INTHEBLACK February 2024 - Magazine - Page 29
“People’s starting point with modern slavery is often that it’s something that
happens offshore — that goods are coming into Australia from countries where
there are sweatshops, and that it’s not a problem here. We know this is not the
case, and we see it in several sectors, including those that use personal
services such as nail bars, car washing, cleaning and hospitality.”
Above: Modern
slavery has been
known to occur
across the personal
services sector, in
businesses such as
nail bars (left) and
car washes (right).
AMY SINCLAIR, BUSINESS & HUMAN RIGHTS RESOURCE CENTRE
and from farms,” Sinclair says. “These could
all potentially be signs modern slavery is
operating in the community.”
BUSINESS RED FLAGS
Accountants are often in a prime position to
identify red flags within business operations,
says Vanessa Zimmerman, CEO of business
and human rights advisory firm Pillar Two
and chair of human rights and the modern
slavery community of practice at the UN
Global Compact Network Australia.
“If they’re seeing the procurement spend
and understand what type of business the
company is doing, they should be able to assist
their clients to better understand how to look
for modern slavery red flags,” Zimmerman says.
For example, if a company uses
fee-for-labour-hire agencies, “Are they sure
the agencies are not taking workers’ identity
documents or charging them recruitment fees?
“By not asking those sorts of questions, an
accountant is not helping the client as much
as they could be with managing their business
risks, as well as the risks they might pose to
human beings,” Zimmerman says.
BEYOND LEGISLATION
In Australia, businesses with a consolidated
revenue of more than A$100 million are
required to report annually on the risks of
modern slavery in their operations and supply
chains under the Modern Slavery Act 2018.
This may be extended to include businesses
with revenue of A$50 million, if the
recommendations of a review of the Act are
agreed to by government.
“Those large organisations are pushing
the obligations down into their supply
chain, so even if you’re a smaller entity, but
you’re supplying something to those larger
entities, they’re likely to be asking you what
you do within your business,” says Dr Fiona
McGaughey, associate professor at the
University of WA Law School and member of
the UWA Modern Slavery Research Cluster.
“What the Modern Slavery Act is asking
us to do is to identify risks and then to
MODERN
SLAVERY
SNAPSHOT
49.6 MILLION
People trapped
in modern slavery
globally in 2023,
which includes
28 million people in
forced labour
1.6 IN 1000
Prevalence of people
in modern slavery in
Australia in 2023
Source: Walk Free
intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au 29
