CLIMATE-INDUCED TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS IN NIGERIA AND KENYA: A COMPARATIVE LEGAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Emerging evidence has shown that climate change is increasingly contributing to human displacement, loss of livelihoods, and resource conflicts, thereby creating conditions that heighten vulnerability to trafficking in persons. Across Africa, prolonged droughts, flooding, desertification, and environmental degradation have intensified competition over scarce resources, disrupted traditional livelihoods, and compelled vulnerable populations to migrate in search of survival opportunities. While growing scholarship has examined the relationship between climate change and human mobility, comparatively little attention has been paid to the adequacy of existing legal frameworks in addressing trafficking risks arising from climate-induced vulnerabilities. This study, therefore, assesses legal responses to climate change-induced trafficking in persons through a comparative analysis of Nigeria and Kenya. The study relied on doctrinal and comparative legal research methods to evaluate whether existing legal regimes adequately respond to the emerging climate-trafficking nexus. The study found that, although both Nigeria and Kenya have established legal frameworks addressing climate change and trafficking in persons, these frameworks continue to operate largely in isolation from one another. The study contends that the principal weakness in existing legal responses lies not in the absence of legislation but in the failure to integrate climate governance, migration management, human rights protection, and anti-trafficking measures within a coherent legal and institutional framework. The study concludes that the current legal regimes in both jurisdictions remain inadequate to effectively address the emerging realities of climate-induced trafficking, as they largely adopt reactive approaches that respond to trafficking after exploitation has occurred rather than preventing the vulnerabilities that facilitate it. It argues that effective prevention of climate-induced trafficking requires a proactive, rights-based, and preventive legal framework that mainstreams trafficking risks into climate adaptation, disaster response, migration governance, and social protection policies.