What Are the Types of Modern Slavery

Australian law recognises eight types of modern slavery: 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 under Divisions 270 and 271 of the Criminal Code, and together they are what the Modern Slavery Act 2018 means by the term.

In plain terms, trafficking is moving a person within or across borders so they can be exploited. Slavery is treating someone as property to be used, bought or sold. Forced labour is coercion that leaves a person feeling they cannot stop working or leave, and servitude is the same coercion with other personal freedoms taken away as well. Forced marriage is marriage without free and full consent. Debt bondage ties work to a debt that may be impossible to repay and may not even be real. Deceptive recruiting is using lies to draw someone into an exploitative job. The worst forms of child labour covers children in slavery-like conditions, hazardous work or commercial exploitation.

What matters in practice is that real cases rarely sit in one category. A worker recruited on false promises, charged a fee they cannot repay, then kept on site by threats has passed through deceptive recruiting, debt bondage and forced labour in sequence. Anyone waiting to be sure which label applies before raising a concern will wait too long. The question worth asking is whether a person appears unable to leave, not which offence fits.

Language matters too, because the people most exposed often do not read English well. Australian Red Cross publishes plain-language brochures and videos on trafficking, forced labour and servitude, with translations into Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Nepali, Tagalog and other languages. Definitions and obligations change over time, so treat this as general information rather than legal advice.

Posts tagged here sit alongside Sentrient’s wider compliance training writing. The modern slavery course works through these types for a workplace audience, within the broader compliance training courses.