Following reports of arranged marriages that recently involved a young Australian girl, the federal government said on Wednesday that it plans to put a stop to the practice it calls as tantamount to sex slavery.

Minister for the Status of Women Kate Ellis said the government intends to introduce a new bill that would outlaw forced marriages and forced labour, and penalise too individuals found guilty of facilitating human trafficking.

The plan came about as reports of the 16-year-old girl who was scheduled to depart for Lebanon for marriage with a man she hardly knows, with the expressed approval of her parents, circulated in September.

Fortunately, Australian authorities thwarted the arrangements and on the strength of a court order issued by Federal Magistrates Court Magistrate Joe Harman, the young girl's parents were refrained from executing any plans that would send her out of Australia.

Mr Harman's ruling, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), also noted that cases like this had become alarmingly prevalent in the country that government intervention must be instituted immediately.

Ms Ellis, however, admitted that no Australian laws currently exist to effectively prosecute offences attached to arranged marriages and other subtle forms of sex slavery.

Yet once the proposed bill becomes law, Home Affairs and Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor said that victims of such 'crimes' would be able to seek protection from the state, especially persons smuggled into the country for deployment into forced prostitution.

"It is vital that Australia has the most robust and effective framework possible to respond to slavery and people trafficking, and I am confident that this proposed legislation will achieve that," Mr O'Connor was reported by AFP as saying in pushing for the new legislation.

Also, the new legal framework would hopefully reduce incidents of forced marriages that, in effect, are effective cloaks for sexual slavery, according to Ms Ellis.

To begin with, "every person has a right to choose whether to marry and who to marry," the minister added.

"And these offences will reinforce that a marriage must be entered into with the full and free consent of both parties, and that forcing someone into marriage is an abuse of human rights," Ms Ellis pointed out to AFP.