Nearly 36m people used as slaves, says report

scrutiny by rights groups over its treatment of migrant workers, most from Asia, who come to toil on construction sites, oil projects or work as domestic help.

The next highest prevalence rates were found in India, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Syria and Central African Republic.

For the first time, the index rated governments on their response to slavery. It found the Netherlands, followed by Sweden, the United States, Australia, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, Britain, Georgia and Austri,a had the strongest response.

At the opposite end of the scale, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Republic of Congo and Iraq had the worst responses.

Every country apart from North Korea has laws that criminalise some form of slavery, yet most governments could do more to assist victims and root out slavery from supply chains, Walk Free Foundation’s head of global research Fiona David said from Canberra.

‘‘What the results show is that a lot is being done on paper but it’s not necessarily translating into results,’’ David said.

‘‘Most countries got 50 per cent or less when we looked at the strength of their victim assistance regime. It’s also striking that ... out of 167 countries we could only find three (Australia, Brazil and the US) where governments have put things in place on supply chains.’’

The report showed that conflict had a direct impact on the prevalence of slavery, she said, citing the example of the Islamic State militant group which has abducted women and girls in Iraq and Syria for use as sex slaves.

‘‘What our numbers show is the correlation really is quite strong so as an international community, we need to make planning for this kind of problem part of the humanitarian response to crisis situations,’’ David said.