Submission Link : ASA submission Link
Submission Summary (including details of the inquiry and ASA’s recommendations):
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (‘OHCHR’) undertook an inquiry to assist with the preparation of a report to the Human Rights Council on how climate change can have an impact on the realisation of the equal enjoyment of the right to education by every girl.
Anti-Slavery Australia’s submission highlights the intersectionality of climate change and modern slavery by demonstrating that climate events intensify two key drivers of modern slavery: discrimination/marginalisation and poverty levels. The submission finds that women and girls are disproportionately affected by these modern slavery risks. The submission posits that the heightened risks of modern slavery in the context of climate change mirror the barriers that prevent girls from realising their right to education.
Anti-Slavery Australia finds that sudden and slow-onset climate change can impact people’s livelihoods and therefore lead to families engaging in high-risk behaviours which hinders the right to education, such as removing their girls from school to undertake paid/unpaid work or forced marriage, and migrating due to forced displacement.
The submission recommends certain actions for governments to undertake to limit the impact of climate change towards the right of education. It recommends:
- Governments ensure education is available, inclusive and safe for all girls by providing adequate budgetary, human and administrative resources especially in the aftermath of climate events.
- Governments make education accessible to all girls without discrimination by taking all necessary measures to end statelessness as well as provide free, equitable and compulsory quality primary and secondary education.
- Governments ensure an acceptable, holistic and non-discriminatory education experience, including solutions-oriented climate education.
- Governments implement an adaptable state emergency plan in the wake of a climate disaster events to provide ongoing access to a safe school environment especially to migrant girls.