Australia is not doing enough to protect women and children from modern forms of slavery, a parliamentary committee has been told.
Human rights and women's safety advocates have given evidence to the parliamentary inquiry into violations experienced by women and children and measures to combat it.
Representatives from Anti-Slavery Australia (ASA) told the committee there was a strong intersection between forms of modern slavery and domestic and family violence.
But frontline anti-violence organisations lack information about how to identify situations that could amount to modern slavery.
"(Frontline workers) feel they're not adequately informed about the indicators of all forms of modern slavery and they don't know about the referral pathways," ASA director Jennifer Burn told the committee on Wednesday.
ASA lawyer Isobel McGarity said there needed to be greater recognition of modern slavery as a form of complex family and domestic violence, something that was currently not appreciated by Australian courts.
Professor Burn said there was a gap in research on the prevalence of sex trafficking into Australia and how different types of visas may affect the ability to track it.
"Australia has systems of electronic visas that facilitate easy travel between Australia and other countries and, in some cases, these kinds of schemes can be undermined," she said.
"Fundamentally, there is a lack of good research information about the prevalence of exploitation ... we're not doing enough to prevent trafficking and slavery and to protect those who are caught up in it."
The organisation pointed to a lack of co-ordination between states and at a national level to protect women and children at risk of exploitation.
The committee is examining the adequacy of support services and legal services available to affected women and children in Australia and will make recommendations to the government for potential areas of reform.
