Climate Change and Forced Displacement
Experts consider climate change the biggest threat to human life worldwide.¹ Among the most affected are internally displaced persons (IDPs), people forced to leave their homes because of environmental changes caused by climate change. Bangladesh, like many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, is disproportionately impacted by climate change-driven displacement.² Due to its distinctive geography and overcrowded population, Bangladesh is on the front lines of the climate crisis, facing frequent disasters such as floods, storm surges, droughts, and cyclones.³⁻⁴ According to the latest figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), climate related extreme weather events internally displaced 2.4 million people in Bangladesh in 2024.⁵ Looking ahead, the World Bank projects that the number of people displaced within the country could reach 13.3 million by 2050 due to climate change.⁶
Consequently, internally displaced persons experience various human rights violations such as the deprivation of suitable housing, education, and healthcare. This report takes a closer look at how climate change is affecting the rights of internally displaced people.
Key Sections:
Climate displacement patterns and trends in Bangladesh establishes the context of the growing predicament.
Climate impacts on the rights of internally displaced persons.
Human rights based assessment of the global/local legal framework, pointing out where policies fall short.
The core finding of this report is that while Bangladesh has taken important steps to incorporate human rights considerations for climate-induced displaced people into its climate change policy framework, significant gaps remain in both the articulation and implementation of these protections. Although policies such as the National Strategy on Internal Displacement (2021),⁷ the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (2009),⁸ and the National Adaptation Plan (2023-2050)⁹ acknowledge the plight of IDPs, they often lack the specificity, enforcement mechanisms, and resource allocation necessary to translate policy commitments into tangible protections on the ground. The shortcomings become particularly evident when examining how IDPs’ fundamental rights including the right to life, health, education, and adequate housing, are compromised in practice, despite existing policy frameworks.
Climate Displacement in Bangladesh: Patterns and Trends
Climate displacement refers to the movement of people driven by significant environmental changes.¹⁰ It can occur from different events such as sudden disasters like floods and cyclones or slower-onset events such as prolonged droughts and heatwaves.¹¹ Most often, this displacement is forced, and a major portion of it is classified as internal displacement, occurring when people are uprooted within their own country’s borders. The scale of displacement in Bangladesh has reached alarming levels. The recent report of the IDMC highlighted that in 2024 alone, disaster-induced displacements climbed to 2.4 million, marking the fourth consecutive year of increase and the third-highest figure ever recorded in the nation.¹² Since global monitoring began in 2008, IDMC has recorded approximately 21.2 million displacements triggered by disasters in the country.¹³ Moreover, this report documented a total of 123 disaster events, with the overwhelming majority caused by weather-related hazards.¹⁴ Cyclones and floods remain the primary drivers.
Displacement is not a single, uniform experience; it takes various forms. Temporary displacement is one common pattern of internal displacement. When sudden disasters like hurricanes and storm surges happen, people are often forced to leave their homes temporarily, but people usually cannot go very far because they don’t have enough money to travel long distances.¹⁵ This is because they are already struggling with poverty and other difficult economic situations. Temporary displacement is a strategy that many rural poor people in Bangladesh use to survive for a longer period of time.¹⁶ In many situations where people have to leave their homes temporarily, they typically return to their homes over time. People who live in rural areas also often move temporarily during different times of the year to perform seasonal work.
However, there are many people who are moving away permanently due to climate change. There are several reasons why more people are moving permanently, including socio-economic factors.¹⁷ But climate change has made this process happen faster. Permanent moves create a new set of challenges for people in densely populated developing countries like Bangladesh. According to statistical evidence, Dhaka receives about 400,000 low-income migrants each year.¹⁸ Livelihood systems are severely impacted by flooding, severe storms, droughts, or more gradual but equally significant changes in the area’s climate.¹⁹ When people are forced to permanently relocate, they often arrive in urban areas without adequate resources, social networks, or legal protections. This displacement strips them of the stability and support systems they once relied upon in their communities of origin. Many find themselves living in informal settlements where access to basic services is limited and where their fundamental human rights become increasingly vulnerable. The loss of livelihood, combined with inadequate living conditions in their new locations, creates a cascade of human rights challenges that affect every aspect of displaced persons’ lives, from their physical safety and health to their children’s education and their ability to secure adequate shelter.
Effects of Climate Change on the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons
Effect on the Right to Life
The right to life is the most fundamental human right. Climate change’s broad and overlapping effects directly undermine key aspects of this right.²⁰ The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC projects that an increase in climate change induced heat waves, floods, and droughts will directly cause a rise in suffering from death, disease and injury.²¹ This report also states that the effects of climate change in certain regions may result in hunger, malnutrition and related disorders that affect child growth and development, cardiorespiratory morbidity and mortality related to ground-level ozone.²² The number of people killed in Bangladesh due to cyclones comprises around 53% of the world’s cyclone-related deaths.²³ In a 1991 cyclonic storm, 138,866 people were killed and millions were injured, while enormous losses were encountered by properties and infrastructure.²⁴ Among other extreme events, the super Cyclone Sidr in 2007 killed 4,236 people and caused huge damage to agriculture, fisheries, forestry, health facilities, water supplies and sanitation infrastructure. Since 2007, other cyclones have taken approximately 4,000 lives.²⁵
Research has demonstrated that displaced persons in Bangladesh face significantly elevated mortality risks compared to non-displaced populations. Studies show that climate-displaced households experience substantially increased health expenditures and heightened vulnerability to climate-sensitive diseases including diarrhea, dengue, malaria, and respiratory infections, with approximately 45% becoming unhoused for extended periods averaging 38 days.²⁶ Climate change places the right to life of displaced people more at risk than non-displaced people because displaced people lose the usual resources required for living and adaptation. Thus, the right to life is transformed from a guaranteed entitlement into a fragile contingency shaped by geography and poverty.
Effect on the Right to Education
During Cyclone Aila, educational institutions like schools and colleges in the areas were flooded by storm surges.²⁷ Besides these institutions are relatively higher than the locality and so many forced migrants took shelter in them. As a result, regular education ceased in those institutions. As this hazard occurred in the middle of the year, government and non-government institutions have shown their reluctance to readmit the migrant children. As per the latest report of the UNICEF, about 5.4% of these children have already abandoned the schools due to the climate displacement.²⁸ This data was received from 5930 educational institutions that are located in climate hot-spots located in 31 districts.²⁹ Moreover it has been mentioned that 28.1% indicated that children do not go to school regularly after the climate displacement.³⁰
Effect on the Right to Health
With the erosion of river banks, there has been an increase in the threats to human health. Recent research highlighted that IDPs in Bangladesh were infected with new ailments they had not been exposed to before being displaced due to riverbank erosion.³¹ Several IDPs have high blood pressure, diarrhoea, malnutrition, and cardiovascular disorders that primarily originate from displacement to unhealthy environments.³² A lack of access to drinking water and a scarcity of fresh water causes an increase in skin diseases and diarrhea. For example, clean water is often unavailable to IDPs who dwell in areas like open spaces, roadsides, or river embankments.³³
Riverbank erosion not only has a negative impact on their socio-economic conditions and physical well-being, but also harms the mental health of IDPs. Internal displacement is a significant contributor to depression, anxiety, and stress. Due to riverbank erosion, most respondents experience anxiety, stress, and depression. Many IDPs turn to narcotics to cope with their mental health issues.³⁴ According to several female respondents, “Family quarrels were not a frequent occurrence in my family before riverbank erosion, but following the incident, we often engage in family quarrels and are occasionally beaten by our husbands. The financial crisis, loneliness, anxiety, and depression about life are the main reasons for family quarrels.”³⁵
Effect on the Right to Housing
Climate change directly affects the right to adequate housing in several ways. Generally, displaced people experience serious problems when trying to ensure their right to adequate housing. Climate change leads to increasing rural-urban migration when it affects housing.³⁶ People usually move to urban slums and informal settlements, where they are often forced to build shelters in hazardous areas due to lack of government support. There are no specific statistics on the number of people who have already been displaced due to climate change. Flooding occurs almost every year in Bangladesh, causing devastation to housing and acting as a contributing factor in the decision to migrate because people may be left with no other option.³⁷ However, once every few years a major flood occurs, forcing even more migration.
Gendered Impact: Women and Girls
Climate-induced displacement reshapes women’s roles and exposes them to compounding vulnerabilities. Researchers for Refugee Law Initiatives highlighted that in Shyamnagar and similar coastal regions, women once contributed approximately Tk. 42,000 annually—around 43.52 percent of household income—through agriculture and fisheries.³⁸ However, rising salinity and repeated flooding have submerged shrimp farms and reduced fish production due to excessive heat, eliminating employment opportunities for women while wages remain low and unstable.³⁹ When climate disasters force families to abandon their homes and relocate—often to urban slums in areas like Mirpur and Mohammadpur in Dhaka—displaced women and girls face heightened vulnerability as families lose both livelihood and security.⁴⁰
Research tracking these displaced populations reveals that approximately 2,000 people migrate daily to Dhaka from coastal areas, with 70% driven by natural disasters and climate change.⁴¹ Within this context of climate-driven displacement, early marriage emerges as a survival strategy rather than a cultural choice. Climate-related displacement in coastal districts has been associated with a reported 39 percent increase in child marriage, with studies documenting that more than two-thirds of child marriage victims had encountered at least one natural disaster event before marriage.⁴²
When displacement disrupts income and forces school closures, daughters become perceived as economic burdens, and families facing acute survival pressure accept dowry-free proposals or promises of employment elsewhere. In the worst cases, marriage becomes a pathway to trafficking and unpaid labour, as displaced girls are moved across districts or borders and absorbed into domestic servitude or exploitative work.⁴³ The Bangladesh government has officially acknowledged this pattern, reporting that climate-induced displacement is increasing vulnerability to trafficking, with an estimated 700,000 people displaced annually over the past decade due to natural disasters.⁴⁴ Climate-induced displacement, therefore, functions as a multiplier of gendered harm, systematically undermining the rights and safety of women and girls.
Climate-induced internal displacement therefore operates not as an isolated environmental phenomenon but as a structural mechanism through which multiple human rights are simultaneously violated and perpetuated across generations.
International and National Legal Frameworks
International Framework
At the international level, IDPs affected by climate-induced displacement have important instruments that support their human rights claims. The 2005 Inuit Human Rights Petition was the first time that a community officially linked climate change to human rights violations, petitioning the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.⁴⁵ Later, the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report established a clear link between climate change and human rights, stating that climate change has consequences for “many of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to life, to the means of subsistence, to health, to property, and, in some cases, to the homeland itself.”⁴⁶
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement provide the most comprehensive framework for protecting IDPs.⁴⁷ These principles establish that states have the primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to IDPs within their jurisdiction, and that IDPs retain all the rights and freedoms under international and domestic law enjoyed by other citizens. The IASC Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters further clarify that the rights-based approach applies equally to natural disasters as to conflict-induced displacement.⁴⁸
Key international human rights instruments also apply to climate-induced IDPs. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) protects the right to life, liberty, and security of person.⁴⁹ The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) guarantees the rights to adequate housing, food, water, health, and education.⁵⁰ The Convention on the Rights of the Child ensures special protections for displaced children.⁵¹ In 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion confirming that states have obligations under international human rights law to take positive measures to prevent foreseeable human rights harm caused by climate change.⁵²
National Framework: Bangladesh
Bangladesh has made progress by incorporating a human rights-based approach (HRBA) in the National Strategy on Internal Displacement Management (NSIDM), explicitly recognizing the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in climate-related contexts.⁵³ The strategy addresses prevention, protection, and durable solutions. However, gaps remain in implementation, monitoring, and mainstreaming across national policies.
The Disaster Management Act 2012 provides the legal foundation for disaster risk reduction and response in Bangladesh.⁵⁴ However, it focuses primarily on emergency response rather than the long-term protection needs of displaced persons. The Act grants broad powers to government authorities but does not explicitly recognize the rights of IDPs or establish mechanisms for their protection during and after displacement.⁵⁵
The Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP 2009) was one of the first national climate policies to acknowledge climate-induced displacement.⁵⁶ However, when evaluated through a human rights lens, the BCCSAP falls short in several areas. While it mentions migration as an adaptation strategy, it lacks specific provisions for protecting the rights of displaced persons. The strategy does not address participation rights, non-discrimination, or accountability mechanisms that are central to a human rights-based approach.⁵⁷
More recent policy developments show some improvement. The National Strategy on Internal Displacement Management (NSIDM 2021) represents a significant step forward by explicitly adopting a human rights-based approach.⁵⁸ The National Adaptation Plan (NAP 2023-2050) and the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan (2022-2041) acknowledge displacement as a critical issue, but they still lack detailed implementation frameworks and do not fully integrate the NSIDM’s human rights commitments.⁵⁹⁻⁶⁰
Frameworks like NAPA, BCCSAP, National Plan for Disaster Management, Disaster Management Act 2012, National Adaptation Plan (NAP 2023–2050), and the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan either overlook IDPs or fail to fully protect their rights. These shortcomings leave vulnerable populations at risk, undermining rights to life, shelter, health, food, and participation. From the standpoint of the effects of climate change in Bangladesh, the human rights-based approach can provide numerous benefits, including claims for compensation from developed states, claims for financial assistance for climate change adaptation and mitigation, and the development of national policies and adaptation strategies. Failure to do so could lead to prolonged displacement, resulting in humanitarian catastrophes with significant social and economic repercussions. As a result, both the government of Bangladesh and the international community must promptly address this issue in a long-term and proactive manner.
Recommendations
Revise Existing Policies: Amend NAPA, BCCSAP, Disaster Management Act, and National Plan for Disaster Management to include provisions explicitly protecting IDPs and adopt a full human rights-based approach.
Mainstream NSIDM: Integrate NSIDM into NAP (2023–2050) and the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan to embed displacement concerns in national climate policies.
Strengthen NTFoD Implementation: Introduce an Implementation Guidance System with a lead ministry, clear responsibilities, cross-sector data sharing, collaborative platforms, timelines, and a review mechanism to monitor progress.
Protect Rights of IDPs: Ensure IDPs’ participation in decision-making, uphold free, prior, and informed consent, guarantee access to housing, food, water, healthcare, and livelihoods, and implement non-discrimination safeguards for vulnerable groups.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Conduct regular monitoring and use data-driven evaluation to continuously improve NSIDM implementation and alignment with human rights obligations.
Conclusion
Climate-induced displacement in Bangladesh represents not merely an environmental challenge but a profound human rights crisis that demands urgent policy intervention. As this report has demonstrated, the 2.4 million people displaced by climate-related disasters in 2024 alone face systematic violations of their rights to life, health, education, and adequate housing—violations that are particularly severe for women and girls who confront compounded vulnerabilities including child marriage and trafficking. While Bangladesh has taken important steps toward recognizing these challenges through the National Strategy on Internal Displacement Management, the gap between policy articulation and implementation leaves millions of displaced persons without meaningful protection.
The recommendations outlined above provide a clear pathway forward: mainstreaming human rights protections across all climate and disaster policies, strengthening coordination mechanisms, and centering the voices and needs of displaced communities in decision-making processes. Without decisive action, climate-induced displacement will continue to strip vulnerable Bangladeshis of their fundamental rights, perpetuating cycles of poverty, inequality, and marginalization that undermine the nation’s broader development goals. The human rights-based approach is not simply a legal obligation—it is a practical necessity for building resilience, ensuring dignity, and creating durable solutions for the millions of Bangladeshis on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Endnotes
Earthjustice, “Inuit Human Rights Petition Filed over Climate Change,” December 7, 2005.
Stephen Humphreys (ed), Human Rights and Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 10.
Ibid.
Kisinger Chakma and Kenichi Matsui, “Responding to Climate-Induced Displacement in Bangladesh: A Governance Perspective,” Sustainability 13, no. 14 (2021): 7788.
IDMC, “Disaster displacement risk in Bangladesh: An overview of the risk of future displacement,” February 10, 2026.
World Bank, Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration (2021); Daily Star, “Climate Impact on Country’s Coastal Region: 13.3 million at risk of displacement by 2050,” September 14, 2021.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, The National Strategy on Internal Displacement (NSIDM), 2021.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2009, Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2009.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, National Adaptation Plan of Bangladesh (2023-2050), Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2022.
Conectus Human Rights, “What is climate displacement? Understanding the causes and consequences,” March 7, 2024.
Ibid.
IDMC, “Disaster displacement risk in Bangladesh.”
Ibid.
Ibid.
Tasneem Siddiqui, “Climate change induced displacement: Migration as an adaption strategy,” Daily Star, November 14, 2011.
Ibid.
Koko Warner, “Assessing institutional and governance needs related to environmental change and human migration” (2010).
Mohammad Tarikul Islam, “Disaster and Climate-Induced Migration in Bangladesh: A Potential Threat to Human Security,” Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, September 22, 2024.
Ibid.
UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the relationship between climate change and human rights, A/HRC/10/61, January 15, 2009.
IPCC, “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (2007), p. 104.
Ibid.
Matthew Walsham, “Assessing the Evidence: Environment, Climate Change and Migration in Bangladesh,” IOM (2010).
Ibid.
Staff Correspondent, “11 cyclones claimed nearly 4,000 lives since 2007,” The Financial Express, May 4, 2022.
Md Iqbal Kabir, Masud Billah Rahman, Wayne Smith, Mst Asma Ferdushi Lusha, and Abul Hasnat Milton, “Climate change and health in Bangladesh: a baseline cross-sectional survey,” Global Health Action 9, no. 1 (2016): 29609.
Government of Bangladesh, “Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh Damage, Loss and Needs Assessment For Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction” (2008).
UNICEF, “Climate Change Displacement and Right to Education: Bangladesh Country Case Study” (2022).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Z. R. M. Abdullah Kaiser, “Analysis of the livelihood and health of internally displaced persons due to riverbank erosion in Bangladesh,” Journal of Migration and Health 7 (2023): 100157.
Ibid.
Thomas W. Crawford, Md Sariful Islam, Munshi Khaledur Rahman, Bimal Kanti Paul, Scott Curtis, Md. Giashuddin Miah, and Md. Rafiqul Islam, “Coastal Erosion and Human Perceptions of Revetment Protection in the Lower Meghna Estuary of Bangladesh,” Remote Sensing 12, no. 18 (2020): 3108.
Kaiser, “Analysis of the livelihood and health.”
Ibid.
Displacement Solutions, “Climate Displacement in Bangladesh: The Need for Urgent Housing, Land and Property Rights Solutions,” June 13, 2011.
Ibid.
Aminur Rahman and Rehanuma Tabasum, “Climate Change and Internal Displacement: Women’s Voices from Bangladesh,” Refugee Law Initiative, June 10, 2025.
Ibid.
“Invisible Victims: Bangladesh’s growing climate displacement crisis,” The Climate Watch, July 9, 2025.
Mehedi Hasan Marof, “’One less mouth to feed’: Climate disasters linked to child marriage in Bangladesh,” PreventionWeb, May 17, 2024.
International Rescue Committee, “Bangladesh: IRC study reveals a staggering 39% surge in child marriage due to climate change,” December 6, 2023; Khandaker Jafor Ahmed, Abu Hayat Md Saiful Islam, Khurshid Alam, and Jeff Gow, “Child marriage, climate vulnerability and natural disasters in coastal Bangladesh,” Journal of Biosocial Science 53, no. 6 (2021): 948-967.
Dr Reetika Revathy Subramanian, “Climate Brides: (Un)Tying the knots between climate change and child marriage,” Anti-Trafficking Review, issue 25 (2025): 52-70.
U.S. Department of State, 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report: Bangladesh, June 24, 2024.
Earthjustice, “Inuit Human Rights Petition Filed over Climate Change,” December 7, 2005.
IPCC, “Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability—Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (2007).
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, July 1998.
IASC, “IASC Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters” (2006).
UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Treaty Series, vol. 999, p. 171 (1966).
UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 993 UNTS 3 (1966).
UN General Assembly, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Treaty Series, 1577, 3 (1989).
Corina Heri, “Human Rights in the ICJ’s Climate Opinion: A Comparative Evaluation,” VerfBlog, August 1, 2025.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, The National Strategy on Internal Displacement (NSIDM), 2021.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, The Disaster Management Act 2012, Act No 34 of 2012.
Ibid.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2009, Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2009.
Matthew Scott, “Human Rights-Based Tool for Evaluating Legal and Policy Responses to Displacement in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change,” Raoul Wallenberg Institute, 2020.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, The National Strategy on Internal Displacement (NSIDM), 2021.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, National Adaptation Plan of Bangladesh (2023-2050), Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2022.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan 2022-2041, Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2022.