Blood Bricks: Examining the Climate Change-Modern Slavery Nexus in the Cambodian Construction Industry

“气候变化和奴隶制：完美风暴？”--这是《卫报》(2013)颇具先见之明的标题，呼吁国际社会就这些对环境和人类安全的紧迫威胁之间的联系展开更多对话。这项研究通过审查气候变化、结构性不平等的不同轴心(例如性别、年龄)和易被贩卖为现代奴隶制之间的相互联系，提出了这一呼吁。该项目提出的问题是，谁最容易成为气候变化的“接受者”，谁最有可能成为现代奴隶，谁在以其他方式适应气候变化方面的能力和资源比其他国家更少？这项研究是在柬埔寨进行的，柬埔寨是2014年世界上第二个最易受气候影响的国家。这种状况不仅源于其面临的以洪水和干旱为形式的高度气候风险，而且还源于缺乏适应和应对的能力。80%的人口生活在知识、基础设施和机会有限的农村地区；70%以上的人口依赖对气候变化高度敏感的农业(开发计划署，2014年)。2016年，柬埔寨的现代奴隶人均比例也位居世界第三。在这些令人信服的情况下，该项目将重点放在柬埔寨的建筑业上，以此作为一种手段，研究气候变化如何促进贩运到现代奴隶制和其中持续的生计。英国和柬埔寨学者将进行具有挑战性的研究，旨在结合对建筑业线人和在砖窑和建筑工地工作的现代奴隶制受害者的定性访谈；农业生态概况、定量家庭调查和砖窑发送者村庄的访谈；以及对纵向二级数据的分析(柬埔寨社会经济研究2014年)。这一发现将提高人们对环境破坏和现代奴隶制这一“致命舞蹈”的理解。

'Climate change and slavery: the perfect storm?' - this was the prescient headline of The Guardian (2013) which called for more international conversation on the links between these urgent threats to environmental and human security. This study forwards this call by examining the inter-linkages between climate change, different axes of structural inequality (e.g. gender, age), and vulnerability to trafficking into modern slavery. The project asks who is most at the 'receiving end' of climate change, is most likely to enter into modern slavery, and who has fewer capabilities and resources than others to adapt to climate change in alternative ways?The research is based in Cambodia, the world's second most climate vulnerable country in 2014. This status derives not only from the heightened climate risks its faces in the form of floods and droughts, but also the lack of capacity to adapt and respond. Eighty percent of the population lives in rural areas with limited knowledge, infrastructure and opportunities; and more than 70 percent rely on agriculture that is heavily sensitive to climate change (UNDP 2014). In 2016, Cambodia also recorded the third highest proportion of modern slaves per capita in the world. Under these compelling set of circumstances then, the project focuses on the Cambodian construction industry as a means to examine how climate change facilitates trafficking into modern slavery and ongoing livelihoods within it. UK and Cambodian scholars will undertake challenging research that aims to combine qualitative interviews with construction industry informants and victims of modern slavery working in brick-kilns and construction sites; agro-ecological profiling, a quantitative household survey, and interviews in brick-kiln sender villages; and analysis of longitudinal secondary data (Cambodia Socio-Economic Study 2014). Findings will improve understanding of the 'deadly dance' of environmental destruction and modern slavery.