A/HRC/42/44 Economic changes 14. Economic shifts will also impact the geography of slavery. Asia, already burdened with the highest absolute prevalence of slavery according to the Global Estimates, is undergoing an economic boom that may heighten the risk of slavery in certain economic sectors, notably construction and infrastructure development. Shifts in global consumption patterns and agricultural and commodity supply chains, responding to new sources of demand from emerging economies, may also impact the geographic distribution of slavery. There may be increasing risk in those sectors that rely on low-skill, low-pay production and are highly vertically integrated into volatile and market-responsive global supply chains, including soy, cattle, palm oil, apparel and electronics. Environmental change 15. The geography of contemporary forms of slavery will also be heavily impacted by climate and environmental change. Exposure to natural disasters is emerging as a possible risk factor for and reorganizing force in contemporary forms of slavery, and climate change will likely multiply and intensify natural disasters. In the Asia-Pacific region, already the region with the highest estimated absolute prevalence of contemporary forms of slavery and forced labour, the interlinkage between vulnerability to exploitation and climate change may become more apparent.30 16. By 2050, approximately 5 billion people may live in areas where the climate “will exceed historical bounds of variability”, 31 and 143 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America will face internal migration due to climate change, 32 which will increase vulnerability for these populations. 33 Even without natural disasters, the slowrolling impacts of climate change on primary industries are likely to lead to significant disruptions in and reorganizations of industries, livelihoods and households, testing household financial resilience, heightening underlying vulnerabilities and disrupting livelihoods and social networks.34 Competition among producers for dwindling resources may encourage behaviours that drive down labour and other costs, as we see in South-East Asian fisheries. 35 Climate change may also heighten the risk of forced marriage, with dowries viewed as a capital formation adaptation. 36 17. There is also evidence of covariance between the likelihood of contemporary forms of slavery and the likelihood of violations of environmental laws and standards, whether in the fishing industry, in forestry or in agriculture.37 Yet it is important to recognize that the 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 6 See IOM, Addressing Human Trafficking; Zack Bowersox, “Natural disasters and human trafficking: do disasters affect State anti-trafficking performance?”, International Migration, vol. 56, No. 3 (September 2017), pp. 196–122; and Anuj Gurung and Amanda Clark “The perfect storm: the impact of disaster severity on internal human trafficking”, International Area Studies Review, vol. 21, No. 4 (August 2008), pp. 302–322. Andrew Freedman, “Up to five billion face ‘entirely new climate’ by 2050”, Climate Central, 9 October 2013. K.K. Rigaud and others, Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration (Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2018). IOM, The Climate Change-Human Trafficking Nexus (Geneva, 2016). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets: Agricultural Trade, Climate Change and Food Security (Rome, 2018); and D. Boyd and others, “Modern slavery, environmental destruction and climate change: fisheries, field, forests and factories”, University of Nottingham Rights Lab and Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, 2018. Freedom Fund submission, Q4; Walk Free submission. M. Alston and others, “Are climate challenges reinforcing child and forced marriage and dowry as adaptation strategies in the context of Bangladesh?”, Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 47, Part A (November–December 2014), pp. 137–144. Rights Lab submission, p. 3; D. Boyd, “Modern slavery”; Kevin Bales, Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide and the Secret to Saving the World (New York, Random House, 2016); and J.L. Decker Sparks and others, “Slavery in the anthropocene”, Science (under review).