At the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights Asia-Pacific, international human rights lawyer Dr Cynthia Umezulike has called for strengthened human rights due diligence across global agrifood systems, warning that climate change is deepening the exploitation of migrant workers and rural women while accountability frameworks lag behind.

Speaking as chair of the high-level panel, “Fields to Fairness: Gender and Migrant Labour Rights in Climate-Vulnerable Agrifood Systems,” Umezulike said agrifood supply chains now sit at the crossroads of climate disruption, food insecurity, unsafe migration and gender inequality, yet remain among the least regulated sectors in the global economy.

The session, jointly organised by the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Centre for Business and Child Rights and the Global Human Rights Centre, brought together policymakers, civil society leaders and practitioners from across the Asia-Pacific region.

“Agrifood systems are on the frontline of climate disruption,” Umezulike said. “Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, land degradation and climate-induced displacement are not abstract threats. They are daily realities undermining the safety, dignity and livelihoods of millions of workers.”

She noted that migrant labourers and rural women, who sustain food production worldwide, remain largely invisible within corporate risk assessments and policy responses.

“These workers harvest our food, yet are too often denied fair wages, safe working conditions, legal protection and access to remedy,” she said. “Climate change in agrifood systems is not only an environmental challenge, it is a profound human rights crisis.”

The forum, held under the theme “Anchoring Progress and Strengthening Regional Leadership on Human Rights through Crisis,” examined how businesses and governments can better integrate human rights into responses to climate and labour vulnerabilities.

Umezulike argued that human rights due diligence must move beyond compliance checklists towards models that embed climate justice, gender equity and migrant worker protection into corporate and regulatory decision-making.

“Human rights due diligence cannot be a tick-box exercise,” she said. “It must become a tool for climate-just, gender-responsive and inclusive accountability, especially in sectors most exposed to climate risk and labour exploitation.”

Participants at the session stressed that responsibility extends across the value chain, involving governments, investors, businesses, civil society and consumers, but that progress depends on leadership capable of delivering real remedies rather than symbolic commitments.

“Leadership is not about glossy sustainability reports,” Umezulike said. “It is about accountability, strengthening remedy pathways and investing in sustainable livelihoods instead of extracting labour while externalising harm.”

Quoting Eleanor Roosevelt’s reminder that human rights begin “in small places, close to home,” she added that protections must be meaningful for women in rural markets and migrant workers in remote agricultural fields if they are to have substance.

“If human rights do not protect a woman selling food in a local market, or a migrant worker harvesting crops under extreme heat, then they do not protect anyone,” she said.

Looking ahead, Umezulike outlined three priorities: embedding climate justice, gender equality and migrant labour rights into due diligence frameworks; scaling inclusive models that bring affected workers into decision-making; and strengthening cross-sector and regional collaboration to deliver fair and accessible remedies.

The session concluded with a call to transform agrifood systems from sites of exploitation into engines of fairness and resilience.

“We must move from fields of exclusion to systems of fairness,” Umezulike said. “Justice and dignity must be harvested alongside the food that sustains us all.”