The Global Slavery Index 2023

Spotlights 4 

The Costs of the Climate Crisis (Part 4)

Compounding vulnerabilities 

​Who is most vulnerable to these impacts? 
The impacts of climate change, particularly on decisions to migrate and on heightened risks of modern slavery, are not felt equally. They hit much harder on people who already experience limited access to resources, representation, and participation in society, both in terms of the immediate impacts from climate-induced weather events and ongoing risks associated with migration and exposure to severe exploitation. 
 
Further research conducted by IIED in two states in India suggests that lower caste households, such those of India’s Dalits, who are significantly discriminated against, are three times more likely to migrate than higher caste households. When inequalities, discrimination, and marginalisation exist, resilience to external shocks generated by the impact of climate change is low, precariousness increases, and so does vulnerability to modern slavery. Lack of inclusive access to support mechanisms often means that specific characteristics – such as a person’s gender, age, or disability – creates further barriers to accessing support. This can increase vulnerability to severe exploitation. 
 
When the negative impacts of climate change are combined with immobility, vulnerability to modern slavery can also be amplified as local resources and networks are eroded. Immobility can arise from lack of options to move elsewhere (such as due to lack of means) or from an unwillingness to migrate. Immobility is also found among already displaced people (who lack safe return options to their country of origin or access to resources) and in communities that hold a strong link with their ancestral lands. 
 
What other factors can play a role? 
Separately, other structural factors, such as conflict, persecution, or political instability, can combine with climate change and other drivers to push people to migrate in situations of precariousness and make them more vulnerable to modern slavery.
 
The negative impacts of climate change can also be among the factors fuelling tensions between local populations, as basic resources become scarce and the arrival of new groups puts pressure on existing infrastructure. This can create competition over resources and in turn increase social tension and conflict, resulting in heightened modern slavery risks. In Somalia, extreme weather disrupts access to water and increases food insecurity. Simultaneously, internally displaced people seek refuge from conflict and droughts by fleeing to Mogadishu, thereby increasing the strain on host communities. These factors have contributed to escalating tensions between clans and are among those which can lead to the proliferation of illegal armed groups, which in turn drive further displacement and migration while recruiting people affected by famine and food insecurity. Extreme weather and climate-related resource scarcity are among the factors that have contributed to recruitment into non-state armed groups such as al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and Islamic State, which have been linked to modern slavery, including forced marriage and the recruitment and use of children.
 
Climate change can also exacerbate vulnerability in displaced settings. In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, flooding and landslides during monsoon season destroyed thousands of shelters occupied by Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar, further increasing humanitarian needs in the camps. For a group already vulnerable to exploitation, the impact of climate events is significant, with further spikes in exploitation linked to increasing scarcity of resources and precarious living conditions. 
 
More widely, where conflict has weakened institutions or aggravated drivers such as economic and food insecurity, communities and governments may also find themselves struggling to cope with the adverse effects of climate change and unable to adequately support individuals at greater risk of modern slavery.
 
Exploitation’s circular economy 
In a separate, but related, issue to climate-induced migration, it is well-known that modern slavery is pervasive in some of the world’s most environmentally- and climate-damaging industries. The charcoal, cattle, and palm oil industries are associated with forced labour, where workers in debt bondage are forced to clear forests; the illegality of this deforestation means that workers are unable to report such exploitative practices. Moves to replace fossil fuels with biofuels, such as palm oil, have had unintended environmental and social impacts. In Indonesia and Malaysia — the world’s leading producers of palm oil — increased production has led to deforestation and loss of biodiversity and has been linked to forced labour.
 
Conversely, those industries most necessary for our urgent transition to clean energy are also sadly currently reliant on exploitation and forced labour. For example, risks have been identified throughout the solar energy value chain, from evidence of forced and child labour in cobalt artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the production of polysilicon in the Uyghur region of China, which evidence shows is reliant on systemic state-imposed forced labour of the Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim-majority groups. The need to include just transition measures, such as ensuring decent work for all in the transition to a low-carbon economy, has been enshrined in international treaties on climate change such as the Paris Agreement but has yet to be fully realised. With global temperatures almost inevitably set to continue rising, government and business action to address both climate change and modern slavery — and its intersections with conflict, displacement, gender, and industry supply chains — are critical. 
 
Walk Free 2023. Global Slavery Index 2023. Minderoo Foundation Ltd. Australia.