Principal speaker
Associate Professor Jennifer Burn
This seminar is part of the Socio-Legal Research Centre Seminar Series.
Presented by Associate Professor Jennifter Burn, University of Technology, Sydney
Ms Puanthong Simaplee was a Thai citizen who died in Australia’s Villawood Immigration Detention Center on 26 September 2001. Ms Simaplee’s death provoked community debate, parliamentary action and the start of a national response to the global phenomena of human trafficking and slavery. While the narrative of Ms Simaplee’s life and death polarised advocates in Australia and remain contested, I argue that her death and the national response to human trafficking were defining events in Australian political life. I will outline key developments over the last decade, highlight emerging challenges such as the debate about forced marriage and the meaning of coercion, and consider the blurring of language between slavery, forced labour and human trafficking as well as the complexity of international legal responses. I will conclude by reflecting on the abandonment of victims pointing the way to a more holistic response that truly responds to the categorisation by international law that slavery is ‘the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised’. (Slavery Convention, 1926)
Associate Professor Burn is director of Anti-Slavery Australia, at the University of Technology, Sydney. Anti-Slavery Australia is a specialist research and policy centre focussed on justice and fair treatment for people who have experienced human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices such as forced labour and forced marriage. The Centre has operated since 2003 and supports trafficked and enslaved people by research, policy development, and advocacy. The Centre includes a legal practice and provides free and professional legal advice and representation to men, women and children who have experienced these human right abuses in Australia. Jennifer is an associate professor in the faculty of law where she teaches immigration and citizenship law and a new subject, “The international law of human trafficking and slavery”.
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Event contact details
- Madonna Adcock
- 07 3735 5747