Climate Change and Child Exploitation: A Growing but Overlooked Link

Climate change and child exploitation may seem like separate global issues, but they share a dangerous overlap. As extreme weather events become more frequent and unpredictable, children in vulnerable regions face increasing risks of displacement, poverty, and exploitation. In addition to rising seas and hotter summers, the impact of climate change extends to the erosion of the safety nets that protect the most vulnerable.

What are the effects of climate change? The answers often focus on melting ice caps or droughts. Yet the human cost, especially for children, deserves equal attention. Without stronger protections, climate disasters can push families into desperation, leaving children at heightened risk of trafficking, forced labor, and abuse. Organizations like Forgotten Children Worldwide are working to prevent exploitation by providing vulnerable children with stability, education, and resources that reduce these risks. Addressing these challenges is essential for safeguarding environmental human rights and ensuring that children are protected from exploitation in a warming world.

How Climate Change Creates Vulnerability

Climate change impacts everyone, but communities already living on the edge economically are often hit the hardest. Droughts, floods, and food shortages can strip away livelihoods, forcing families to migrate to survive. Low-income areas are often the least prepared to withstand natural disasters, as buildings may not follow safety standards, infrastructure (such as roads and bridges) is weaker, and access to emergency services is limited. In such instability, children become easy targets for traffickers and exploitative labor markets.

The impact of natural disasters often includes:

• Sudden loss of homes and income
• Disruption of schooling and routine
• Increased child labor to supplement family income
• Separation from caregivers during migration

In countries with limited social safety nets, children are especially at risk. This is where climate change education becomes critical. Teaching communities how to adapt, build resilience, and strengthen local economies helps reduce vulnerability. Programs that focus on self-sufficiency in developing nations also play a key role in ensuring that families are better equipped to withstand the pressures of climate-related crises.

Exploitation in the Wake of Climate Disasters

Whenever disaster strikes, chaos follows. Cyclones, hurricanes, and wildfires displace millions, leaving children unprotected. UNICEF found that weather-related disasters caused 43.1 million internal displacements of children between 2016 and 2021 (roughly 20,000 child displacements per day).

These disasters increase the number of children exposed to exploitation and trafficking risks. For example:

• Families without homes or income may feel they have no choice but to send children to work, sometimes under abusive or unsafe conditions.
• Family separation during an environmental crisis can create moments when children vanish unnoticed, sometimes into trafficking networks.
• Overcrowded refugee camps and makeshift shelters often lack adequate security, providing traffickers with easy access to vulnerable children.

These situations highlight why human rights climate frameworks must include child protection measures. The fight against climate change should address the protection of human dignity. Investment in community-based development programs helps rebuild stronger safety nets so children are not left behind after disasters.

Gendered Dimensions of Risk

Even within the same town or region, climate change does not affect everyone equally. Girls are disproportionately affected. In many cultures, when disaster disrupts family income, girls are the first to be pulled from school to help at home or to marry early. Boys may also face exploitation, particularly in hazardous labor markets, but the gendered dimensions of risk mean girls face unique vulnerabilities tied to discrimination and cultural expectations.

Some of the specific risks include:

• Child marriage as a way for families to reduce their economic burden
• Sexual violence and abuse in displacement camps
• Loss of access to education for girls during prolonged crises

Gender discrimination is a highly complex, culturally entrenched problem that has no simple solution, but stronger education programs can help empower communities to protect children and reduce long-term risks.

Bridging the Gap: Recognizing and Addressing the Overlooked Link

Despite growing evidence, the connection between climate change and child exploitation often goes unnoticed. Policy discussions around climate tend to focus on infrastructure, emissions, and economics. Humanitarian conversations about trafficking and exploitation rarely consider climate as a driver. A report by UNICEF highlights that only a small fraction (around 2.4%) of funding from major multilateral climate funds goes toward projects that specifically address children's needs and protection. This clearly shows a blind spot in global strategy. By not acknowledging the link between climate change and child exploitation, governments and aid organizations miss opportunities to create more holistic protections.

Addressing this complex problem requires multifaceted solutions. Key strategies include:

• Strengthening Social Safety Nets: Communities should build sustainable systems that can support families during crises.
• Expanding Climate Change Education: Children and communities need to be taught how to adapt and respond to environmental crises.
• Embedding Child Protection in Disaster Planning: Emergency responses should include child-friendly spaces, reunification services, and anti-trafficking protocols.
• Supporting Holistic Development: Programs should empower communities by looking beyond basic needs to foster long-term resilience.
• Prioritizing Environmental Human Rights: Policies must recognize the intersection of climate justice and child protection.
• Vocational Training and Skills Programs: These programs can give young people opportunities to support themselves and their communities, reducing the pressure that can lead to exploitation.

Children who survive trafficking or exploitation also need strong recovery support. Healing after rescue is part of the journey, but prevention is equally critical. If the world ignores this overlap, millions of children will face increased risks as global temperatures rise.

Two Battles, One Solution

When combined, climate change and child exploitation create a hidden crisis. Natural disasters and the wider effects of climate change erode children’s security, creating opportunities for traffickers to exploit the resulting chaos. Recognizing the overlap is the first step.

To protect children in a warming world, we must embrace an approach that sees climate justice as inseparable from human rights. Investing in resilience, education, and community empowerment is essential. The fight against exploitation cannot succeed without addressing the impact of climate change, just as the fight against climate change must include child protection.

Forgotten Children Worldwide strives to empower vulnerable children in developing nations. One of the ways they do this is through child sponsorship, which provides clothing, nutrition, education, medical care, spiritual development, and mentorship to children in need. Sponsorship and other programs help prevent human trafficking in vulnerable communities while also offering support for caregivers and families of survivors. 

Another initiative of Forgotten Children Worldwide is the Kipindi Mpito program, which helps young adults achieve self-sufficiency by teaching them critical life skills, offering counseling and mentoring, promoting personal discipleship, providing trade training, and building self-confidence and empowerment.

Those interested in getting involved with Forgotten Children Worldwide can learn more, sponsor a child, or make a donation to support their critical work.