Australia is a destination country for human trafficking. Australian authorities believe that traffickers are primarily of individual operators or small crime groups that often rely on larger organized crime groups to procure fraudulent documentation.1

Destination
Australia is a destination country for victims trafficked who are from East Asia, South East Asia, and Eastern Europe, particularly the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, and Thailand. There are several reports of migrants, particularly from India, the People’s Republic of China, and South Korea, who voluntarily migrate to work in Australia but are later coerced into exploitative conditions.2 The Australian Crime Commission reports that deceptive practices in contract terms and conditions appeared to be increasing among women in prostitution, while deceptive recruiting practices appeared to be decreasing.3 There are no reliable estimates on the number of trafficking victims in Australia. However, the Australian NGO Project Respect estimates up to 1,000 victims are currently under debt bondage, not including those who have been trafficked but already paid off their debt.4

Causes
There are many causes of human trafficking to Australia. Project Respect argues that the demand for trafficked women in Australia is fueled by: 1) a lack of women in Australia prepared to do prostitution; 2) 'customer' demand for women seen as compliant; 3) 'customer' demand for women who they can be violent towards; and 4) racialized ideas that Asian women have certain qualities, for example that they are more compliant and will accept higher levels of violence.5

The Australian Government
The Australian Government was placed in Tier 1 in the 2007 U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report for fully complying with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.