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The NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner today welcomed the end of mission statement released by Professor Tomoya Obokata, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery. The statement was issued at the conclusion of the Special Rapporteur’s two-week country visit to Australia, which included meeting more than 250 stakeholders in Sydney, Wagga Wagga, Griffith and Leeton, and a similar number in Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane.
“This is a wake-up call to governments at all levels in Australia”, said Dr Cockayne. “While the Special Rapporteur rightly applauds recent progress, his statement highlights significant modern slavery risks facing temporary migrant workers, international students, people with disabilities and sex workers.”
“Professor Obokata joins a growing chorus of expert voices calling for PALM workers to be given greater labour market mobility and protections from exploitation. His calls for removal of discrimination in labour market arrangements for people with disabilities, and in regulation and policing of sex workers, including Asian migrant sex workers, deserve immediate action”, said Dr Cockayne.
Dr Cockayne also welcomed the Special Rapporteur’s calls for stronger supply-chain due diligence laws and for greater inclusion of people with lived experience in Australia’s anti-slavery efforts. “I am glad to see that Professor Obokata recognised the good practices in these areas in New South Wales. We have mandatory modern slavery due diligence for all public buyers in this state, and integrate survivors into both my team and my Advisory Panel.”
“Professor Obokata’s statement also stands out”, said Dr Cockayne, “in his sensitive treatment of the impact of slavery and slavery-like practices on Australia’s First Nations peoples. The Special Rapporteur draws attention to the continuity between historical abuses, the impacts of intergenerational trauma, and the continuing over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in family separation and child removals. It is meaningless to say ‘Sorry’ if we don’t change our behaviour.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery will present his Australian country visit interim findings publicly at the Online Anti-slavery Forum tonight, at 5pm AEDT. You can register for the event here.
For more information call: Tim O’Connor 0448 449 419
INFORMATION ON THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR, MANDATE AND BIOGRAPHY
UN Special Rapporteurs
With the support of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN Special Rapporteurs have a number of roles: Undertake country visits
About the mandate:
The mandate on contemporary forms of slavery includes but is not limited to issues such as: traditional slavery, forced labour, debt bondage, serfdom, children working in slavery or slavery-like conditions, domestic servitude, sexual slavery, and servile forms of marriage. As a legally permitted labour system, traditional slavery has been abolished everywhere, but it has not been completely eradicated. It can persist as a state of mind—among victims and their descendants and among the inheritors of those who practised it—long after it has formally ended.
In order to effectively eradicate slavery in all its forms, the root causes of slavery such as poverty, social exclusion and all forms of discrimination must be addressed. In addition, we need to promote and protect the rights of all especially the most vulnerable in our society. Where human rights violations have already been committed, we are called upon to help restore the dignity of victims.
Biography:
Prof. Tomoya Obokata (Japan) was appointed as the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences in March 2020. He is a Japanese scholar of international law and human rights, specialising in transnational organised crime, human trafficking and modern slavery. Prof. Obokata currently serves as Professor of International Human Rights Law at York Law School, and previously taught at Keele University, Queen's University Belfast and Dundee University (all in the United Kingdom Great Britain and Northern Ireland). He has extensive experience of working on the issues of transnational crime, human trafficking and modern slavery with relevant stakeholders, including the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Northern Ireland Assembly All Party Group on Human Trafficking, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, the International Organisation for Migration and the European Union. Mr. Obokata also worked as a legal clerk for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Japan. He has published widely on the topics mentioned.
29 Nov 2024