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Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Poverty drives the unsuspecting poor into the hands of traffickers

Published reports & articles from 2000 to 2025                               gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Libya.htm

Great Socialist People's

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Libya)

The Libyan economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector, which contribute about 95% of export earnings, about one-quarter of GDP, and 60% of public sector wages.

Substantial revenues from the energy sector coupled with a small population give Libya one of the highest per capita GDPs in Africa, but little of this income flows down to the lower orders of society.  [The World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

Description: Description: Description: Description: Libya

Libya is a transit and destination country for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Migrants typically seek employment in Libya as laborers and domestic employees or transit Libya en route to Europe.

In some cases, smuggling debts and illegal status leave migrants vulnerable to coercion, resulting in cases of forced prostitution and forced labor; employers of irregular migrants sometimes withhold payment or travel documents. As in previous years, there were reports that women from sub-Saharan Africa were trafficked to Libya for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009  Check out a later country report here and possibly a full TIP Report here

 

CAUTION:  The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Libya.  Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false.  No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

HOW TO USE THIS WEB-PAGE

Students

If you are looking for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this page and others to see which aspects of Human Trafficking are of particular interest to you.  Would you like to write about Forced-Labor?  Debt Bondage? Prostitution? Forced Begging? Child Soldiers? Sale of Organs? etc.  On the other hand, you might choose to include precursors of trafficking such as poverty and hunger. There is a lot to the subject of Trafficking.  Scan other countries as well.  Draw comparisons between activity in adjacent countries and/or regions.  Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources that are available on-line.

Teachers

Check out some of the Resources for Teachers attached to this website.

*** FEATURED ARTICLE ***

Libya’s “UN-Human” Rights Record Oil money trumps slavery and human rights in UN Election

Tommy Calvert, Jr., Chief of External Operations, American Anti-Slavery Group, January 29, 2003

jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/10638.htm

[accessed 18 February 2011]

Many of you are aware of the plight of southern Sudanese who are enslaved in Sudan. Most of you are probably not aware that some of these slaves end up in Libya and are sold into bondage. The Libyan government has not put a stop to these practices and, with Libya's dismal human rights record, we are hardly surprised.

Not only does Libya have a long record of supporting international terrorism but Libya has also terrorized its own people through torture, persecution of political opposition, suppression of workers rights, and arbitrary prison detainment of innocent people considered a threat to the state.   How can a nation that does not actively prevent the sale of slaves be permitted to chair the UN Commission on Human Rights?

 

*** ARCHIVES ***

How to stop the slave trade in Libya and beyond’

Maurice Middleberg, CNN, 5 January 2021

www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/opinions/maurice-middleberg-stopping-the-slave-trade/index.html

[accessed 16 February 2021]

The men who ended up being captured and sold in Libya were migrating because the conditions in their home communities are so desperate that risky behaviors seem warranted.

Punishing the slave traders and repatriating the victims, while needed, will not change the objective reality that drives migration. Moreover, the families, friends and neighbors in those communities are in a similar situation. That’s why it’s important to think of slavery as an ill befalling vulnerable communities, rather than individuals.

Slavery stems from vulnerability. Slave traders and slaveholders most often target the hamlets, villages and neighborhoods that are impoverished, marginalized and stigmatized.

Bangladeshis killed in Libya: Injured survivors recount haunting experience

Hasan Al Javed, Dhaka Tribune, 4 October 2020

www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2020/10/04/9-injured-bangladeshi-human-trafficking-victims-repatriated-from-libya

[accessed 7 October 2020]

On 28 May, 26 Bangladeshi citizens were killed and 12 others injured, in a gun attack by human traffickers in Mizdah, Libya.

Citizens of Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, and Sudan who wanted to go to Italy or France in Europe, were taken to war-torn Libya via India-Dubai-Egypt on travel visas. There, youths from Bangladesh and other countries were sold, or kidnapped and tortured for ransom money.

There were 130-140 people from Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana, including 30-40 women, who were also held captive, he added.

Regarding going abroad, most of the victims said they were assured of work visas in Europe by local brokers and signed agreements for Tk12-15 lakh.

Then, as instructed by the brokers, they arrived at the airport in Benghazi from either Hazrat Shahjalal Airport in Dhaka or Mumbai airport, via Dubai-Egypt. They were sold to human traffickers in Libya after they arrived in Benghazi.

Libya: 85 percent of migrants subjected to torture

Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (Italian news agency) ANSA, 20 March 2020

www.infomigrants.net/en/post/23580/libya-85-percent-of-migrants-subjected-to-torture

[accessed 7 April 21, 2020]

A report by the organization Doctors for Human Rights has found that 85% of migrants and refugees who reached Italy from Libya had been subjected to torture in the African country.

Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU) released a report titled "The Torture Factory" on Tuesday. The organization gathered accounts from more than 3,000 migrants and refugees who had reached Italy from Libya between 2014 and 2020 .

They found that 85% of those migrants and refugees had been subjected to "torture, violence, and inhumane and degrading treatment" in Libya.

Two-thirds had reportedly been detained. Almost 50% had been kidnapped or nearly died. Nine out of ten said they had watched someone die, be killed, or tortured.

"A high number of those interviewed said they were subjected to forced labor or conditions of slavery for months or years," according to the reports.

Somali torture survivor reunited with her sons in Niger

Louise Donovan, UN High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR, Niamey Niger, 11 April 2018

www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2018/4/5acc80524/somali-torture-survivor-reunited-sons-niger.html

[accessed 15 April 2018]

"When I arrived in Libya, I was walking, nobody had to help me … but look at me now," she says, holding up her badly broken arms in despair, her legs paralyzed.

The 42-year-old is among thousands of refugees and asylum seekers from across Africa who set out on desperate journeys in search of safety, who all too often end up the captives of ruthless human traffickers in Libya.

Held for ransom for months in dire conditions, many are subjected to abuse and torture that marks them for life.

She was given electric shocks and beaten, she says. “They always tied my hands behind my back, and afterwards, they would leave me outside, tied up in the cold.”

2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Libya

U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 30 March 2021

www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/libya/

[accessed 14 June 2021]

PROHIBITION OF FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR

In 2018 the UN Security Council imposed sanctions against a commander from the Libyan Coast Guard and three other Libyans with close links to fundamentalist terror groups for their roles in human trafficking and labor exploitation. The resources, inspections, and penalties for violations were insufficient to deter violators.

There were numerous anecdotal reports of migrants and IDPs being subjected to forced labor by human traffickers. According to numerous press reports, individuals were compelled to support the armed groups that enslaved them, including by preparing and transporting weapons. Others were forced to perform manual labor on farms, at industrial and construction facilities, and in homes under threat of violence.

Private employers sometimes used detained migrants from prisons and detention centers as forced labor on farms or construction sites; when the work was completed or the employers no longer required the migrants’ labor, employers returned them to detention facilities.

PROHIBITION OF CHILD LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT

There were reports of children forced into labor or military service by nonstate armed groups. These accounts were difficult to verify due to the absence of independent monitoring organizations and the ongoing hostilities.

Freedom House Country Report

2020 Edition

freedomhouse.org/country/libya/freedom-world/2020

[accessed 1 May 2020]

G4. DO INDIVIDUALS ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION?

There are few protections against exploitative labor practices. Forced labor, sexual exploitation, abuse in detention facilities, and starvation are widespread among migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, many of whom are beholden to human traffickers. The International Organization for Migration reported that there were more than 654,000 migrants in Libya at the end of 2019.

Libya lacks comprehensive laws criminalizing human trafficking, and the authorities have been either incapable of enforcing existing bans or complicit in trafficking activity. Traffickers have taken advantage of civil unrest to establish enterprises in which refugees and migrants are loaded into overcrowded boats that are then abandoned in the Mediterranean Sea, where passengers hope to be rescued and taken to Europe. The voyages often result in fatalities.

Migrants in Libya risk rape and torture before reaching Mediterranean

Louisa Loveluck, The Telegraph, Cairo, 11 May 2015

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/11596262/Migrants-in-Libya-risk-rape-and-torture-before-reaching-Mediterranean.html

[accessed 19 May 2015]

Many would-be migrants are handed over to criminal groups when they enter Libya, according to the report by Amnesty International, published as the European Union prepares to secure a UN mandate for armed action in the country’s territorial waters.

The smugglers or criminal groups sometimes hold their charges for ransom, extracting payment through torture, the report says. Those who are unable to pay are often held as slaves.

A 17-year-old boy from Ivory Coast is quoted as saying, when he told his captor that he had no family members left alive to pay a ransom, the beatings intensified and he was told: “You will join them in death if you don’t pay.”

State Department Reports on the Use of Child Soldiers

Victoria Garcia, Center for Defense Information CDI, April 14, 2004

ACCESS IS RESTRICTED

[accessed 18 February 2011]

[scroll down]

LIBYA - Despite the Penal Code's prohibition on slavery, citizens have been implicated in the purchase of Sudanese slaves, mainly southern Sudanese women and children, who were captured by Sudanese government troops in the ongoing civil war in Sudan.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 6 June 2003

www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/libyanarabjamahiriya2003.html

[accessed 18 February 2011]

[43] The Committee is concerned about reports of trafficking of children to the State party for the purposes of prostitution and slavery.  The Committee is concerned that there is a lack of information and awareness of the trafficking and prostitution of children.

The Protection Project - Libya

The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University

www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/libya.doc

[accessed 2009]

www.protectionproject.org/country-reports/

[accessed 13 February 2019]

A Human Rights Report on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children

FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - Libya’s location on the southern Mediterranean coast makes it an ideal transit country for traffickers or smugglers on their way to Europe. Libya’s long and unpoliced desert borders allow people from African countries to be brought into the country undetected,  and Libya’s 2,000-kilometer northern coastal border allows traffickers direct sea access to Europe.

*** EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE ***

Freedom House Country Report

2018 Edition

freedomhouse.org/country/libya/freedom-world/2018

[accessed 1 May 2020]

G4. DO INDIVIDUALS ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION?

Forced labor, sexual exploitation, abuse in detention facilities, and starvation are widespread among migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, many of whom are beholden to human traffickers. There are an estimated 750,000 to 1 million migrants in the country.

Libya lacks comprehensive laws criminalizing human trafficking, and the authorities have been either incapable of enforcing existing bans or complicit in trafficking activity. Traffickers have taken advantage of civil unrest to establish enterprises in which refugees and migrants are loaded into overcrowded boats that are then abandoned in the Mediterranean Sea, where passengers hope to be rescued and taken to Europe. The voyages often result in fatalities.

A series of reports by foreign media during 2017 exposed a growing practice in which detained migrants are sold as slaves or rented out to perform forced labor. The reports linked the trend to an increased backlog of migrants in the country as European governments work with local authorities and militias to reduce sea crossings.

Human Rights Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006

2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61694.htm

[accessed 9 February 2020]

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – Women were trafficked through the country from Africa to Central Europe. It was also considered a destination country for victims from Africa and Asia trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation. Moroccan women reportedly were trafficked to the capital to work as prostitutes. The government engaged in joint collaborations with other affected countries to combat human trafficking.

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