Australia plans to introduce new human trafficking laws that set penalties of up to 20 years in jail for smuggling a child, the government said on Thursday, days after being named in a US trafficking report.
The US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report for the first time cited Australia as a destination for Chinese and Southeast Asian women trafficked into the sex trade, putting it on the same level as France, Germany, Morocco and Colombia.
"It's a vile trade and must be stamped out," Australian Minister for Family and Community Services Kay Patterson said.
The sex slavery trade in Australia hit the spotlight last year with an inquest into the death of a 27-year-old Thai woman, Puongtong Simaplee, who choked to death on her vomit in a Sydney detention center after 15 years as a prostitute in Australia.
Project Respect, a group that represents women brought to Australia as sex slaves, believes there could be up to 1,000 such women in the country at any one time.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell estimated this week that up to 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked internationally each year.
Australia, which says police are investigating 20 cases of human trafficking, plans to introduce new legislation in parliament within the next few weeks that will include penalties of up to 20 years for trafficking a child or 12 years for trafficking an adult using threat, force and deception.
The legislation is also designed to protect women recruited to work in the sex industry who find themselves subjected to exploitation when they arrive.
The US trafficking report said many of the women who agree to work in both legal and illegal Australian brothels were coerced into debt bondage and sexual servitude.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to take action against the EU if it moves forward with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to make Canada the bloc’s first associate member. “If they do that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act; I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things,” Trump told reporters en route to an event in North Carolina, calling the proposal “laughable.” “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe,” he said. Von der Leyen made the proposal
Thai police yesterday said that they arrested a senior Buddhist monk on suspicion of embezzling US$2.8 million intended for his monastery, alongside a suspected female accomplice he was having sex with. The case is the latest scandal to hit the clergy in Buddhist-majority Thailand after a sex and extortion case involving senior monks last year prompted public outrage and calls for greater scrutiny of temple finances. Phra Wachirayan Wi, the 66-year-old abbot of the 14th-century Wat Phutthaisawan in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, was arrested on Thursday on charges including embezzlement and money laundering, lead police investigator Pattanasak Bupphasuwan said. A 47-year-old woman
SECRET FOOTAGE: A 17-year-old girl told British broadcaster Channel 4 that she had been approached by a man who covertly recorded her and their interaction Calls are growing louder in Europe for action against “pervert” smart glasses after secretly filmed footage of girls and women appeared online — with a petition in Britain demanding a ban on their sale. Anyone wearing smart glasses can take photos, film videos, listen to music, make phone calls, translate text or interact with an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, with sales now hitting millions. The devices grabbed attention this summer after a marketing tie-up between Kylie Jenner, beauty mogul and member of the Kardashian dynasty, and tech giant Meta. Since smartphones are now embedded in daily life, “big tech” is
FROSTY RECEPTION: ‘I conveyed the strong view of the Irish people that the normalization of war and genocide can never be accepted,’ the Irish president said US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that he would “love to see” a united Ireland, wading into a politically sensitive subject as he embarked on a two-day Irish visit that blurs the lines between his presidency and personal business interests. After meeting Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin in Dublin, Trump said reunification of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland — split for more than a century — would be “a fantastic thing.” “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now,” he told reporters, adding that “the UK will have something to say about it, obviously.”
RSS