Sara Passmore
The New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH) is a registered charity and Incorporated Society that exists to serve the interests of the non-religious; those who do not believe in gods or the supernatural.
We are pleased to see New Zealand taking action to address modern slavery. We see this Bill as a strong start, but its definition of modern slavery must be aligned with international human rights standards.
Excluding forced and child marriage creates a blind spot that leaves women and girls unprotected. A humanist perspective insists that coercion, control, and slavery is must be addressed in good policy, whether these harms occur in a factory, on a farm, or within a family.
New Zealand should not allow cultural, religious, or organisational authority to mask practices that fundamentally violate autonomy.
As such, we believe the definition in the Bill is too narrow, and risks excluding real forms of coercion occurring in Aotearoa and within our supply chains. Any definition of modern slavery must explicitly include forced and child marriage to protect women and girls.
These marriages often occur in contexts where:
- Education is restricted
- Economic independence is discouraged
- Religious or ideological authority is used to enforce compliance
Forced and child marriage is a systemic form of gender inequality, not a cultural nuance. It is a human rights violation.
To that end, the Bill should explicitly recognise forced and child marriage as modern slavery to ensure these harms are neither overlooked nor minimised.
The Bill currently focuses on labour exploitation but does not fully reflect the range of coercive practices recognised internationally as modern slavery – recognised as forms of modern slavery by the UN, the International Labour Organisation, and global human rights bodies.
New Zealand has its own history of high‑control groups where coercive practices have occurred. The Bill should reflect this reality, and seek to address the exploitative practices that occur here, not only overseas.
Gloriavale is not an outlier from a distant past — it is a contemporary example of coercive, exploitative labour practices occurring within our borders. The Bill must be designed with the reality of Gloriavale‑type situations in mind, not an abstract or purely international model of modern slavery. These sorts of groups operate as high‑control organisations with significant commercial enterprises. They rely on unpaid or underpaid labour, including children, and use religious authority and social isolation to enforce compliance.
We advocate for a dedicated Anti‑Slavery Commissioner and stronger enforcement powers to prevent similar situations from developing in the future.
Mark Honeychurch
As Sara has already stated, at the NZARH we’re very happy to see this piece of legislation progressing, and we think that the bill is a positive step. But it’s obviously not perfect, and I guess that’s why we’re here giving feedback.
One of the concerns we mentioned briefly in our submission is that this bill contains an obvious double-standard. Clause 8 and clause 10 exempt government agencies from any kind of financial penalty for failing to produce reports.
Now, from what I understand the reasoning here is based on the idea of Crown Immunity, that it makes no sense for the government to fine itself.
But we were surprised to see that there were no alternatives to financial penalties included in the bill that cover government agencies.
It would be great to see additions made to clauses 8 and 10 that would cover only government agencies, and which would put in place alternative checks and balances to ensure that this important piece of legislation doesn’t end up being ignored or deprioritised within government.
In our submission we talked about the importance of having a Regulator, or Commissioner, to enforce compliance with this law when it comes to private companies. It might be that one of the additional responsibilities of this regulator could be to monitor and publicly report on government agencies’ compliance, even if they’re not able to enact fines on the government.
Alternatively, maybe the Ombudsman could be given the job of policing this important piece of legislation – both acting on concerns and complaints from members of the public, and also proactively investigating government agencies.
However it’s accomplished, the NZARH think that it’s important to make sure that there’s some kind of motivation for government agencies to do the right thing. It’s a bad look when the government exempts itself from legislation without even trying to make things right. The government should be squeaky clean, and in cases like this bill it would do well to hold itself to at least as high a standard as it holds everyone else.
It would only take a couple of small changes to the bill to make this happen – you just need to add an alternative to financial penalties to the end of clauses 8 and 10 that would relate just to government agencies.