Australia risks becoming ‘dumping ground’ for products made with forced labour, says senator
Australia’s Green party has tabled an amendment for tougher measures on importing goods made by forced labour, saying ‘it is time for Australia to join countries like Canada and the United States who have already implemented bans on these types of imports.’
‘This amendment would ban the import of products produced by forced labour from entering this country,’ Senator Jordan Steele of the Australian Greens party told the senate as he tabled the amendment on 4 September.
‘Australia has been far too slow to act on stopping imports of products produced by forced labour. Government measures, including business advisories, sanctions and import-export restrictions have occurred globally, but at this point Australia has not taken any public action. We now risk becoming a dumping ground for products tainted by slavery,’ he said.
A wide range of community organisations have joined with the Greens to call on the ruling Labor party ‘to prioritise this change,’ Steele said.
He explained that: ‘In Indonesia forced labour is seen in industries producing palm oil, on-board fishing vessels and in tobacco production, to name just a few. In Malaysia, migrant workers have been found to be involved in the production of garments under the conditions of forced labour. Globally, state-sanctioned forced labour is particularly common in the cotton sector. Each year in Turkmenistan, during the harvest season, citizens are forced out of their regular jobs to spend weeks picking cotton at work. In Saudi Arabia, millions of migrant workers fill mostly manual, clerical and service jobs constituting more than 80 per cent of the private sector workforce, governed by a system which gives the employers excessive power over their mobility and legal status in the country.’
Turning to China, Steele said, ‘The Chinese government has imprisoned more than one million Uyghurs and subjected those not detained to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labour and forced sterilisation, and that, ‘According to the End Uyghur Forced Labour campaign, one in five cotton garments are tainted by Uyghur forced labour. Forty-five per cent of the world’s solar-grade silicon used for the creation of solar panels comes from the Uyghur region, and more than 17 industries globally are implicated in forced Uyghur labour.’
In Tibet, he said, China is imposing so-called ‘labour transfer and vocational training programs’ that result in forced labour.
‘Now is the time to send the message that Australia will not accept products produced by any taint of modern slavery,’ the Greens senator said. ‘In the face of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity occurring in our very own region, this attempt to control the import of products produced with forced labour into Australia should be embraced by every party in this place.’
