Why Child Trafficking Spikes After Natural Disasters—and What We Can Do About It

Why do these natural disasters make children so vulnerable to trafficking—and what can be done about it?

The "missing children playing cards" are displayed by Shen Hao, founder of the missing person wetsite XRQS.com, in Beijing, China, on March 31, 2007. The cards show photographs, informations of 27 missing children and Shen Hao plans to hand them out for free to the public security departments, civil affairs bureaus, and residents, in areas notorious for child trafficking. Shen, 38, a resident in Chuzhou of central China's Anhui Province, set up the wetsite in 2001 and later founded a network of volunteers dedicated to finding missing people. China Photos/Getty Images

When a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in April 2015, it killed well over 8,000 people and turned much of the country into a disaster zone. 17 days later, as recovery operations were getting established, a 7.3 magnitude quake caused further destruction.

In the desolation, chaos, and widespread panic that followed a surge in child trafficking was almost inevitable, just as it was after the 2004 tsunami in southern Asia, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa, the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines, and many other natural disasters besides.

So why do these disasters make children so vulnerable to trafficking—and what can be done about it?

H'mong ethnic girl Kiab (whose name has been changed to protect her identity) looks out from a window at a center for trafficked women in the northern city of Lao Cai on May 9, 2014. When Kiab turned 16, her brother promised to take her to a party in a tourist town in northern Vietnam. Instead, he sold her to a Chinese family as a bride. Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images