Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the UN special rapporteur on people trafficking, said at the end of a two-week fact-finding mission in Australia that people trafficking laws introduced in 2005 were focused almost exclusively on sexual exploitation.

She said that of 14 prosecutions under the laws to date, only two were for slave labor despite indications that labor exploitation is an issue in farming, food processing, construction and other industries.

Ezeilo, a Nigerian lawyer, told reporters that the lack of slave labor prosecutions indicates “not just lack of priority,” but also “a lack of attention to that form of trafficking.”

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor was not immediately available for comment.

Australia’s first conviction for slave labor occurred in October, when Sydney restaurant owner Divje Trivedi pleaded guilty in New South Wales state District Court to exploiting an Indian man whom he brought to Australia on a business visa to work as a chef. The man was forced to live in a storeroom at the back of the restaurant for 16 months, bathe in the kitchen and work every day for 12 hours, while receiving minimal pay. Trivedi has yet to be sentenced.

A similar prosecution of a restaurant owner in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, ended in acquittal.

Ezeilo praised Australia for showing strong leadership and committing resources to combating people trafficking.

She welcomed draft slavery laws released last week that would create new offenses of forced labor and forced marriage.

Andreas Schloenhardt, coordinator of Queensland University’s Human Trafficking Working Group, which researches slavery in Australia, said the new forced labor offense would make cases of slave labor easier to prove.

Schloenhardt agreed with Ezeilo that slave labor had not been given sufficient priority, but that the government was acknowledging that through law reforms.

“Sex trafficking has always been the favor of the day, and for some time many people have said you’re really looking only at one piece of the cake,” Schloenhardt said.

The government estimates that fewer than 100 people are trafficked into Australia each year, mainly for the sex industry. But some groups say the true figure is far higher.

Ezeilo said the victims most commonly come from South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and China.

She recommended the creation of a new Australian national plan of action for tackling the problem and the appointment of a people-trafficking ambassador.