By now you’ve seen the news.
53 migrants and refugees dead in an airstrike.1
Africans being sold off for forced labor.2
Disappearances. Appalling disease.
Detainees being forced to take up arms in the Libyan civil war.3
The world was shocked when news of slave markets in Libya broke two years ago, but since then cases of modern slavery in Libya have evolved considerably. And they are all linked back to migrant detention centers and the money and power fueling their existence.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations have all documented major human rights violations and clear cases of modern slavery in these facilities.
So who’s throwing these vulnerable people behind bars?
The Libyan Coastguard — supported generously by funding from the European Union.4,5
In a bid to prevent refugees and migrants from reaching the shores of Europe, the Libyan Coastguard has increased its interception of boats in the Mediterranean Sea, returning those on board to Libya and locking them up in migrant detention centers.6
And as the devastating, deadly airstrike on the Tajoura migrant detention center shows, these facilities are now targets in the country’s ongoing conflict and no place for refugees to live.
We know racism within Libya is contributing to the problem as well; black and dark-skinned refugees and migrants from Sub-Saharan African are the majority of those trafficked and subjected to forced labor. The United Nations even reported that “a commonly used word to refer to black people in Libya is ‘abidat’, which translates to “slaves.”7
Take it from Leyla, a Somali refugee.
“We barely ate and there wasn’t enough water. So many people were sick with TB, some died in my arms. I was beaten up and we were tortured – with electricity,” she said.8
She and her husband fled Islamist al-Shabab militants in Somalia in 2016 but ended up in the hands of human traffickers in Libya. When they managed to escape their traffickers, the couple boarded an inflatable boat, hoping to cross the Mediterranean.
But when their boat ran out of fuel it was the Libyan Coastguard that forcibly took them to Tripoli, locking them up in the Triq al-Sikka Detention Center. Running out of hope that they would be freed, her husband set himself on fire, burning to death.
We must break this cycle of exploitation.
And that starts with putting pressure on the EU. Telling the EU to put human lives before inhume immigration policies that are sending refugees and migrants back into danger in Libya.
Your signature tells the EU that it can no longer be complicit in allowing modern slavery to persist in Libya. Act now.
Notes:
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/07/libya-investigate-abhorrent-attack-on-migrant-detention-centre/ ↩
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/iom-african-migrants-traded-libya-slave-markets-170411141809641.html ↩
- https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000006594318/europe-shut-african-migrants-out-libyan-rebels-bombed-them.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share ↩
- https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jan/21/eu-support-for-libya-contributes-to-extreme-abuse-of-refugees-human-rights-watch-study ↩
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/08/un-accuses-libyan-linked-to-eu-funded-coastguard-of-people-trafficking ↩
- https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jul/10/under-fire-libya-refugee-detention-centres ↩
- https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/LY/LibyaMigrationReport.pdf ↩
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49154959 ↩
Tanya M.,
Thiago T.,
María F.,
Jonathan G.,
Jessica G.,
Mary K.,
nikolas m.,
Nissa M.,
Your link to Twitter does not work. It keeps bringing up the petition page instead of the Twitter box.
Hi Judith,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention! We are looking into it and will let you know once the issue has been resolved.
Dear Mr Antonio Goiters
I am a refugee .chronic refugee from Sudan lives in Yemen .according to Marrakesh declaration .I have this opinions in attached file a call it “HOME IS BEST INITIATIVE ”
which is more wise, to accept the millions of Africans malignant emigration to UE and Germany or establishing true democracy at their own countries.
Mr. Adil.M.A. Alamin
adilamin2002@yahoo.com
Are we turning the clock back to a new dark age? There are fresh talks about moon landings and beyond, driverless cars and even driverless boats, yet the only answer to overpopulation of the planet seems to be destroy the weak and the poor by any means, be it slavery, starvation, murder or neglect, or exploitation,
I don’t like this new world much …..and at 71 I won’t have too much longer on it…….thank God.
Yes, agree. All this money in the world held be a few and they could use it to help these poor poor desperate people but they don’t! The lives of the dispossessed and poor on this planet are just so awful. Save for a few nobody cares about these people. They are human beings like you and I and the perpetrators of this unspeakable cruelty must be held account for their actions.
May I remind people that Europeans were once slave traders, kidnapping and transporting Africans to America.
Your point being?
Yes and that ended over 150 years ago, but this in Libya is happening now. But go ahead scream about the distant past.
Sorry for my english. You have to keep in your mind that the real problem to change the actual situation is to change the ageement of DUBLIN. In order to share the migrant between all the county of Europe
Italy can not receive and manage all the migrant because has many social and criminal problems to solve herselves . we are not able to do that because we are not able to organize how to manage them. Italians are good to do other thigs like arts , music, food, etc. but not to manage people.