Types Of Modern Slavery Australia

The types of modern slavery recognised in Australia are a legal list rather than a descriptive one. Australian law names eight: human trafficking, slavery, forced labour, forced marriage, servitude, debt bondage, deceptive recruiting for labour services, and the worst forms of child labour. Each is a serious criminal offence, and the Modern Slavery Act 2018 takes its meaning from those offences.

That matters more than it sounds. An organisation scoping its risk against a checklist borrowed from the UK or from a global campaigner can end up describing something Australian law does not cover, or missing something it does. Debt bondage and deceptive recruiting for labour services are the usual casualties. Both sit squarely in the Australian list and both are easy to overlook when the framework was written somewhere else.

The thread running through most of the eight is coercion. The Attorney-General’s Department describes it as manipulation, control or violence, threats or lies, used so that a person feels they cannot stop working, cannot leave, or cannot refuse. That is the line between conduct that is criminal and conditions that are simply poor, and it is why an assessment built only on pay rates and rostered hours will not find it.

Some of the detail is specifically Australian. No child under 16 can legally consent to a marriage here, so forced marriage involving a younger child is never a question of whether they agreed. Suspected modern slavery can be reported to the Australian Federal Police on 131 237, and a person does not need to know which type they are experiencing before asking for help.

Full definitions of each type sit with the Attorney-General’s Department. Posts tagged here look at how Australian organisations recognise these types in their own operations and supply chains, alongside wider human rights and workplace compliance work. Definitions and obligations change over time, so treat this as general information rather than legal advice.

Sentrient’s modern slavery course works through these types in a workplace context, within the wider compliance training courses.