A Melbourne brothel owner who ''bought'' Thai sex workers has had convictions for possessing and using slaves reinstated after a landmark High Court decision yesterday.
Sex workers' advocates welcomed the decision, and hoped it would result in the prosecution and conviction of more sex traffickers.
The director of Project Respect, an Australian non-government organisation that fights the exploitation of and violence against women in the sex industry, Kathleen Maltzahn, said the decision was vindication for the victims.
''It has recognised that the way these women were treated is a modern form of slavery: it's not commerce, it's a serious crime,'' Ms Maltzahn said.
The court held by a 6-1 majority that Wei Tang, 46, intentionally possessed and used slaves when she paid $20,000 each for four Thai women who had entered Australia on tourist visas, and then bound them to work in her brothel to pay off a $45,000 debt.
Also, Tang's exploitation of a fifth Thai prostitute who was ''owned'' by someone else amounted to intentionally using a slave, even though the victim was paying off a debt to someone else.
The court held that the prosecution did not have to prove Tang knew her treatment of the five women amounted to slavery. It sufficed that she exercised powers consistent with a sense of owning them.''In particular, a capacity to deal with a complainant as a commodity, an object of sale and purchase, may be a powerful indication that a case falls on one side of the line [between employment and slavery],'' Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said.
''The evidence could be understood as showing that they had been bought and paid for, and that their commodification explained the conditions of control and exploitation under which they were living and working.'' The decision yesterday overturned a Victorian Court of Appeal order for a retrial. The appeal court had set aside a jury's guilty verdicts on the grounds the trial judge had failed to address the jury on whether Tang intentionally exercised a power of ownership to enslave the victim.
The court unanimously rejected a cross-appeal by Tang that sought to have the retrial order set aside in lieu of an acquittal on all charges, on the ground there had not been enough evidence for the jury to convict her.
The matter will return to the Victorian Court of Appeal, which will hear Tang's appeal against the severity of her sentence. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had appealed against the retrial order to the High Court. In June 2006, Tang became the first person in Australia to be convicted by a jury of possessing and using a slave since the federal anti-slavery laws were introduced in 1999.
Tang's case came to light after her Fitzroy brothel, Club 417, was raided in 2003.
After a hung jury in her first trial, a second jury convicted Tang of 10 charges and sentenced her to 10 years' jail, with a minimum term of six years.
The women were recruited in Thailand for $20,000 each, which Tang or two co-offenders paid to the recruiter. Each of the five women entered an agreement whereby she incurred a debt of $40,000 to $45,000, which she was required to pay by having sex with men six days a week at the rate of $50 a client.
Justice Michael Kirby said he would not have allowed the appeal, as he agreed with the Victorian court's decision. The prosecution had to prove intent.
''We do not advance the correct application in Australia of a contemporary statutory provision to tackle modern issues of 'slavery' and trafficking in 'sexual slaves' by distorting the essential ingredients of serious criminal offences as provided by the Parliament,'' Justice Kirby said.
After Tang's case, the Commonwealth slavery laws were changed in 2004 to recognise debt bondage. Yesterday's decision will have implications for other slavery prosecutions and appeals awaiting the outcome of Tang's case.
Scarlett Alliance president Elena Jeffreys, whose organisation represents Australian sex workers, said she welcomed the decision's clarification of sex slavery, but prosecution was just part of the problem.
''Trafficking prevention needs more attention in Australia and the rights of all migrant sex workers must be met so that slavery conditions don't arise,'' she said.