Episode 22: From Climate Crisis to Human Exploitation - Research Results from Antigua and Barbuda

Climate change is often framed as an environmental or economic crisis. But there is a dimension that rarely makes it into the conversation: how environmental disruption can push people into situations of trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation.In the latest episode of Conversations on Modern Slavery, our team explores that connection through the lens of Antigua and Barbuda, a small island developing state that sits on the front lines of climate change and its consequences.We are joined by Marver Woodley, Senior Operations and Policy Manager in Antigua and Barbuda's Department of Blue Economy, bringing local knowledge and lived reality to a global conversation, Dr. Bethany Jackson (University of Nottingham), whose research maps climate hazards to exploitation risk across regions, and Dr. Marta Furlan, Senior Program Manager for Research at Free the Slaves who conducted the research. Our research identified six interconnected pathways through which climate change deepens vulnerability: loss of livelihood, health impacts, housing insecurity, forced mobility, disrupted education, and food and water insecurity. These do not operate in isolation. They create a cycle of vulnerability, and that cycle demands a people-centered response.Read the research here: https://freetheslaves.net/climate-change-and-human-exploitation-in-antigua-and-barbuda/