Climate Change Affects More than Just our Environment

By: Mallory Miller

Image Credit: Yosh Ginsu

The effects of Climate Change will continue to be felt around the world by all people, regardless of class, nationality, race, or social status. However, as Climate Change alters historic weather patterns to cause an increase in the severity and frequency of natural disasters, vulnerable people groups are at greater risk for human trafficking. People groups living in pre-existing marginalization experience the effects of natural disasters disproportionately more than people of high socioeconomic status. Natural disasters destroy homes, weaken economies, and subject people to extremely challenging situations. However, marginalized, vulnerable, and poorer communities experience much great risk from natural disasters, including extreme poverty, lack of access to government protections, inadequate standards of living, and human trafficking. Advocates should not forget these people groups and the risk Climate Change presents them when pursuing social and legal environmental reform.

Climate Change is not the sole cause of every natural disaster, but rising global temperatures can exacerbate the conditions that lead to natural disasters, increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events like hurricanes, monsoons, droughts, floods, and fires. In an emerging scientific field, Probabilistic Event Attribution (PEA), scientists are now able to study specific natural disasters to better understand Climate Change’s role in a disaster’s specific impact. For example, scientists in this field conducted a study of the 2010 heatwave in Russia, which killed over 50,000

people, and determined that Climate Change not only influenced the probability of the heatwave happening, but also the intensity of the event itself. Overall, scientists continue to conduct new research that proves the link between increasing global temperatures and natural disasters.

Natural disasters exacerbate the social factors that can increase an individual’s risk for human trafficking. Generally, natural disasters increase an individual’s lack of awareness or risk tolerance for the potential dangers of trafficking. The desperation caused by natural disasters forces individuals to ignore potential dangers and take risks that can lead to trafficking. Furthermore, natural disasters crumble governmental and social infrastructure, leading to inadequate social safety nets, protection from law enforcement, enforcement of the law against traffickers, and border security.

Beyond these factors, human traffickers take advantage of the chaos of natural disasters to lure and steal vulnerable women and children. Personal interviews with anti-human trafficking workers on the ground of natural disasters, such as the Nepal earthquake, describe how traffickers purposefully enter disaster zones, impersonate relief workers, and lure an outstanding number of vulnerable people into a lifetime of slavery. One worker commented on this phenomenon stating, “[t]his is the time when the brokers go in the name of relief to kidnap or lure women.” Human traffickers capitalize on the lack of coordination, government infrastructure, and general communication to pose as relief workers from well-known organizations in order to lure victims and sell them as slaves. Children separated from their families due to natural disasters are especially at risk to the lure of predators. Najat Maalla M’jid, a Special Rapporteur to the United Nations reported to the United Nations Human Rights Council, "[c]hildren's vulnerability is significantly increased when they are separated from their families, unaccompanied, orphaned or displaced following humanitarian crisis." M’jid went further to say in her report that the United Nations has found, “[s]ome people exploit the chaotic environment that follows a natural disaster to engage in criminal activities, such as selling children for the purpose of illegal adoption, forced labour or sexual exploitation."

Ultimately, once trafficked, victims are subjected to infringements of internationally recognized human rights, including the right of favorable working conditions, to include fair pay, equal pay and treatment, a safe environment, and rest; rights of the child; freedom from exploitative labor; freedom from degrading treatment; right to life; and freedom from slavery and forced labor. These rights and the importance they have to the international community are crystallized in several international treaties. The international community has also demonstrated its commitment to ending human trafficking when it implemented the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women And Children. Unmitigated Climate Change will lead to increasing violations of established international human rights law. Advocates should use these treaties and internationally recognized human rights to further justify the urgent need to reform domestic and international Climate Change policies.

As natural disasters become more prevalent and severe, these risks for vulnerable people will also increase. Disaster relief organizations are already struggling to meet communities’ needs throughout disaster recovery and protect innocent people from predators like human traffickers. Environmental advocates should not forget how Climate Change will continue to impact marginalized people groups disproportionately more than people of high socioeconomic status. Every individual must do their part in mitigating Climate Change for the sake of our environment, but also in order to protect vulnerable people groups from a life of slavery.