Photo credit: the National
Most migrant workers in New South Wales (NSW), an Australian state, are working in deplorable conditions.
The North West Star reports that migrant women, in a bid to escape exploitative work conditions, are delivering babies prematurely. They are then slapped with hefty medical bills. Their male counterparts are not treated better; they sleep in tents in parks in regional NSW.
A report from Independent NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner James Cockayne found there is an estimated 16,400 people trapped in modern slavery in NSW.
The commissioner called for an urgent inquiry on Wednesday after the report – Be Our Guests: Addressing urgent modern slavery risks for temporary migrant workers in rural and regional NSW – was tabled in state parliament by the attorney-general.
The study examined modern slavery risks temporary migrant workers face in agriculture, horticulture and meat processing in more than 15 rural and regional NSW towns, talking with 80 Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme workers.
Modern slavery includes everything from debt bondage, deceptive recruiting and forced labour to extreme cases like sexual servitude and human trafficking.
Dr Cockayne told reporters, “We heard this morning about someone who showed up, gave birth to a child prematurely, and (was) then hit with a $25,000 bill, so she disconnected the child and left the hospital because she knew there was no way she’d ever pay it.”
There were reports in Griffith, in NSW’s Riverina region, of early warning indicators that suggested the possibility of organized labour trafficking emerging on a small scale.
PALM workers are restricted to either six months of seasonal work or up to four years of being tied to one employer without the ability to change workplaces.
