No, Al Jazeera, Climate Change Is Not Worsening Human Trafficking in Sierra Leone
By
Linnea Lueken
January 29, 2024
A recent article at Al Jazeera titled “In Sierra Leone, climate change worsens human trafficking of the poor,” claims that human trafficking is exacerbated by alleged impacts of climate change like flooding and crop failures. Data, however, indicate that sea level rise and meteorological (weather-related) flooding is not getting worse in any way that can explain the capital of Sierra Leone’s flood problems. In addition, that the erratic nature of of major food crops seem to line up with civil strife more than climate change.
The vast majority of the Al Jazeera story is about human trafficking, how desperate people are tricked into being trafficked, and the suffering that traffickers inflict on vulnerable people. There is one short section that nods to climate change, arguing that it exacerbates the problem by destroying homes with flooding and mudslides, and “unpredictable rainfall” causing bad harvests of crops and forcing farmers to move into overcrowded cities.
Al Jazeera writer, Olivia Acland, writes that Sierra Leone is among the top 10 percent of countries listed as being vulnerable to climate change, giving no source for that figure, and explains that a third of the population lives in coastal regions where homes are more vulnerable to “worsening floods.” Acland goes on to claim some islands are “going underwater,” and “[e]ach year, flash floods tear through Freetown,” the country’s capital, killing residents. In 2021 and 2022 400 floods reportedly struck Freetown.
https://climaterealism.com/2024/01/no-al-jazeera-climate-change-is-not-worsening-human-trafficking-in-sierra-leone/
