Govt and business link up to help end forced labour
A business-led work plan is being developed as a direct response to New Zealand’s fight against human trafficking, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has revealed.
The plan, which would include practical steps governments and businesses can take to end modernday slavery and human trafficking, will be presented at the next Bali Process Ministerial meeting in August.
Lees-Galloway said the Government was making tackling human trafficking one of its top priorities and would run a review of migrant exploitation and update the National Plan of Action to combat human trafficking, forced labour and slavery. Employment laws were also being changed to empower workers to speak through their unions and for better collective organising, he said.
“Eliminating the exploitation of migrants is one of my top priorities.”
The minister did not rule out the possibility of new laws, such as a Slavery Act like in the UK.
“The prevalence of human trafficking and slavery, both in New Zealand and in our global supply chains is an increasing concern not just for the Government but also for businesses and consumers,” LeesGalloway said.
Icebreaker chairman Rob Fyfe says he is proud to be a New Zealander, but ashamed of New Zealand’s track record on human trafficking.
Fyfe, who last month jointly hosted a public-private sector event with Lees-Galloway to discuss the issue, is calling for more leadership from government as well as from New Zealand businesses.
“It concerns me deeply that New Zealanders have not chosen to take a leadership position in combating human trafficking and modern-day slavery,” Fyfe said.
“We pride ourselves on having a strong sense of social justice and fairness and have been at the forefront of many social and human rights issues over the years, yet we are far behind other nations . . . in enacting legislation and raising awareness of these crimes.”
Fyfe said the problem was far more pervasive than most realised, with many turning a blind eye to where products came from.
“Few of us really know the working conditions in the factories where our clothes are made, the working conditions on the fishing trawlers that caught the fish we eat or the myriad other products we consume,” he said. “We readily buy cheaper products and services blissfully naive as to what level of human exploitation may have been necessary to achieve those cost reductions.”
There are estimated to be more than 40 million people trapped as modern slaves and over 150 million children in forced labour.
Fyfe urged businesses to have a moral responsibility not to tolerate it and called for legislation to ensure international supply chains of businesses here were free from modern-day slavery, child labour and human trafficking.
Don Lord, executive director of Hagar New Zealand, which backed the 2016 study A Troubling Landscape on exploitation here, said recommendations made by report authors to the Government included setting up a one-stop-shop human trafficking office that coordinated efforts across government, community and groups.
The report, undertaken by Dr Christina Stringer, also called for government-commissioned research into human trafficking in New Zealand, and the establishment of induction courses for new migrants.
Lees-Galloway said the report was “valuable”.
“We will use it to inform our review of migrant exploitation.”