Policy Brief: Climate change contributes to unsafe migration - Addressing the impacts for vulnerable children and youth in Laos

The research on Climate Change, Vulnerability and Migration, conducted by World Vision East Asia and the Stockholm Environment Institute, finds the mounting pressures of climate change on livelihoods are contributing to migration under distress. It also finds that vulnerable rural low-income Lao families who are reliant on natural resources and have the weakest buffer are by far the most exposed. Accounts from families dependent on subsistence agriculture revealed that they are resorting to migration as a last option to make ends meet. The element of distress is significant because it amplifies the risks and exacerbates the negative impacts migration can have. Lao families migrating in distress are more likely to do so without legal protections and move in stages that leave them physically distanced from each other and their social safety networks, placing children and youth into precarious positions with heightened risks of abuse and exploitation. 

This policy brief provides a call to action for development partners of Laos and Thailand, the primary destination of choice for Lao migrants, to address key drivers of distress migration in communities of origin and to make migration safer, more humane and more just for Lao parents and children alike, providing more support for those who stay behind and those who go, empowering children to help shape a better future for themselves.