 Hello everyone. I am Ritu Bharatwaj and I'm a senior researcher with the Climate Change Group at the International Institute for Environmental Development. Here I work on the issues of climate change, loss and damage, social protection, climate resilience and child-centered adaptation action. Prior to joining IAID, I have worked with Government of India, UK Government's Department for International Development, as well as national and international NGOs. My research spans on the issues of climate change, disaster risk production, climate risk management and how climate-induced distress migration and displacement creates vulnerability for communities and the global south. In my presentation today, I will cover how the impact of climate change and environmental degradation is deepening inequality, driving migration and creating vulnerability to modern slavery and trafficking. Well, we often link the notion of slavery with colonial era, but figures show that far more people are subject to slavery today than any other time in history. Slavery practices in these modern times can take different forms and often categorized as forced labor, bonded labor, dead bondage and sex trafficking. But all of these are interrelated and in many ways overlapping. For example, a person suffering from dead bondage could also be forced into bonded labor or forced labor. Similarly, a woman suffering from dead bondage could be pushed into sex trafficking. Figures that you see on the slide clearly indicate that modern slavery disproportionately affects the most marginalized members of the society. According to the global estimate of modern slavery, 40.3 million people worldwide are living in slavery, 71% of which are women and one in every four victim are children under the age of 18. Clearly, the picture is very grim, but what is crucial to understand is that while several socioeconomic, cultural and institutional factors shape the risk to modern slavery, they are increasingly considered to be made worse by climate change impacts. Climate change and climate induced distress migration is worsening the existing vulnerabilities of slavery. Evidence indicates that the nexus between climate change, distress migration and slavery exist along at least three pathways. First is in context of sudden or extreme climatic events. For example, cyclone, floods, hurricanes, which leads to displacement of communities where they are forced to stay and survive in temporary leave camps or shelters. Very strong evidence exists indicating that human trafficking increases in the aftermath of such events. There are many evidence for this. For example, in Bangladesh, women who were left widowed by cyclone Sidra, they were targeted by traffickers and driven into prostitution and hard labor. Similarly, following the annual flooding in Assam in Northeast India, women and girls were forced into slavery and marriages to make ends meet. The second pathway indicating this nexus was shown to exist in the event of slow onset disasters like drought, desertification, sea level rise or erosion, which results in crop loss, drinking water shortage, food insecurity and so on. Now situations like these, they push community dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods to pursue dangerous or risky migration opportunities. Because they are in despair, they're left with no option for survival and livelihood. Research in the brick sector in Cambodia, also known as blood bricks, they map the intricate details of how farmers whose livelihoods have been undermined by climate change are forced into intergenerational bondage. The third pathway for this nexus was shown to exist when climate events are combined with conflict. This final pathway normally exists when forced displacement due to conflict is further precipitated by traumatic events such as drought or famine. These circumstances or pathways that I've just talked about, they can overlap or intersect. But similar dynamics were seen to drive vulnerability along all the three pathways. Firstly, climate change is worsening the poverty and inequality. And secondly, it is placing people who are already in precarious situations in position where they reach the limit of coping capacity and are exposed to trafficking. And I will illustrate this with the help of three case studies. The first case study is from Chitrakoot in India. This area is inhabited by tribal indigenous community called coal and they are traditionally being dependent on rain-fed agriculture and forest for the livelihood. This region in the recent times has also been exposed to droughts, longer dry spells, extreme heat and rainfall variation. And all of that leads to frequent forest fires and damage to their crops. Now in absence of alternate livelihood option, holes are forced to migrate and work in nearby store mines. They work there under inhuman polluting and exploitative work conditions. People working in these mines, they often come back with lung diseases which is caused by constant inhaling of dust and polluted air. Something which could have been prevented through simple protective gear. But most of these migrants, they work on informal contract and engage through middlemen, which means that they have no accidental or health cover. Women who migrate along with men, they also end up working in these stone mines. And they are sexually exploited by the mining industry contractors which are locally known as Dados. Now in many cases, men migrate leaving their women, children and elderly members behind, which also leads to another form of exploitation. Now desperate to make their ends meet and feed their family, women are often forced to take debt from the local land owner, which then lands them into vicious cycle of debt and unending physical and sexual exploitation. Second case study is from Urichar in Bangladesh. It's a river island and it has been exposed to cyclones and flooding in the past. So community here are used to dealing with these impacts. But in the recent times, because of climate change, the frequency and intensity of these cyclones have increased, resulting in more frequent floods, coastal erosion and sea level rise. Every household here has faced displacement at least three to seven times, which means that even before they are able to recover from one climate impact, they have faced with another. And that compounds their marginalization and vulnerability. And that has a more detrimental impact for women and girls. Families who see their land eroding, they rush to marry off their daughters before they are displaced and that often results in child marriages. When women are forced to displace, they lose their support network and that exposes them to gender-based violence, trafficking, sexual exploitation and sexual violence and so on. The third case study is from Lake Chad Basin, which many of you may recognize because of the conflict with Boko Haram and the ill-famous kidnapping of the school girls. But what many may not know that even before the conflict with Boko Haram started in 2009, people were forced to leave this basin because of the impacts of climate change. Droughts, longer dry spells, extreme heat have become a common phenomena in this area in the recent times because of the climate change. And combined with conflict, it has resulted in more than 5 million people being displaced both internally as well as across the border. Now these multiple internal displacements and livelihood loss have particularly acute impact on women and girls who are then exposed to the vulnerability of trafficking and modern slavery. They're forced to work in an exploitative working condition and then they face gender-based violence. Men and boys on the other hand, frustrated by livelihood loss and displacement, are often become more vulnerable to being radicalized by the ideologies and recruitment by Boko Haram. The three case studies clearly demonstrate the strong nexus that exists between climate change-induced distrust migration and the vulnerability to trafficking and slavery. Even the latest IPCC report has noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration with millions of people expected to be displaced because of shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption. Now various analysts have tried to put a number on the future floor of climate migrants and the most recent assessment by World Bank, which came out just before COP26 in late 2021, puts this number at 216 million by 2050, which is quite a huge number. But one thing to be noted here is that this number only accounts for internally displaced populations. It does not account for those who would be crossing the border because of these climate impacts, which will make these numbers grow up by several millions. And one of the most vulnerable regions to these migration flows would be sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, the Pacific and South Asia, also one of the poorest regions of the world. Now one can imagine the scale at which such displacements would expose the vulnerable community to the risk of trafficking and push people to the dark sides of these migratory flows as victims of trafficking and slavery. Now the problem with us here is one of time because of the speed at which climate change is happening and two of scale, the number of people it is going to be affecting. And we have all seen that in last one month, several thousand, in fact, million of people have crossed the border of Ukraine because of the war with Russia. But if you compare this number with the one that we are going to expect because of climate change, it is not comparable. The simplistic image of coastal household depending on subsistence farming being forced to pack their bags and they move to a safer area, it does not happen in real world. One can see migrant workers trying to cross the Mediterranean English Channel on a regular basis in precarious conditions, trying to enter Europe and many of them dying and rude. But this situation will not subside, it will only increase in the current near future. And so far, there is no home for climate migrants in the international community, both literally as well as figuratively. And that's why they land up on the dark side of these migrations. Right now, the burden of providing for climate migrants is borne by the poorest community and countries, those who are least responsible for climate impacts, and they're left to fend for themselves. And these climate induced distress migration and displacement is not just leading to slavery and trafficking. It is also hindering the development of the society and community in these developed countries, by increasing the pressure on urban infrastructure and services, by undermining the economic growth, by increasing the risk of conflict, and by leading to worse health education and social indicators. It is clear that the international community has to face up to the prospects of large scale displacement caused by climate change. Now, based on current climate change scenario, a certain amount of distress migration and displacement is already logged in. But how much of this will remain logged in or increase in future would depend on international communities effort to deal with this issue. So what can we collectively do to address it? We first need an international recognition of this problem that a nexus like this exists. So when climate change impact happens, it leads to distress migration, and that does expose people to vulnerabilities of slavery and trafficking. And that also leads to several secondary and tertiary impacts. There's a need to understand the dimensions of these impacts. And not just understand and recognize that it's also important to acknowledge them in international policy discourse, particularly within the UNF triple C framework. And there should be a willingness to provide climate finance to strengthen the right space social safety net of these vulnerable communities. Second, we need to extend financial technical and policy support to the least developed countries for them to be able to manage the risk of climate migrants. Firstly, for them to be able to take anticipatory action and move people away from marginal areas where displacement becomes inevitable. And secondly, to help them undertake in situ adaptation efforts so that people are not forced to undertake distress migration in the event of climate impacts. Thirdly, at the national level, LDCs also need to recognize this issue as a priority in both development and climate policy and integrate these priorities in their national climate resilience plans, migration response plans, as well as national development plans. While we are expecting the policymakers and countries to do their bit in dealing with this issue of modern slavery and trafficking, we at our own individual levels can play a role in addressing this issue of modern slavery by becoming conscious buyers. And I try to explain this with the help of an example. Well, we all love to eat chocolates, but next time when you go to buy a chocolate, make sure you look for this brand called Tony's Chocolate Only. This brand was launched purely to raise awareness about slavery and child labour issues across the cocoa industry. Tony is now, of course, a leading brand purely established on the word of Mark publicity and without any form of paid advertising. If you ever open the bar of Tony's chocolate, you will find that instead of regular squares, it has unequal squares and Tony's bar had been divided into unequal squares because it represents the unfair and unequal cocoa industry, where the company CEO gets paid in millions, whereas a child working at the end of supply chain is devoid of any rights or proper compensation. So next time when you go and buy a product, make sure that you buy a product, even though it's slightly higher price for something that supports the rights of workers across its supply chain. But having said that, I would also say that while companies like Tony can be credited with creating awareness among the consumers and doing some good, it is also important to understand that by doing so, it may be excluding supply chain that may not be able to afford compliance with their business norms or anti-slavery policies. And brands like Tony's chocolate only need to invest and share the burden of creating social safety nets for people working in their supply chain in least developed countries in terms of insurance, health cover, employment security. And apart from a commitment to source product from supply chain free of exploitation, companies also need to come forward with their commitment to create new supply chains in vulnerable countries and regions, particularly targeting areas that may have been recently devastated by climate or natural disasters. So yes, we can all do our bit, particularly the national governments, the private sector, as well as us at our own individual level. Thank you for listening and for your interest on this topic. The research and the evidence that I presented today is the work of IID and a number of our partners in the global South, particularly in the South Asian and the Western African region. We are shortly proposing to come out with another insightful paper on this issue and which will also cover policy toolkit and provide more dimensions of what drives vulnerability to trafficking and slavery. And if you have an interest, please be on the lookout for this paper. Thank you.