Our Sentencing Manual Case Summaries have been updated with two significant modern slavery cases: one involving forced marriage and the other forced labour.
- DPP (Cth) v Jan [2024] VCC 1122: A landmark case where the offender was sentenced to 36 months' imprisonment, with 12 months to be served before release on a Recognizance Release Order (RRO), for orchestrating her 20-year-old daughter's forced marriage. This marks Australia’s first successful conviction for forced marriage, highlighting the serious nature of modern slavery.
- DPP (Cth) v Farshchi [2024] VCC 24: The offender was sentenced to 42 months' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 18 months, for exploiting an Iranian refugee through forced labour. The case involved a business owner who subjected the victim to long hours, underpayment, and threats of deportation, keeping him in forced labour for nearly 20 months.
For further details on these cases, including comprehensive information on the offending and the offender, details of the specific offences, and sentencing outcomes, refer to the updated Sentencing Manual Case Summaries.
For additional guidance on modern slavery issues in Australian courts, refer to our Modern Slavery: Guidance for Australian Courts resource, which provides tools and information to assist judicial officers in handling such cases.