Children on the Move: Human Security Challenges of Climate-Induced Migration in South Sudan

Climate change has emerged as the most urgent global challenge, affecting ecosystems, livelihoods, and human well-being. Extreme weather events and rising temperatures contribute directly and indirectly to temporary and permanent migration. Children and young people are among the most affected. Over a six-year period (2016-2021), weather-related events were associated with more than 43 million internal displacement of children in 44 countries . Indeed, even though the cause of child migration cannot be attributed only to climate vulnerability – especially in countries with persistent and ongoing conflicts –, worldwide the continents that face the most significant climate impacts are also home to the largest proportions of child and youth migrants.

South Sudan - A Complex Environment

South Sudan is characterised by an extremely fragile environment marked by floods, devastating wars, widespread violence, and severe underdevelopment. 

Indeed, after gaining independence in January 2011, South Sudan has faced a tumultuous journey: the country has suffered ethnic violence and a devastating civil war, characterised by severe human rights abuses and ethnic massacres. In 2018, the competing sides reached a unity agreement and formed a coalition government. However, despite the formal end of the civil war, South Sudan continues to suffer from violence perpetrated by armed militia groups operating at the community level. In this context, the population - demographically among the youngest in the world, with about half under the age of 18  - suffers the most. 

At the same time, South Sudan is also one of the countries most exposed to climate change. Although no region of the world will remain unaffected by its negative effects, poorer nations in tropical regions, characterised by highly variable rainfall, will likely bear the brunt of the climate crisis consequences. Most of South Sudan is covered by arid and desert lands, which have very low fertility due to limited water resources and drought. The country is experiencing a steady increase in the frequency and intensity of climate-related extreme weather events, floods, and droughts , which have a significant impact on both livelihoods and communities. 

This insecurity context caused by conflicts and exacerbated by climate change is forcing people to move, both inside and outside the country. However, while often the end of conflicts has left the door open for refugees, who found protection in neighbouring countries, to return home – even if often to a destroyed home – , severe climate events (especially floods) can cause the destruction of lands and resources, leaving many people with no place to return to. Moreover, it is not only South Sudanese people who are exposed to these crises, but also all the migrants and refugees that have arrived during the last decades in South Sudan, fleeing from conflicts in neighbouring countries (Central African Republic, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo). These immigration flows can potentially enhance violence in the country by increasing competition for resources and exacerbating ethnic tensions.     

Children on the Move Face Human Security Challenges Exacerbated by the Climate Crisis

Human security is a condition where the elements essential for human well-being are protected, enabling individuals to lead lives with dignity, freedom, and capacity. This encompasses both universal and culturally unique aspects, comprising material and non-material elements essential for people to pursue their interests effectively. 

Human security can be threatened by the interplay of multiple factors. Among these, climate change can further exacerbate insecurity as it gradually erodes the foundations of people’s livelihoods, undermining cultural and identity aspects; fostering involuntary migration; and posing challenges to the ability of states to protect their citizens from adverse conditions. In this sense, climate change can be seen as a multiplier of threats. In highly fragile contexts exposed to multiple crises, like the one of South Sudan, the enduring state of insecurity has taken the form of a chronic syndrome. Moreover, as climate disasters grow in magnitude and frequency, the crises they cause are no longer passing but impose a permanent state of being. 

As a consequence of extreme climate events, people are often forced to migrate elsewhere to areas inside or outside the country in search of better living conditions. Sometimes the weather events are so severe that they transform some geographical areas into uninhabitable lands to the point that some international officials said privately that “it would make more sense for the flood zone to be written off, with people encouraged to relocate elsewhere.” While people of all ages can be forced to flee from their homes due to various circumstances, a significant proportion of those affected in the world are children. In South Sudan, children are living the impacts of climate change as never before, with the country now ranking seventh globally in terms of children’s exposure to environmental shocks. Indeed this country has always been exposed to floods, especially in its central area crossed by waterways which expose South Sudan to extreme events happening in neighbouring countries, but during the last years these climate events have occurred so frequently that they have left no time for the water to evaporate and thus for the earth to resurface in many areas.  

Children and young people are the least equipped to deal with the challenges and uncertainties that arise when they are displaced from their homes. They not only face physical difficulties, due to the fact that they are more prone and exposed to the risk of disease and infection, but uprooting them from family environments and depriving them from safety nets can lead to serious emotional and psychological turmoil, becoming a source of great distress. Furthermore, losing stable living conditions, access to education and support systems can have lasting and future effects on the well-being and development of young individuals (i.e., dropping out of school and not completing the educational path). 

Children are highly dependent on adult care and protection and a stable environment for their development. During their migration journeys, they experience increased vulnerability, making them more susceptible to exploitation, child focused gender-based violence, forced labour, trafficking, and other child rights violations. Moreover, when children move through informal and unsafe channels or as unaccompanied minors, the multiple risks they face and the disadvantaged situation in which they find themselves when migrating are more pronounced. 

The migration experiences of each child are distinct. The challenges they face are not solely influenced by their age but are further shaped by their stage in childhood and, importantly, by their gender. Particularly, young girls face heightened vulnerabilities, becoming susceptible to various forms of gender-based violence, such as sexual violence, child marriage, and exploitation.

The Opportunity to Take Action

Despite these issues, national policy frameworks on climate-induced migration often inadequately address the specific security challenges faced by displaced children, who are consistently neglected in the development of climate policies. In South Sudan, the insecurity context caused by prolonged conflicts has hampered long-term planning against climate change and its adverse effects on the population, and especially on children. 

The challenges posed by climate change to human security and to the protection of children and young people require comprehensive policy frameworks. Human security offers a useful perspective to study and address the intricate challenges faced by migrants due to global environmental changes. As reported in the UN General Assembly 66/290, human security calls for “people-centred, comprehensive, context-specific and prevention-oriented responses that strengthen the protection and empowerment of all people”.

As the political attention towards this theme has risen in the last decade, policymakers have the opportunity - and the moral obligation - to address this significant gap, granting attention to the specific rights and needs of children in the context of climate-induced migration. 

About the authors:

Cristina El Khoury is a researcher at Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation (FEEM), Italy, where she works on the relationship between water, energy, food, and ecosystem, within the European research project NEXUS – Nature Ecosystem Society Solution. She is also a PhD. – Candidate at the University of Geneva, where she studies immigrant solidarity. She holds a Master’s degree in Global Politics and Society from the University of Milan (2021) and a Bachelor’s degree in Legal Services Science from the University of Milan-Bicocca (2019). In her previous works she explored the eco-gender gap and the ecological citizenship, within the field of sustainable development.  

Valeria Zanini is a researcher at Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation (FEEM), Italy. She currently researches socio-economic impacts of different energy transition scenarios in Mediterranean countries, with a specific focus on North Africa. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and a Master's degree in Political and Social Sciences. She researched in France on the impacts of the green transition and worked on energy poverty at the European Anti-Poverty Network in Brussels. Her research activities cover the topics of migration, energy transition policies and their distributional effects. Cristina and Valeria have already collaborated and worked together during 2021 and 2022 in an on-going qualitative study on the precarity of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Italy, part of a broad project on the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on vulnerable groups, developed with a team of researchers from three European Universities. 

This article is part of the IOM Blog Series: Youth Voices on Migration, Environment and Climate Change