Skip to main content

Natural Disasters and Human Trafficking: Do Disasters Affect State Anti-Trafficking Performance?

Natural Disasters and Human Trafficking: Do Disasters Affect State Anti-Trafficking Performance?
Type
Study
Region
Global
Organization
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Year
2018
Publication Series
International Migration, Vol. 56, 1, 2018
Authors
Z. Bowersox

Despite the often noted negative connection between natural disasters and human trafficking, no quantitative study has been performed. Natural disasters, like conflict, can destroy homes and the economic security of individuals forcing them to migrate and making them targets for traffickers. This article tests the link between a state’s ability to address trafficking and natural disasters, testing the popular prediction that a state’s capabilities will be strained as increased natural disasters occur thus producing a negative effect. The findings though demonstrate that states are actually more likely to perform better in their efforts to confront trafficking. I argue that this is because natural disasters actually strengthen and enhance the state, and particularly its security institutions, in responding to these events. I place these findings in the context of other recent quantitative studies of trafficking that have also produced contradictory results when compared with the field’s qualitative studies.