Worried about the climate disruption, UK-based international human rights lawyer, Dr Cynthia Umezulike, has called for the strengthening and sustaining of human rights due diligence across global agrifood systems.
She warned that climate change is accelerating the exploitation of migrant workers and rural women while accountability lags dangerously behind.
Umezulike stated this at the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights Asia-Pacific international, jointly organised by the United Nations International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Centre for Business and Child Rights, and the Global Human Rights Centre.
The Forum brought together policymakers, civil society leaders, experts, and practitioners from across the Asia-Pacific region.
Chairing the high-level panel with the theme, “Fields to Fairness: Gender and Migrant Labour Rights in Climate-Vulnerable Agrifood Systems,” Umezulike stressed that agrifood supply chains sit at the intersection of multiple crises, including climate breakdown, food insecurity, unsafe migration, and gender inequality, yet remain among the least regulated and most exploitative sectors in the global economy.
“Agrifood systems are on the frontline of climate disruption. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, land degradation, and climate-induced displacement are not abstract threats. They are daily realities that undermine the safety, dignity, and livelihoods of millions of workers,” she said.
Umezulike, who is also the President of the Global Human Rights Centre, emphasised that those most affected are migrant labourers and rural women.
According to her, they remain systematically invisible within corporate risk assessments and government responses, despite sustaining the food systems on which societies depend.
“These workers harvest our food, yet are too often denied fair wages, safe working conditions, legal protection, and access to remedies. Climate change is not just an environmental issue. In agrifood systems, it is a profound human rights crisis,” she said.
The discussion took place under the Forum’s theme, “Anchoring Progress and Strengthening Regional Leadership on Human Rights through Crisis.”
Umezulike argued that this moment demands a shift away from superficial compliance toward transformative human rights due diligence, one that integrates climate justice, gender equity, and migrant worker protection at its core.
Her words: “Human rights due diligence must evolve beyond tick-box exercises. It must become a tool for climate-justice, gender-responsive, and inclusive accountability, especially in sectors most exposed to climate risk and labour exploitation.”
Audience contributions during the session reinforced the message that responsibility is shared. Governments, businesses, investors, civil society, and consumers all have a role to play, but progress depends on leadership that delivers real remedies.
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Leadership, she said, is not about glossy commitments or polished sustainability reports, but about accountability, strengthening remedy pathways and investing in sustainable livelihoods, not extracting labour while externalising harm.
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