANITY; ‘SLAVERY’ Scarlet Alliance Addressed to the Standing Committee of the Attorneys-General (all State and Federal Attorney General’s) regarding the proposed changes (now law) to Australia’s treatment of people who migrate to Australia for sex work. Scarlet Alliance argues strongly that migrant workers in Australia need legitimisation, not criminalisation. “The most important support that the Australian Government could provide for these workers is to ratify the UN International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families (the ‘Migrant Workers Convention’).”
Submission on Sexual Slavery Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Susan Halliday, Sex Discrimination Commissioner, August 1998 Written in response to a Discussion Paper on Slavery from the Criminal Law Division of the Attorney-General’s Department
Prostitutes Collective of Victoria "SIREN Speaks" 1994 Link to more information and to download PDF
Scarlet Alliance "Media Ethics and Non-English Speaking Background Sex Workers" 2005 Journalists need to understand the effects of exploiting the trust of sex workers. To a journalist, the article is a pay packet. For the sex workers involved, it is their entire life, their safety, their relationships with their family and community, and their dignity. Perhaps some of these sex workers at some time in their life would have decided to come out about their sex work, to their family, or to their community. However the journalist has taken the power away from them to be able to decide for themselves.