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.
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