Perpetrators of modern slavery are devastating our environment too | Nick Grono

Criminal gangs who employ slave labour are often involved in deforestation or pollution. Fighting slavery will also protect our natural resources

In many poor countries, environmental destruction is the tipping point that pushes vulnerable families into slavery. Unseasonal droughts, encroaching deserts, extreme flooding, the death of livestock, or illegal deforestation have a devastating impact on families already living on the brink. As their fragile livelihoods become unsustainable, such families may start to gamble with their liberty.

Desperate parents accept offers from unscrupulous "recruiters" to employ their daughters in hotels, often suspecting that the offers are too good to be true, but hoping against hope that their daughters won't end up in the sex trade, or that sons who are offered "light work" and access to schooling won't be forced to work double shifts in embroidery factories or road building. Sadly, and all too often, however, that is the outcome.