HIGH COURT HEARS CASE ON SLAVERY AND TRAFFICKING

UNCLAS CANBERRA 000542

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

G/TIP FOR SALLY NEUMANN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI KWMN AS
SUBJECT: HIGH COURT HEARS CASE ON SLAVERY AND TRAFFICKING



1. (U) SUMMARY: On May 13 the High Court of Australia heard
an appeal of a brothel owner who was convicted for enslaving
five Thai prostitutes who had incurred a debt of A$45,000
when they were recruited to work in a brothel in Melbourne.
The brothel had been raided in 2003 and the owner, Wei Tang,
had been convicted of "possessing a slave." This was the
first major trafficking-in-persons conviction in Australia.
The conviction was overturned by the State of Victoria's
supreme court in 2007 and the Federal Government appealed to
the High Court. The Court will decide how Australia legally
defines slavery and the possession of one person by another.
The case is the most significant test of Australia's criminal
laws against sexual and all other forms of slavery ever to
come before an Australian court. A decision is expected by
August. END SUMMARY


2. (U) On May 13, the highest court in Australia, the High
Court in Canberra, heard an appeal of a conviction of
Melbourne brothel owner Wei Tang for slavery. The question
before the court was whether five Thai prostitutes were, in
fact, slaves that had been confined against their will until
they paid off a A$45,000 debt they had incurred in coming to
Australia in 2002 to work in the sex industry. The key issue
for the courts was whether the confinement and treatment of
the prostitutes amounted to slavery, which is punishable by
up to 25 years in prison, or was in fact merely exploitive
treatment of five sex workers (a legal trade in several
jurisdictions in Australia),where the punishment is much
less severe. Tang had been convicted of five counts of
possessing a slave and five counts of exercising the power of
possession over the prostitutes and had been sentenced to 10
years in prison. The conviction was overturned on appeal by
the state of Victoria's supreme court, and the Federal
Government subsequently appealed to the High Court.


3. (U) The five Thai women, who had worked as prostitutes in
Thailand, arrived in Australia in 2002. They were told they
were "contract girls" who owed a "debt" of A$40,000-45,000
that they had to work off (a figure much higher than they had
been led to expect). To repay the debt, they had to provide
sexual services for up to 900 men. The girls were housed
together in bedrooms with mattresses on the floor. Tang
confiscated their passports and airline tickets and
restricted their freedom of movement. They worked 10-12 hour
shifts six nights a week just to reduce their debt. To earn
any money for themselves, the girls worked on their day off.
The brothel was raided in 2003 and Tang, the manager, and an
associate were charged with slave-trading offenses. While
the associate pled guilty, the manager was acquitted at trial
and the jury was unable to reach a verdict against Tang. In
2006, Tang was retried and convicted. It was the first
successful prosecution of sex-slave traders under 1999
federal anti-trafficking laws -- until that conviction was
overturned on appeal.


4. (U) A key fact for the courts was that two of the girls
continued to work in the brothel after they had paid off
their debts. One High Court justice said during the hearing
that if slavery were not carefully defined "then lots of
harsh employment contracts are going to slip over into
slavery and are going to be prosecuted with a potential of 25
years imprisonment on conviction...There are an awful lot of
people working in back rooms of restaurants and in the 'rag
Qpeople working in back rooms of restaurants and in the 'rag
trade' whose employers would be susceptible to prosecutions
for slavery." One of the Government's attorneys responded
that "they worked for six months for next to no money." The
Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
urged the Court to move beyond the historical notion of
chattel slavery and adopt the contemporary understanding of
slavery in international law.


5. (SBU) COMMENT: The director of the Anti-Slavery Project in
Sydney, Jennifer Burn, told us May 23 that the key issue is
whether the statutory definition of slavery under Australian
criminal law encompasses modern-day slavery. A slavery
conviction can be punished by up to 25 years in prison
whereas the other trafficking offenses have much less severe
penalties. Burn and her NGO colleagues are currently pushing
the Government to increase the punishment for debt bondage
beyond a maximum of 12 months in prison. While there are now
offenses for trafficking, trafficking in children and debt
bondage, the High Court's decision will provide clarity to
the courts -- and help the Rudd Government decide how and if
it must amend the anti-trafficking laws in Australia.

MCCALLUM