Analysis Of Down To Earth Magazine: "Climate Change & Human Trafficking"

Table of Contents

Analysis Of Down To Earth Magazine: ”Climate Change & Human Trafficking”

”GS 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation”

International Organization for Migration, found that more people are now displaced due to climate-induced disasters than due to conflicts, reversing a historical trend.
Disasters and poverty fuel human trafficking.
An increase in extreme weather events makes millions more vulnerable to this trap.

Disasters lead to a breakdown of social institutions, making food securing and humanitarian supplies ‘difficult’.
This leaves women and children ‘vulnerable to kidnapping, sexual exploitation and trafficking.
The UN Environment Programme estimates that globally, human trafficking rises by 20-30 per cent during a disaster.
Under the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, human trafficking has been identified as a development challenge that should be eradicated by 2030.

Total internal displacement due to disasters, conflicts and violence increased from 31.5 million in 2019 to 40.5 million in 2020, despite containment measures to curb the covid-19 pandemic.
But some 30.7 million displacements in 2020 were triggered by disasters in 145 countries and territories.
While storms accounted for 14.6 million displacements and floods for 14.1 million, extreme temperatures displaced 46,000 people and droughts 32,000 people.
India reported nearly 4 million new displacements due to climate-induced disasters in 2020.

While coastal states of India are seeing a rapid increase in floods and cyclones brought on by the impacts of climate change, interior regions see slower effects such as droughts.
As a whole, the country is at severe risk to climate change. Even Maharashtra, which is marked least at risk, has a high score of 0.42 out of 1.
The growing threat of climate change impacts also increases the instances of displacement and migration, making people more vulnerable to trafficking.

South 24 Parganas district, which comprises the Sundarbans, is frequently affected by cyclones.
Some 37.2 per cent of the people live below the poverty line.
In the aftermath of a disaster, traffickers target those who have lost their houses and livelihoods.

Surrounded by Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh and West Champaran in Bihar, which are prone to floods.
The Rapti and Rohini rivers flood annually during monsoon, making rural residents vulnerable to displacement and trafficking.

Sitamarhi sees floods on the Bagmati river after the monsoon every year, which impacts livelihood.
Gaya district is drought-prone due to rocky terrain.
People go to Uttar Pradesh and central India to work in brick kilns, leaving their children as targets for traffickers.

It is a severely drought-prone region whose major crops—sugarcane and cotton—increase water scarcity.
Poverty-ridden Beed, Osmanabad, Latur and Parbhani districts are major source points from where young girls are trafficked when parents migrate in search of work.