Transcriber: Petra Molnárová Reviewer: Melissa Csikszentmihályi
According to the International Labour Organization,
an estimated 40 million people were victims of modern-day slavery
in 2016 alone.
Of this, about 25 million were in labor trafficking,
which is where individuals are coerced,
deceived or forced into performing labour services, often for little to no pay.
I want to start a conversation about where and how this topic
intersects with climate change.
These are often discussed as two separate issues,
but today, I want to talk about how they are actually interlinked.
Climate change, as we all know, has been worsening
over the last century or so, primarily due to fossil fuel
driving extreme changes in climate patterns.
It is not only killing our planet, it is also contributing to the degradation
of our ethical backbone as a society.
We see the impact of our mass production,
greenhouse gases, deforestation
and other actions on the environment and on people, yet many of us still ignore
this in favour of convenience, comfort and profit.
When I was 7, the Indian Ocean tsunami hit the coasts of Aceh,
including thousands of miles of waves and displacing nearly 600,000 people.
New York Times journalist Barry Bearak, accompanied by translator Linda Bong,
travelled to the site several months after the flood
and kept in touch with the interviewees in the months that followed.
People were living out of makeshift tents over a year after the disaster
because many were renters who did not receive aid
that went to the landowners who held onto these funds,
leaving the tenants very vulnerable and with limited options.
Many who sought shelter saw a rise in violence,
including the forms of sexual violence and trafficking.
We also see, in the months that followed, efforts to recover and protect
hundreds of children who were adopted under false pretences,
and brought into trafficking activities.
Now, the tsunami in itself wasn’t a climate change incident,
so much as it was a natural disaster caused by shifting tectonic plates,
but I wanted to use this example to illustrate what happens
with many instances of extreme weather and environmental changes
that do accompany climate change.
It may be on a more gradual, perhaps even smaller scale
of the level of individual incidents,
which is why they don’t get globally known quite as much, but combined, these create
a very, very dark picture.
Millions of people
are displaced due to extreme weather conditions each year.
Further, millions find their previous livelihoods altered or lost completely.
Individuals who are marginalized, affected by extreme weather effects,
reliant on natural resources that are constantly changing
are more vulnerable to be entrapped into forms of trafficking,
such as debt bondage or child labour.
Debt bondage is where people are forced to work to pay off debt
with little to no control over their debt,
which is often arbitrarily increased, and have little to no pay.
Debt bondage is a common tactic used to control people
in trafficking cases, and is estimated to affect
around 8 million people worldwide.
Decline in fish stocks, for example, due to ecosystem damage in Thailand,
led to a jump in fisher family type of debt bondage.
Similarly, in Brazil, it is one of the most common types
of forced labour tied to heavy labour industries,
like livestock or deforestation.
In Indonesia, similarly, large part of the palm oil industry
is estimated to be reliant on debt bondage and child labour.
But on the flip side, another thing that I want to illustrate
with the 2004 tsunami, is the unprecedented humanitarian response
that followed.
Dozens of countries, hundreds of organizations and NGOs,
thousands of volunteers and donors banded together to provide support,
rebuild communities, provide medical aid, reunite families, and even recover
those who had been trafficked.
This showed that in the middle of tragedy,
change can happen when more and more people
choose to act and to care.
And we have the chance today to care about this.
This may be your first time hearing about trafficking issues
and climate change going hand in hand,
it may be your 100th time.
This conversation is a continuously evolving one,
and I encourage everyone to take three steps to interact with this world problem
and any others that you want to explore.
Learn, act, and curate your experience.
Step one, continuously learn.
Set up a regular time, book just 15 minutes on your calendar
every week, or even every two weeks to learn more about this issue.
There are research reports, news articles, podcasts, communities and organizations.
Figure out what the best way for you to absorb information is,
and what you need to know.
Step two, define what I want to call your area of influence.
These are the spaces where you know your voice can be heard
and where you can best take action.
It could be in the form of sharing informational posts from sources
like the U.N. and International Labour Organization,
it could be in the form of donating to organizations
and nonprofits that tackle these issues, or volunteering for these organizations.
It could be in the form of finding a platform
where your voice can be heard, like TEDx Countdown.
Identify these areas and take your actions just one more step further
than where you are at right now.
The third step is to make sure that you have the healthiest experience
that you can.
Do not forget to account for your own emotional, mental,
spiritual and physical well-being,
because this is a very heavy topic that is difficult to approach.
Make goals and keep track of them.
Take breaks when you need to and acknowledge your efforts.
If you are paying attention to these problems,
you are doing good work already.
I’m not an expert.
I have made mistakes throughout my journey with these steps
and I’ll continue to make more.
But I will keep on going, keep on learning, keep on actioning,
and I encourage you to do so as well.
Thank you.