Australia imports $US17.4 billion ($26 billion) a year of products – from electronics and solar panels to clothes and seafood – that may have used forced labour, according to anti-slavery campaign group Walk Free.

But Walk Free boss Grace Forrest says that although consumers should shop carefully, the real onus for tackling the problem is not on them: it is on governments and businesses – which are not doing enough, despite the strictures of the five-year-old Modern Slavery Act.