Human Trafficking in Myanmar

Myanmar is one of the most disaster-prone countries in Asia. It ranks third out of 187 countries in the Global Climate Risk Index and is prone to a range of natural hazards including cyclones, storms, floods, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, drought and forest fires. Since 2002, more than 13 million people have been affected by natural disasters, including three Category 4 cyclones, several major earthquakes, and severe flooding (UNOCHA 2018).

The need to work with women and girls during disaster risk reduction and preparedness emerged as crucial in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis of 2008, which claimed several thousand lives across Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy Delta. Assessments conducted after Nargis revealed disproportionate impacts according to people’s gender and age - around 61% of those killed during the cyclone were women (ODI & UNDP 2017). Further there was an increase in the number of women engaging in survival sex work after Nargis as a result of limited livelihood opportunities. Women and girls who did so faced various human rights violations ranging from rape, emotional abuse, increase in domestic violence and human trafficking (ODI & UNDP 2017).

Existing data and research shows that climate change has differentiated impacts on women and men, with women being especially vulnerable, owing to existing gender inequalities caused by unequal power relations and structures in the public and private sectors, discriminatory laws and customs, and unequal access to and control of resources (UNFCCC 2019). In Myanmar these inequalities are especially pronounced due to the country’s political, legal, institutional and cultural context, and a history of protracted civil conflict, where violence against women is pervasive and women’s civil liberties are highly curtailed (True 2012). Despite this, women in rural Myanmar play an essential role in economic activities, participating actively in agriculture operations and selling fish and seafood products in local markets. They also support households with supplemental income sources when fishing and agricultural income is low, by producing and selling food and clothing (Akter 2017, Myanmar Climate Change Alliance 2016).

The economic activities performed by women are already playing an essential role in adaptation of livelihoods when fisheries and agriculture are affected by climate change (Sultana 2014). It is becoming a wide-known fact that women are often at the frontline of coping and adapting to climate and other critical drivers of change, as they often possess critical knowledge and skills that are critical for sustaining the environment (UNEP 2011). A recent study on Cambodia revealed that Khmer women possess localised knowledge about their environment and the impact of disasters and climate change, and communities rely on this everyday knowledge of the natural environment for survival (Tanyag & True 2019). Despite this, women continue to be excluded and under-represented in decision-making institutions and policy processes regarding climate change.

At the same time, climate change is predicted to become the largest driver of population dis-placement, both inside and across national borders (Gerrard 2016). Increasingly, environmental factors including natural hazards such as floods and droughts have been identified as a driver of migration in Southeast Asia, and in many cases indirectly through the effect of such disasters on livelihoods (The Nansen Initiative 2014). The impact of climate change, coupled with Myanmar’s growing urbanisation, has motivated an increase in migration from rural to urban settings (World Bank 2016). As men migrate to urban sites in search of more lucrative economic prospects, women’s care-giving and domestic labour responsibilities expand including being thrust into a position of heading households and protecting community resources (Asian Development Bank 2012). The rural-urban migration of men has meant that the remaining population has a higher proportion of women in the labour force and as household heads, which should be taken into account during adaptation planning. It is important to note that the impact of climate change on the left-behind populations will be influenced not just by the nature and severity of the impact but also by the ability of those populations to bring resources to bear to adapt to that change (ADB 2012). Further, environmental disasters can increase women’s exposure to the risk of human trafficking, and the vulnerability of women and girls to exploitation, illegal trafficking, and other forms of gender-based violence is often greater in the aftermath of such disasters, as was observed in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis (Nellemann, Verma, & Hislop 2011).

In studying a society’s adaptive capacity, resilience and participation in climate action, it is important to consider the roles and responsibilities of women and men through gender lens. Gender analysis should involve the analysis of power relations between men and women and the discursive and cultural constructions of hegemonic masculinities and femininities that shape the way we interpret, debate, articulate and respond to climate change (MacGregor 2010). In addition, since women and men are affected by climate change differently due to their different socially defined and constructed roles and responsibilities, understanding the vulnerabilities of women and girls to climate change and natural disasters and empowering them should be a core component of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, as they are often disproportionately affected by natural disasters (Pearse, 2016, True 2012). Further, as mentioned earlier, women are often exposed to secondary impacts such as sexual and gender-based violence and trafficking in persons. In this regard, it is critical that women be empowered to take leading roles in designing and implementing climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction activities at all levels.