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Project October 23, 2018

Climate Change and Human Trafficking in Indonesia

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Asnia shares a tender moment with her daughter Dewi after work. Dewi is deaf and mute. Asnia works hard in the plantation to save money for her daughters treatment. Image by Xyza Cruz Bacani. Indonesia, 2018.
Asnia shares a tender moment with her daughter Dewi after work. Dewi is deaf and mute. Asnia works hard in the plantation to save money for her daughters treatment. Image by Xyza Cruz Bacani. Indonesia, 2018.

Palm oil production is one of Indonesia's biggest industries, supplying almost half of the world and driving massive deforestation on the archipelago. In addition, Indonesia's large population, agricultural land use practices, deforestation, and coal consumption make it a high greenhouse gas emitter.

To make way for commercial logging interests, Indonesia's indigenous people were forced 50 years ago to migrate into the country's peat lands. Frequent heat waves and unpredictable weather makes peat lands prone to wildfires, threatening their indigenous inhabitants. With few government protections, indigenous groups have nowhere else to go and are vulnerable to lung disease caused by exposure to heavy smog produced by the palm mills, while indigenous women desperate to leave are often preyed upon by human traffickers.

In this project, Xyza Bacani reports on the environmental and social challenges facing indigenous people working on Indonesia's palm plantations. 

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