Bangladesh is projected to have nearly twenty million internal climate migrants by 2050, yet migration is often assumed to function as adaptation, obscuring the risks households face after relocation. This study examines how climate-related shocks shape migration trajectories and how vulnerability evolves after arrival, focusing on how overlapping economic, social, political, and legal insecurities heighten exposure to modern slavery and human trafficking. Using a sequential mixed-methods design across three sites, Korail in Dhaka, Railway Colony in Khulna, and a Gucchogram settlement in Sirajganj, the study combines a household survey of 152 migrant households with in-depth qualitative inquiry, including 70 interviews, 22 key informant interviews, and Photovoice, interpreted through the Palermo Protocol act-means-purpose framework and the ILO forced labor indicators. Findings show that climate-induced mobility rarely functions as a clean reset; households carry forward disaster-driven losses into destination settlements, where insecure housing, weak services, social isolation, and politicized informal governance accumulate into a confluence of vulnerabilities. Nearly three in ten respondents reported a household member forced, coerced, or deceived into work, and almost one in five reported a personal or household trafficking experience. Dependence on intermediaries such as sardars, dalals, and thikadars could escalate from mediated job placement or wage advances into deception, wage withholding, debt bondage, restricted mobility, and violence. The study argues that climate change functions as a risk multiplier intensifying existing inequalities, and calls for integrated responses that improve tenure security, extend social protection, regulate labor intermediaries, and strengthen accountable protection mechanisms alongside anti-trafficking efforts.
Authors: Rasid, Tasin; Islam, Riana; Shatil, Tanvir; and Nahar, Papreen
Type: Working Paper
Publisher: BIGD
Year: 2025
