By Ashley Currier and Rashida A. Manuel

Marshalling research about male rape and unwanted sex in contemporary African contexts, this article explores how cultural definitions of sex and sexuality affect African sexual minority men’s perceptions of rape, non-consensual sex and unwanted sex in Malawi, a country in which same-sex sexual practices are stigmatised and punished. We analyze two divergent accounts of unwanted sex offered by two gay Malawian men the first author 10 interviewed in 2012. Feminist and queer theoretical insights about representing the agency of African gender and sexual minorities guide our inquiry. Our analysis shows how activist socialisation can intervene in and reshape how African sexual minority men perceive and name unwanted and/or coercive sex.

Routledge 10th September 2014, 17p.

Edited by Bonnie S. Fisher

Since the 1970s, researchers and practitioners from a wide spectrum of disciplines have documented that violence against women and family violence are substantial problems in the United States (see Crowell and Burgess, 1996). Because of their persistent efforts, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (Title IV of Public Law 103–322, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994), and the Violence Against Women Office, now called the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), was established in the U.S. Department of Justice. These Federal acts marked violence against women and family violence as national problems in need of both interdisciplinary scientific inquiry and development of community-based prevention and intervention policies and practices.

2004, 356p.

By Jennifer Rose Wies

This research explores the themes of participation and professionalization as they intersect with power in domestic violence advocacy by using a case study from one region in Kentucky. Throughout this dissertation, I investigate the ways political and economic pressures influence local domestic violence advocates and the ways these macro-level pressures influence 1) an advocate’s level of participation in the organization and 2) a transition in social service provision to a professional model of advocacy. The research illustrates that the nature of domestic violence service provision is changing in the United States as a result of the increasingly privatized nature of social service provision and subsequent shifts in domestic violence advocacy participation practices and professionalization trends.

University of Kentucky, 2006, 252p.

Edited by Christof Heyns

As in recent issues of our Journal, in this tenth edition we highlight one theme, to which we dedicate five of nine total articles. This theme refers to the plight of the millions of migrants and refugees who find themselves in dire situations in many countries around the world. The article by Katharine Derderian and Liesbeth Schockaert of Médecins sans Frontières realistically portrays the terrible human tragedy of refugees and, from the point of view of human rights, discusses the concept of refugee, according to the criteria of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), under who- se guidance and with whose generous support we were able to organize this edition. The UNHCR criteria and the foundations of the protection system for refugees are explained in the article by Juan Carlos Murillo.

Human Rights Univeristy Network, Year 6 • Number 10 June 2009, 204p.

By DIANE BELL

Synopsis-Here I revisit three contentious issues: intraracial rape, feminist theorising around race and gender, and the problematics of cross-cultural collaboration (see Bell & Nelson, 1989). I begin by examining the modes of analysis of abuse of Aboriginal women as revealed in recent reports, and offer comparative case material from North America. With particular reference to the shifting bases of my relationship to Topsy Napurrula Nelson, I trace a personal, partial, and hidden history of an idea, that is, a more empowering feminist future may be envisaged by grounding our theorising on questions of gender, race and violence in the possibility of relationality. I suggest that the propensity to engage in social construct boundary maintenance is obscuring the fact that it is women who are being brutalised. With reference to the handling of violence against women by the courts and by “communities,” I argue cross-cultural collaborations and enunciation of women’s law can empower women. Forging a sustainable vision of a meaningful future in the current crisis requires that the needs of woman be addressed; that in pursuit of the politics of difference we not lose sight of questions of power; that the politics of law, the nation state, the academy, and Aboriginal liberation struggles that shape the “master narratives,” are interrogated from within and from “elsewhere.”

Pergamon Press, 1999, 28p.

Edited by Laura Hilly & Richard Martin

Access to justice is the cornerstone of any fair and equitable legal system. As Sir Bob Hepple in his post ‘The Equality Agenda in 2015’ contained in Chapter 11 of this anthology (p 210) emphasises: “This year marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, so it is not inappropriate to recall clause 40 (still on the statute book), which states: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.”” But writing on the second anniversary of the introduction of sweeping cuts to civil legal aid by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (‘LAPOS’), in the wake of debilitating fee hikes in UK employment tribunals and an ongoing diminution of criminal legal aid, it is reasonable to ask what price are we all now paying for these ‘reforms’ of access to justice in England and Wales? While some of the proposed reforms highlighted in this chapter ultimately failed to make it onto the statute books (for example, the proposed presumptive cost orders to burden amicus interveners: see Daniel McCredden ‘Presumptive Cost Orders: A Threat to Public Interest Interventions’ p 17) most of them succeeded in being enacted. And with the re-election of the Conservative Party to Government in May 2015, many of these cuts are here to stay.

Oxford Human RIghts Hub, 2015,384

By RAYMOND G. GETTELL (Author), Colin Heston (Introduction)

First published in 1924, this book emerged at a time when the study of politics was being transformed from a largely historical and moralistic pursuit into a more rigorous, analytical discipline within American universities. Gettell’s work bridged the gap between the classical humanistic tradition of political reflection and the emerging political science of the early twentieth century, providing a lucid narrative of the major thinkers, schools, and debates that shaped Western political ideology.
The early decades of the twentieth century saw increasing professionalization in the social sciences, especially in fields like economics, sociology, and political science. Within political science, there was a tension between the empirical study of institutions and behavior (what would later be called "positivist" approaches) and the normative-historical approach that emphasized values, ideologies, and the moral purposes of politics. Gettell’s work traces the development of political ideas chronologically, beginning with the classical thinkers of ancient Greece—particularly Plato and Aristotle—whose inquiries into justice, the ideal state, and the nature of citizenship set the stage for centuries of political reflection. He then moves through the Roman period, early Christian thought, medieval scholasticism, Renaissance humanism, the rise of early modern political theory (with Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau), and onward to the nineteenth century, examining liberalism, socialism, nationalism, and other emergent ideologies.
For the modern reader, returning to Gettell’s work can serve as both a foundation and a springboard—a foundation for understanding the grand narrative of Western political thought, and a springboard for questioning, expanding, and diversifying that narrative to include new voices, global perspectives, and contemporary concerns. In it is an invitation to reflect critically on the ideas that continue to shape our political world. In an era marked by resurgent nationalism, territorial conflict, and the weakening of multilateral institutions, History of Political Thought retains a sobering relevance. Across the globe, from Ukraine and Russia, to Israel and Palestine, to China and Taiwan, we witness conflicts fueled by competing historical narratives, divergent political ideologies, and the enduring potency of the concept of sovereignty. These disputes often invoke deeply rooted claims to land, culture, and legitimacy, echoing ideas that can be traced back to the very thinkers Gettell profiles—whether it is Hobbes' notion of authority and order, Rousseau's theories of collective will, or the romantic nationalism that pervaded 19th-century political philosophy.
The idea of a world governed by shared norms—what Kant envisioned as a “perpetual peace” based on republicanism and international cooperation—remains elusive. States remain the final arbiters of their own security, often dismissing international judgments when they conflict with national interest or identity. Gettell’s text unintentionally underscores the fragility of systems that depend on consensus and voluntary compliance. Just as no political theory he surveys offers a perfect formula for reconciling liberty with order or equality with authority, no international institution can entirely overcome the foundational dilemma of political life: how to balance the need for collective restraint with the desire for self-rule. The UN, lacking coercive power over its most powerful members and constrained by veto politics in the Security Council, reflects this unresolved tension.
As global politics once again teeter between cooperation and confrontation, Gettell’s work calls us back to the deeper philosophical questions that must underlie any lasting peace: What is legitimate authority? Who decides? And how can competing visions of justice coexist in a shared political space?

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 433p.

By Joseph Lelliott

Previous research by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and others has shown that trafficking in persons could not occur on a large scale without the aid of corruption. Corruption facilitates all stages of trafficking, from the initial recruitment of victims through to situations of exploitation themselves. It also hinders effective investigation, prosecution, and punishment of perpetrators and allows traffickers to operate with impunity.

This report, developed through the partnership between ASEAN-Australia Counter Trafficking and UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, examines how trafficking in persons and corruption legislation in ASEAN Member States (AMS) criminalises corruption as a facilitator of trafficking. It aims to identify current linkages between trafficking in persons and corruption in the criminal provisions of AMS legislation and highlights potential ways for provisions to be applied in practice to punish corruption that facilitates trafficking.

Trafficking in persons is of major concern throughout Southeast Asia, including in the ten ASEAN Member States. Evidence strongly indicates that various types of exploitation are widespread in the region. Previous research by UNODC and others has shown that trafficking in persons could not occur on a large scale without the aid of corruption. Corruption facilities all stages of trafficking, from the initial recruitment of victims through to situations of exploitation themselves. It also hinders the effective investigation, prosecution, and punishment of perpetrators and allows traffickers to operate with impunity. This report examines how trafficking in persons and corruption legislation in ASEAN Member States criminalizes corruption as a facilitator of trafficking. It has two aims: 1. To identify current linkages between trafficking in persons and corruption in the criminalization provisions of ASEAN Member States’ legislation. 2. To highlight how trafficking and corruption criminalization provisions can be applied in practice to punish corruption that facilitates trafficking.

Bangkok, Thailand: United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, 2025. 142p.

By Saipira FURSTENBERG, Marcus MICHAELSEN, Siena ANSTIS

Transnational repression arises when foreign governments reach across national borders to coerce, control and silence individuals in other countries using a broad range of methods, ranging from digital surveillance to extraterritorial killings. Amongst the primary targets of transnational repression are human rights defenders, whose advocacy is perceived by repressive regimes as a threat to their interests and power. As a result, human rights defenders fleeing persecution or other forms of repression at home are now facing increasing danger even though they have moved abroad. The practice of transnational repression negatively impacts every level of society, from individual rights to national security and democratic institutions. This paper presents global trends in transnational repression against human rights defenders, focusing on human rights impacts and curtailment of civic space. It examines the human rights obligations of European Union (EU) Member States as host countries to address transnational repression and outlines some of the emerging policy responses by governments worldwide. The paper also examines how current EU legal and policy frameworks and instruments could be applied to counter transnational repression and provides recommendations for improving protection for the human rights defenders.

Brussels: European Parliament, 2025. 91p.

By Agnes Mathilde Wergeland (Author), Colin Heston (Introduction)

Slavery in Germanic Society sets out to trace the evolution of slavery from the late Roman world through the early and high medieval periods. Wergeland’s analysis begins by distinguishing classical slavery—predicated on the total alienation of the enslaved person from kinship, community, and legal personhood—from the systems of servitude that emerged in Germanic societies. As Germanic tribes moved into former Roman territories, they both absorbed and modified existing practices of unfree labor. Captives taken in war, debtors who had fallen into bondage, and the descendants of slaves formed a stratum of society that was neither fully outside nor fully within the emerging frameworks of medieval law.

Wergeland is especially attentive to the role of law codes in shaping and regulating these relationships. The Salic Law, the Lex Saxonum, and other Germanic legal compilations provide glimpses into a world where freedom and unfreedom were not binary categories but existed along a continuum. The distinction between a servus (slave), a colonus (tenant bound to the land), and a liber homo (freeman) was fluid and often contested. Her work suggests that these categories were not only legal but also deeply embedded in cultural ideas about honor, lineage, and the obligations of lordship.

Wergeland’s historiographical legacy is also tied to the broader cultural currents of her time. Writing in the aftermath of the American Civil War and during the height of European colonial expansion, she was acutely aware of slavery’s moral and political resonance. While she does not draw explicit parallels between medieval and modern forms of servitude, her decision to study the topic reflects a world in which questions of liberty, labor, and human rights were urgently contested.
In returning to Slavery in Germanic Society During the Middle Ages today, readers encounter a work that is both a product of its era and strikingly relevant to our own. It invites us to consider how deeply embedded systems of inequality are in the fabric of society, and how they can endure even as their outward forms change. Wergeland’s careful scholarship provides a foundation for ongoing conversations about freedom, coercion, and the ways in which human societies organize power and labor.
This edition reintroduces Wergeland’s study to a new generation of readers at a moment when the legacies of slavery and unfreedom are once again at the center of global debates. It offers not only an invaluable historical resource but also a reminder of the intellectual courage of a scholar who, against the odds, claimed her place in the academy and in the long conversation about justice and humanity.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 93p.

By Adam Gurowski (Author), Colin Heston (Preface)

Adam Gurowski’s Slavery in History is a sweeping and impassioned historical treatise that challenges the reader to reconsider the institution of slavery not as a fixed or inevitable component of human civilization, but as a corrosive anomaly that has repeatedly undermined the moral and structural integrity of societies throughout history. Written in the mid-19th century, a time when the question of slavery was at the forefront of political and ethical discourse—particularly in the United States—Gurowski’s work stands as both a scholarly inquiry and a moral indictment. His approach is not merely descriptive; it is analytical and polemical, seeking to dismantle the notion that slavery is a natural or historically justified institution.
From the outset, Gurowski frames slavery as a “general disease” rather than a social norm, arguing that its presence in any civilization is symptomatic of deeper political and moral decay. He rejects the deterministic view that slavery is a universal or necessary stage in societal development, instead positing that it is an aberration that has consistently led to the decline of the cultures that embraced it. This thesis is developed through a methodical examination of a wide array of civilizations—from the Egyptians and Phoenicians to the Greeks, Romans, and beyond. In each case, Gurowski explores how slavery was integrated into the social fabric, how it was justified or resisted, and ultimately, how it contributed to the weakening or collapse of those societies.
Adam Gurowski’s view on modern slavery, particularly as it existed in the 19th century, is deeply critical and morally charged. In Slavery in History, he argues that for the first time in human civilization, slavery had been elevated into a comprehensive ideological system—a “religious, social, and political creed” . This modern form of slavery, especially as practiced in the United States, was not merely a continuation of ancient customs but a deliberate and systemic institution, defended by theology, law, and public discourse. He is especially scathing in his critique of how slavery in the modern era had been rationalized and sanctified by political leaders, religious figures, and intellectuals. He describes this as a “new faith” with its own “temples,” “altars,” and “fanatical devotees,” suggesting that slavery had become a kind of state religion in parts of the American Republic. This metaphor underscores his belief that modern slavery was not just a social or economic system but a deeply entrenched ideology that corrupted every aspect of public life.
Finally, his introduction to Slavery in History serves as both a roadmap and a manifesto. It outlines the historical scope of the book—spanning ancient to modern civilizations—and sets the tone for a critical, morally engaged exploration of one of humanity’s oldest and most pernicious institutions. Gurowski’s work is not merely a catalog of historical facts; it is a call to conscience, urging readers to recognize the enduring consequences of slavery and to commit to the principles of justice and equality. In doing so, he positions his book as a vital contribution to the intellectual and ethical debates of his era—debates that, in many ways, continue to resonate today.
Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 172p.

By Hannibal Gerald Duncan (Author), Colin Heston (Preface) Format: Kindle Edition

Race and Population Problems by Hannibal Gerald Duncan is a product of its era—an ambitious, controversial, and often troubling contribution to the early 20th-century debates surrounding race, eugenics, and the sociopolitical implications of demographic change. Published during a time of intense anxiety over immigration, fertility rates, and racial hierarchy, Duncan’s work must be approached with both critical detachment and historical awareness. This preface aims to contextualize his arguments, dissect the theoretical frameworks he employs, and consider the legacy—both intellectual and political—of the ideas he advances.
The book appeared in the interwar period, when Western nations were grappling with the aftermath of World War I, economic uncertainty, and what many perceived as the unraveling of long-standing social and racial orders. In the United States, anxieties about immigration—particularly from Southern and Eastern Europe—converged with pseudo-scientific theories of race and heredity. The eugenics movement, bolstered by the popularity of Darwinian and Mendelian thought, provided an ideological framework for addressing what were seen as "population problems"—namely, the declining birth rates among "Nordic" peoples, the increasing fecundity of supposedly inferior groups, and the racial mixing that challenged white supremacist conceptions of national identity.
Duncan’s work fits squarely within this intellectual climate. It draws from the racial typologies common in early anthropological and sociological literature, and, like many of his contemporaries, he sees population dynamics not merely as matters of biology or demography but as fundamental determinants of national strength, cultural cohesion, and civilizational vitality.
At its core, Race and Population Problems is driven by a deterministic view of race, wherein biological heredity dictates intelligence, morality, productivity, and political capacity. Duncan frequently invokes the "biological law" to argue for the inherent superiority of certain races—usually Northern Europeans—and the degenerative consequences of racial intermixture. His demographic analysis is not neutral; it is laced with prescriptive anxieties about the dilution of white racial stock and the ascendancy of "undesirable" populations.
Modern readers must engage with Duncan’s work not as a valid scientific text but as a document of racial ideology—one that had real-world consequences. Books like Race and Population Problems helped lay the intellectual groundwork for discriminatory immigration laws (such as the Immigration Act of 1924), involuntary sterilization programs, and broader policies of racial exclusion. While Duncan’s tone is often measured, the policies he advocates are extreme and deeply coercive.
His use of "science" is selective and tendentious, relying on cherry-picked data, discredited anthropological categories, and assumptions about heredity and culture that are no longer tenable. The book is less a demographic study than a polemic—albeit a polished and sophisticated one—aimed at preserving white racial dominance.
Despite its overt racism and flawed methodology, Race and Population Problems provides an important window into the ways race, science, and nationalism converged in early 20th-century thought. Understanding Duncan’s arguments helps us trace the genealogy of contemporary racial and anti-immigrant ideologies, many of which still echo his concerns about national identity, cultural dilution, and the supposed threat of demographic change. It also serves as a cautionary tale about the misuse of science for ideological ends..
This edition has been designed, abridged awith an inroduction by renowned novelist and story writer Colin Heston .

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 286p.

Power of Federal Judiciary Over Legislation by J. Hampden Dougherty is a compact but weighty work first published in 1912, offering a vigorous defense of the judiciary’s power to strike down unconstitutional laws. Written during an era of growing skepticism toward centralized authority, Dougherty’s book situates judicial review as an indispensable safeguard built into the American constitutional system. He begins by tracing the intellectual and historical roots of this power, arguing that it was not an accidental byproduct but an intentional creation of the framers. Drawing on the Constitutional Convention debates and the Federalist Papers—particularly Alexander Hamilton’s famous exposition in Federalist No. 78—Dougherty insists that the courts’ ability to declare legislative acts void is central to maintaining the supremacy of the Constitution.
Read today, Dougherty’s work resonates in a world facing renewed tensions between legislatures and courts. The questions he grappled with—how much power unelected judges should have over elected lawmakers, whether the judiciary can check majoritarian excesses without overstepping, and how to reconcile constitutional text with evolving social norms—remain pressing in 2025.
In an age of polarized politics, social media-driven outrage, and legislative gridlock, the themes of Dougherty’s book speak directly to contemporary challenges. His work encourages a sober reflection on whether judicial power is a threat to democratic self-government or an essential defense against its excesses.
More than a historical artifact, Power of Federal Judiciary Over Legislation functions as a mirror for modern constitutional crises. It underscores how the tensions between law and politics, and between judicial restraint and activism, are not new but woven into the fabric of American governance. As debates continue in 2025 about court-packing, term limits for justices, and the appropriate scope of judicial intervention, Dougherty’s concise and forceful treatise offers both a defense of the judiciary’s traditional role and a challenge to ensure it remains a stabilizing rather than destabilizing force in constitutional democracy.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 108p.

Edited by Rosemarie Buikema, Antoine Buyse and Antonius C.G.M. Robben

In Cultures, Citizenship and Human Rights the combined analytical efforts of the fields of human rights law, conflict studies, anthropology, history, media studies, gender studies, and critical race and postcolonial studies raise a comprehensive understanding of the discursive and visual mediation of migration and manifestations of belonging and citizenship. More insight into the convergence – but also the tensions – between the cultural and the legal foundations of citizenship, has proven to be vital to the understanding of societies past and present, especially to assess processes of inclusion and exclusion. Citizenship is more than a collection of rights and privileges held by the individual members of a state but involves cultural and historical interpretations, legal contestation and regulation, as well as an active engagement with national, regional, and local state and other institutions about the boundaries of those (implicitly gendered and raced) rights and privileges. Highlighting and assessing the transformations of what citizenship entails today is crucially important to the future of Europe, which both as an idea and as a practical project faces challenges that range from the crisis of legitimacy to the problems posed by mass migration. Many of the issues addressed in this book, however, also play out in other parts of the world, as several of the chapters reflect.

London; New York: Routledge, 2020. 269p.

Edited by Rainer Bauböck

Citizenship is frequently invoked both as an instrument and goal of immigrant integration. Yet, in migration contexts, citizenship also marks a distinction between members and outsiders based on their different relations to particular states. A migration perspective highlights the boundaries of citizenship and political control over entry and exit as well as the fact that foreign residents remain in most countries deprived of core rights of political participation. This book summarizes current theories and empirical research on the legal status and political participation of migrants in European democracies.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. 128p.

Edited by Valeria Llobet, Didier Reynaert, Afua Twum-Danso Imoh and Wouter Vandenhole

The field of children’s rights studies is well established and largely dominated by a top-down approach that considers these rights as objective standards requiring implementation in practice or policy. This book argues for a critical perspective which views the area as contested terrain with conflicting normative foundations and traditions. The collection brings together established and rising scholars whose work has been central to not only challenging mainstream children’s rights discourses but also provides alternative pathways to conceptualizing children’s rights. It moves beyond critiques of these dominant discourses and sets out the emerging paradigm of Critical Children’s Rights Studies drawing on contexts in both the Global North and Global South. It proposes new pathways and subjects these to scrutiny, illuminating the importance of contextual situatedness and acknowledging the need to consider researchers’ own positionality when outlining their stance on children’s rights. Containing both empirical and theoretical scholarship, the book will be an essential resource for students, academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the multidisciplinary areas of childhood studies, children’s rights studies and international human rights.

London; New York: Routledge, 2025. 338p.

By Clara van den Berg

What became of the upsurge in civic action that saw millions of volunteers rally in support of migrants during the 2015/16 refugee reception crisis in Germany? Clara van den Berg examines the aftermath of that unprecedented mobilization, exploring how pro-refugee communities evolved in Germany. Drawing on interviews, observations, and document analysis, she finds that some pro-refugee communities managed to survive. The study provides fresh insights into how mobilization periods impact the local structure of civil society and its networks, and offers a new perspective on the role of solidarity with refugees and migrants today.

Bielefeld, Germany, transcript Verlag, 2025. 241p.

By Jennifer Anzardo Valdes, et al.

For years, thousands of children have made the difficult decision to flee from their countries with the hope of securing safety and security in the United States. Their reasons for fleeing vary but there are common themes. Many of these children are seeking protection from human trafficking, targeted gang violence in the form of assaults, kidnappings, or extortions, as well as domestic violence and child abuse.

In 2019 alone, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained over 76,000 children. As part of our investigation into the treatment of unaccompanied children and conditions at the facilities at the border, we interviewed and provided legal services to 9,417 of them.

This report is based on these unaccompanied children’s testimonies of being detained at US detention facilities along the southern border. Children were detained in horrific conditions way beyond the 72 hours allowed under US law. Children described being held in frigid rooms, sleeping on concrete floors, being fed frozen food, with little or no access to medical care. Too often, they were subjected to emotional, verbal, and physical abuse by CBP officers.

Miami: Americans for Immigrant Justice,2020 74p.

By Thibaut Girault

This paper looks at the role of smugglers in facilitating migrant movement amid the worsening political and security situation in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Findings reveal that migrants rely on smugglers to bypass occasional border restrictions between members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and to navigate increasingly dangerous routes within Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—three countries that formed the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) in 2023. This reliance on smugglers also comes with significant risks, including greater exposure to exploitation, debt, and corruption— vulnerabilities that are particularly pronounced for women.

The research is based on the responses of 2,674 migrants surveyed by 4Mi between May and August 2024 in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. It compares the experiences of migrants who used smuggler services (n=1,550) with those who did not (n=1,124) to better understand the relationship between smuggler use and migrants’ routes, journey costs, and protection risks.

London/Denmark: Mixed Migration Centre, 2025. 17p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Global Action to Prevent and Address Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants (GLO.ACT)

At least 3 billion people live in contexts highly exposed to the impacts of climate change19 and yet more to non-climatic environmental degradation and disaster. Even if the world meets the currently improbable target of limiting global warming to 1.5 C degrees set out in the Glasgow Climate Pact, extreme weather and environmental degradation will see the deterioration of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity depended on by billions. In climate vulnerable countries, children and future generations, women, the poor (among whom the majority are women), and Indigenous Peoples, are disproportionately impacted.

The international community is expanding its response and financing. Mitigation measures aim to limit the damage by reducing and removing carbon, using regulation (like emissions limits) and technology (like carbon sinks). Adaptation measures seek to help people survive sudden-onset disasters and reconstitute livelihoods undermined by slow-onset processes that degrade soils, rivers and forests.

Additional factors threaten to exacerbate climate damage and undermine mitigation and adaptation strategies. Environmental crimes accelerate the destruction of natural resources and undermine the resilience of affected populations. The economic damage of COVID-19 has intensified competition for resources, increased the precarity of people on low incomes and with insecure migration statuses, and reduced the capacity of states to respond, as does the conflict and instability seen in some climate-vulnerable countries, such as those in the Sahel. Conflict and instability undermine adaptation measures.

This brief explores how climate change, climate-re- lated events, and crimes that affect the environment (environmental crimes) influence trafficking in persons (TIP) and smuggling of migrants (SOM), with special consideration of gender. It draws on expert interviews and a desk review to explore three key questions:

The effects of climate change, climate-related events, and environmental crime on TIP and SOM, and in particular its effects on women, in Part 1. Climate, movement and vulnerability.

How business practices shape exposure to TIP and SOM risk, in Part 2. Climate, industry and exploitation.

Current and emerging responses among policymakers, law enforcement, and civil society, in Part 3. Legal, policy and criminal justice responses.

The case of Bangladesh, a climate vulnerable and origin country for TIP and SOM, and a pioneer in adaptation, in Part 4. Environment and vulnerability in Bangladesh.

The paper concludes with Part 5. Framing the response and lists recommendations.

The analysis takes a human rights-based approach, integrating the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) human rights and gender equality toolkit, which provides practical ways of integrating the protection of rights outlined in the United Na- tions Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and sibling protocols on TIP and SOM into programmatic approaches. In particular, that approaches to countering TIP and SOM should not affect rights outlined under international human rights laws, including the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Vienna: UNODC, 2022. 55p.