Dozens if not hundreds — of people are being lured to Adelaide and enslaved, a migration expert has warned.
Unscrupulous employers tempt international students and foreign workers with the promise of work, only to then tell them they owe tens of thousands of dollars for sponsorship and visas and must work for free.
They slave in silence, afraid of deportation if they are found out.
In one case in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, a restaurant owner forced an ‘employee’ to work long hours for no pay, telling her she owed $50,000.
Other cases in recent years include a cook who was forced to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, after an Indian restaurant owner took his passport and said he could not leave until he had paid a debt.
He was made to live in the restaurant storeroom and wash in the kitchen.
In Brisbane, more than 50 Taiwanese nationals were imprisoned in a suburban house and forced to work non-stop carrying out phone scams.
The Federal Government says for the first time there are now more people being exploited outside the sex work industry than within it, pointing to domestic work, hospitality, agriculture and construction industry.
Forced marriages are also considered slavery.
The Walk Free Foundation, which was founded by billionaire mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, estimates that more than 4000 people are currently enslaved in Australia.
Adelaide-based Migration Solutions managing director Mark Glazbrook told The Advertiser he believed there would be hundreds of people kept in ‘debt bondage’ in SA.
“I meet people every week,” he said.
“They’ve given money to an employer, and their employer is now after more money.
“They’ve paid to get a visa, and now they’re working 60 hours a week and not getting paid. They have nowhere to turn.”
Mr Glazbrook said most of the people he spoke to were international students desperate to stay in Australia, but the process to get residency got harder and harder.
He said sometimes they were told they owed “well in excess of $100,000”.
He would like to see a moratorium, a period of safety for such people who report on the exploitative employers.
There is a current push for Australia to adopt a Modern Slavery Act to crack down on slavers.
The Federal Government, in a submission to an inquiry about such an act, said human trafficking and slavery was difficult in Australia because of “our strong migration controls, geographical isolation, and high degree of regulatory, compliance and enforcement action”.
“Despite these efforts, Australia is not entirely immune to these exploitative practices,” the submission states.
The Australian Federal Police have dedicated human trafficking teams, and have investigated hundreds of human trafficking and slavery-related matters. However, only 20 people have been convicted since 2004.
SOURCE: Adelaide Now
