Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Smuggling vs Trafficking

I was just reading the ABC news about the charges laid against a Victorian father and son over their plans to assist 68 Afghans to illegally come to Australia. This comes after Indonesian boat captains were also charged earlier in the year. This made me think of two things - firstly what is the actual offence and is it different to trafficking? The answers are:

Section 232A of the Migration Act:

(1) A person who:

(a) organises or facilitates the bringing or coming to Australia, or the entry or proposed entry
into Australia, of a group of 5 or more people to whom subsection 42(1) applies; and
(b) does so reckless as to whether the people had, or have, a lawful right to come to Australia;

is guilty of an offence punishable, on conviction, by imprisonment for 20 years or 2,000 penalty units, or both.


I found the answer to the second question on the website of the Australian Federal Police:

Although the terms 'people smuggling' and 'people trafficking' are often used interchangeably, they are different. People smugglers are paid by those who wish to enter a country illegally. The people wishing to migrate are involved voluntarily. People traffickers, on the other hand, use coercion and/or deception, to force people to illegally enter a country. Once the illegal immigrants are in place, people traffickers often continue to exploit them.

Australia's tough stance on these matters is totally appropriate in my view.

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