“Knowingly profiting” from forced labour? Australia's failure to ban imports, the harms of state-corporate benevolence, and the role of academic activism

• In Event: Regulating harm: States, corporations, and the social harms resulting from the failures of law and regulation

Abstract

In Australia, corporations profit from the sale of goods produced through forced labour, while the government enables this exploitation with impunity. An investigation by The Guardian in 2025 found Australian companies filed thousands of import declarations for products allegedly linked to Uyghur forced labour—sourced from suppliers blacklisted by the United States (US). While the US, Canada, Mexico, and the European Union have enacted legislation to ban the import of goods knowingly produced through forced labour, Australia has failed to implement similar laws, despite three attempts.

These injustices are not merely overlooked; they are state-sanctioned and state-driven. Governments not only neglect to address forced labour within corporate supply chains — where it predominantly occurs — but also actively facilitate its continuation. More broadly, they create the very conditions that allow such exploitation to persist. We argue that modern slavery is sustained through a framework of state-corporate benevolence. This concept suggests that while Western states and corporations present themselves as moral and leaders in the fight against modern slavery, their actions often normalise and intensify the very abuses they claim to oppose. Indeed, this façade of “acting in the name of humanity” (Fassin 2012) is instrumental in preserving the colonial-capitalist order, reframing state-corporate harms as beyond the realm of criminality.

Using the case of the Australian-based company Ansell Limited and its alleged complicity in profiting from forced labour in Southeast Asia, this presentation critically examines the entanglement of states and corporations in modern slavery. It situates these practices within a broader landscape of state-corporate crime and harm, deeply entrenched in colonialism and capitalism, with particular attention to the state’s role in perpetuating and legitimising these abuses.

Authors

• Marinella Marmo, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

• Rhiannon Bandiera, Maynooth University, Ireland