A/HRC/38/21 the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the more than 500 million children living in areas with high flood occurrence and 160 million in high drought zones are exceptionally vulnerable.21 14. Vulnerability implies less adaptive capacity and can be both “situational” and “personal”.22 It can result from multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, inequality and structural and societal dynamics that lead to diminished and unequal levels of power and enjoyment of rights. 23 The negative impacts of climate change can reduce adaptive capacity and affect a person’s ability to move, the freedom with which they choose to do so, and their vulnerability before, during and after migration. Vulnerability may occur throughout migration and regardless of whether or not movement was “voluntary”. It can be enhanced by restrictive migration and border control policies. 15. Although climate change poses unique threats, the risks faced by persons moving because of climate change are similar to those faced by all migrants in vulnerable situations who are unable to have access to safe, affordable and regular migration pathways. They may experience difficulty in exercising their rights throughout the entire migration process and be denied entry through punitive border control regimes. Migration can expose migrants to difficult working conditions and subject them to exploitation, marginalization and human rights violations, in particular if they are in irregular situations. Importantly, some of those most affected by climate change may also be trapped in place and unable to access migration pathways at all.24 16. In general, climate change-related cross-border migrants are likely to experience difficulty in gaining access to basic necessities, such as food, water, adequate health care and housing. Other factors — such as reduced access to health-care facilities, goods and services, loss of social safety networks, threats to the economic and social determinants of health, increased exposure to disease vectors and stigmatization and discrimination — also have a negative impact on the physical and mental health of persons moving in response to climate change. 17. Persons moving in response to climate change can be made more vulnerable through increasing barriers to international migration, including its criminalization, migration policies based on deterrence, border restrictions, restrictions on migrants’ access to labour markets and a lack of safe, accessible and regular migration pathways for work, education, family unity and humanitarian needs. 18. When persons adversely affected by climate change cross international borders in an irregular manner, they may face expulsion, xenophobia, discrimination, social exclusion and/or persecution, including heightened threats of arbitrary detention, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, violent attack, rape and torture. 25 19. The human rights risks posed by human mobility can be particularly severe for those disproportionately affected by climate change. For example, the displacement of indigenous peoples and the potential loss of their traditional lands, territories and resources threaten their cultural survival, traditional livelihoods and right to self-determination. Displacement, even as an adaptation strategy or in the context of planned relocation, can prove an existential threat to the enjoyment of their rights and their existence as peoples. 21 22 23 24 25 6 www.internal-displacement.org/assets/library/Media/201507-globalEstimates-2015/20150713-globalestimates-2015-en-v1.pdf. See UNICEF, Unless we act now: The impact of climate change on children (New York, 2015). Available at www.unicef.org/publications/files/ Unless_we_act_now_The_impact_of_climate_change_on_children.pdf. See A/HRC/37/34, paras. 13–15. See also UNHCR, “Migrants in vulnerable situations” (2017), available at www.refworld.org/pdfid/596787174.pdf. See A/HRC/37/34, para. 13. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) refers to such situations as “forced immobility”. See also D. Ionesco, D. Mokhnacheva and F. Gemenne, The Atlas of Environmental Migration (Routledge, 2017), p. 2. See A/HRC/37/35, para. 7.