Page 15 - Respond 2018 Magazine

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There is no ready source of financial support directed at There is no ready
climate migrants, nor do they have any protected status
under international law if they cross borders.
source of financial
In most cases, climate migrants are not easy to distinguish
from economic migrants: they arrive looking for work. The
welcome they receive hinges more on the value of their support directed at
labour than any duty of care to the climate-afflicted.

In Khulna, the third largest city in Bangladesh and regional climate migrants
capital of the southwest, technical education was as
important as buildings in accommodating the people who
arrived after Cyclone Aila and myriad smaller crises.

A pilot offering vocational training – phone repair, welding, “Khulna is one of the most vulnerable cities in Asia,” says
sewing – to new arrivals recently marked its first 25 graduates. Moni. “This is because of climate change. Fifty years ago, the
Eight of the city’s 278 slums are in line for infrastructure situation was not like this but now it is changed.”
upgrades, funded by German development banks.
As though to demonstrate, during the half-hour audience
“It is not enough,” admits city rain lashes down and a large puddle forms outside the door.
mayor Moniruzzaman Moni, Bricks are laid out to step across to dry road.
(pictured) holding court at his
“club” one evening. Moni hopes that his grandchild will be able to stay in Khulna,
where his family has lived for generations. But it will require
At between 2 and 4 metres “major projects” to keep the rising sea at bay. Meanwhile, he
above sea level, enmeshed in cannot deny the trend for outward migration.
the Ganges-Brahmaputra river
delta, Khulna is only marginally “A large number of people, they are moving to Malaysia,
safer than the coastal villages. India, Pakistan and the Middle East. These are climate-
When heavy rainfall coincides affected people. Officially, we have the number, but
with the high tide, water unofficially more and more people are going.”
washes through the streets.

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