Introduction
Migration and crime have grievously impacted women and children. The numbers do not seem to be improving (decreasing) over time and they are continuously being exploited by things like human trafficking (Mâțu & Schwartz, 2013), domestic and sexual violence, child abuse and neglect, elder abuse and neglect, stalking, voyeurism, kidnapping and hate crimes (Bailey, Talbert, Myers, Brown, & Benelli, 2016). They fall under the umbrella category of ‘vulnerable group’ due to their sheer placement in society. Limante & Теrеškinas (2022) described this term in their bo0k as those who are perceived to be impacted sociologically either through opportunities, experiences, quality of life and also based on their well-being while Schröder et al. (2022) identified them through radicalisation processes.
Regardless of the categorical processes and definitions, among the most discussed and agreed on are those identified as women and children. According to the World Migration Report (WMR) 2022, a team of researchers found that climate change can affect these two vulnerable groups which indivertibly were part of the 4.4 million people from the Philippines alone who got displaced because of natural disasters in 2020 (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2022). Southeast Asian countries are prone to increase natural disasters during the typhoon season with cyclones, heavy storms and flooding. This is because the countries in the region are mostly facing the open ocean or are totally surrounded by the seas. With the shifting phases of El Niño and La Niña, the climate conditions are getting worse over time.
Climate Uncertainty
Reports gathered by the Aid and International Development Forum indicated the natural disaster that occurred in 2017 had impacted countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar with the most severe impact that year ranking at number 2 on the Global Climate Risk Index (GCRI) (Aid & International Development Forum, 2017). The numbers were staggering with 2 million, 229,000, 2.5 million and 525,448 people for each of the countries mentioned respectively, where approximately more than half of them were women and children. They were deprived of basic needs such as food security not just due to the typhoon but also caused of the drought and landslides.
At least one of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries made the list each year with Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand being the most frequent (Figure 1). Other than the GCRI, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund or UNICEF listed Myanmar and the Philippines among the top Southeast Asian countries with high Children Climate Risk Index. This is very telling of how the government of each country struggles to mitigate or adapt to these posing risks. Argumentatively, the ideal thing to do by the policymakers of these nations is to prevent the same experience to happen twice, let alone every year.
A lesson that ASEAN leaders should learn from is the case study of Delta Works in the Netherlands, especially how the Maeslantkering helped reduced the flooding in 2007’s storm significantly. Despite the state-of-the-art architecture had helped the country survive the natural disaster, hydrology experts, engineers and policymakers continue to quantify the risks and benefits in making sure all the Dutch are safe in the long run (Wesselink et al., 2007).
Migration and harsh treatment
Since recovery can take time to get the way it was, migration was seen as inevitable because these people want to improve their lifestyles and get better opportunities. Destination countries for the displaced and also those who seek refuge because of political turmoil in their own countries are Malaysia and Thailand (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2022). However, these migrants ended up being exploited for forced labour and sexual purposes. As such, women and children are always the prime example of being the victims of bad decision-making and abuse. Other contributing factors to this issue are the socio-political turmoil and power struggle that tarnish these lands. This not only poses a conflict between the citizens and the political figures but also tests the neighbouring countries’ morals or values when dealing with migrants. In an article by Chy (2017), it was reported that 10.3% of women who worked in the service or entertainment industries and worked during the night shift experienced harassment and assault.
Livelihood threats
Communities that live in the coastal areas are faced with even bigger problems when they depend on fisheries, aquaculture, and related industries (Lin et al., 2022). The rise of sea water level which causes flood can destroy their source of income since they very much depend on these sectors for their economical growth. Albeit the women decided to work or preferred to be housewives, the devastating effects of typhoon storms will cause them to lose everything either is it their jobs, their houses, lands and sometimes lives would also be taken away.
Based on the Human Development Index (HDI), only four countries from the region placed under the Very High Human Development ranking; Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand with their indices higher than 0.8, while the rest ranged between 0.6 to 0.79 except for Cambodia and Myanmar. This is somewhat translated by the industries they are majoring in. Myanmar is very much dependent on its top three industries which are agricultural processing, knit and woven apparel, wood and wood products (ASEAN Up, n.d.). From this, it is understandable how devastating it can be when their productivity areas are swooped by a flood or drought. Without improvement in mitigating the effects, women and children can be easily affected by the lack of food security during these seasons. Cambodia also relies on agriculture and the garment industries other than manufacturing, construction and tourism (Open Development Cambodia, 2015).
Building Tension
Due to the sheer stress and the aftermath of rebuilding their lives on top of Covid-19, domestic abuse and child abuse seemingly continues which was labelled as the ‘shadow pandemic’ by the United Nation that plagued the Southeast Asian countries. Traditionally and based on how everyone is being brought up in the region, women are less likely to report domestic abuse because wanting to uphold the family’s name, not tarnish the husband’s respected position.
It is no secret that the global pandemic had a tremendous effect on our mental health and this subsequently can affect women and children further. With being paid less, displaced and abused, the women would miss jobs and their children would miss school (UN Women, n.d.). The amount of the stress of losing a place to live, a source of income, women and children continued to be the prime target to let get go of some of the anger. Even when some of them are brave enough to leave, they would end up being judged by society as this is very common where single mothers are seen as a bad patch and do not know how to take care of their families.
Call for Action
There is a lot needed to be done across the region by supporting one another in terms of providing the best talents and pushing for better decision-making. However, no matter how much advice is given to the other country leaders, the sovereignty of each state is duly noted since no simple solution can be offered without tackling the issues from all sides. What causes migration could be contributed to both climate change and the internal power struggle within the countries which then again will cause further harm to the two vulnerable groups since there are certain entities that misuse their power and treat the migrants as lesser than humans.
Nonetheless, the continuous efforts by youth, respected leaders and media coverage to impose pressure on the corrupted party will surely see a brighter day. This is to ensure more women and children are saved and protected from being mistreated. Better decision-making and good policy implementation not only will improve the country’s preparedness in tackling climate change but also minimise other correlated factors causing bad treatment towards vulnerable groups in Southeast Asia.
By: Ibrahim Muhammad Hasifullah
Reference:
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