U.N. Warns Climate Change Increasing Human Trafficking Risks

The Yomiuri Shimbun

U.N. Warns Climate Change Increasing Human Trafficking Risks

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AFP-Jiji 7:00 JST, January 25, 2023 VIENNA (AFP-Jiji) Evidence is emerging that climate-related disasters are becoming a cause of human trafficking as criminal gangs exploit a growing number of uprooted people, the United Nations said Tuesday. The continuing war in Ukraine is also another risk factor for increased human trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report. Climate change is increasing vulnerability to trafficking, the UNODC report said. While a systematic global analysis of the impact of climate change in trafficking in persons is missing, community level studies in different parts of the world point at weather induced disasters as root causes for trafficking in persons, it said. The report is based on data from 141 countries collected from 2017 to 2020, and the analysis of 800 court cases. The impact of climate change disproportionally affected poor farming, fishing and other communities mainly relying on the extraction of natural resources for their livelihoods, the report said. Once deprived of their means of subsistence and forced to flee their community, people were becoming easy prey for traffickers, Fabrizio Sarrica, the reports main author, told a press briefing. In 2021 alone, climate-related disasters internally displaced more than 23.7 million people, while many others fled their countries altogether. As entire regions of the world are at risk of becoming increasingly uninhabitable, millions will face high risk of exploitation along migration routes, the U.N. report said. The U.N. drugs agency noted that an increase in cases of human trafficking had been observed in Bangladesh and the Philippines after devastating cyclones and typhoons displaced millions. JN ACCESS RANKING The Japan News / Weekly Edition Our weekly ePaper presents the most noteworthy recent topics in an exciting, readable fomat. Read more 2023 The Japan News - by The Yomiuri Shimbun