The Mercy Foundation joined with 24 other organisations to endorse Be Slavery Free’s Submission to the statutory review of the 2018 Modern Slavery Act (Cth). The review makes 11 recommendations to the Act including:
- A review of previous inquiries and reports with a view to implementing recommendations
- The role of an independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner be legislated
- The Act be amended to uphold a duty to prevent modern slavery by enforcing and monitoring reporting aligned to international principles, standards, conventions, and laws, that are appropriate to the size, scale, sector and risk-profile of the reporting entity.
- That resources for the office of the Ambassador for People Smuggling and Human Trafficking in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade be increased to work with partners in our region to build awareness and help countries strengthen their responses to modern slavery.
- A national compensation scheme is implemented to provide appropriate remedy to people subjected to exploitation through an Australian company’s operations or supply chain.
- The Act enforces penalties for non-compliance, negligence, or falsifying reporting.
- The Act should enforce a ban on importing high-risk products from countries and regions (including Australia) at high-risk of modern slavery.
We thank Be Slavery Free for their leadership and collaboration in preparing the submission. The review can be downloaded here.
