Human trafficking and migrant smuggling across Southeast Asia will continue to grow unless greater co-operation is forged on law enforcement in the region, the UNODC says.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has foreshadowed Australia will launch a strategy relating to human trafficking and slavery at the Bali Process on Wednesday, where she will co-chair the ministerial meeting with her Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi.
The conference, which begins on Tuesday, brings together more than 40 countries and agencies to discuss ways to combat people smuggling, trafficking and other related transnational crime.
Regional Coordinator in Trafficking in Persons and Migrant Smuggling for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Benjamin Smith, said concrete actions not just recommendations need to be implemented at the summit to foster greater collaboration with law enforcement agencies.
"One of the challenges is that in a single case of human trafficking, we are seeing a source country, a transitional country and a destination country. Without co-operation it is very difficult to prove," he told AAP ahead of the meeting.
"Both crimes are fairly low risk, high profit crimes until you start successfully prosecuting."
According to a 2013 report by the UNODC, figures suggest that each trafficked sex worker in Thailand and Cambodia generates about $US45,000 ($A59,335) in income for her trafficker per annum.
With an estimated 4025 trafficked victims in these sex industries, this makes it a $US181 million industry.
Meanwhile, last year the UNODC warned the smuggling of migrants was posing a "significant threat" to Asia, generating $US2 billion a year for criminal groups.
While migrants use smugglers to cross borders to seek a better life, the report stressed many end up being trafficked - becoming slaves on construction sites and fishing vessels.
An emergency meeting among ASEAN nations in July resolved to strengthen law enforcement in the region through intelligence sharing and the establishment of a special investigative task force.
But on the ground there hasn't been much change, Mr Smith added.
One way to rectify this, he said, was to see some sort of regional mechanism to allow law enforcement to come together and have stronger co-operation on particular cases.
"Australia works pretty well in this area. It is one of the driving forces to try and get some of this co-operation going," Mr Smith said.
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