Civil Rights Issues in Libya

 Ethan Zweig

Mr. Roddy

IHSS

April 7, 2021


The Libyan Slave Trade



            In November a special report revealed that African migrants seeking to get into Europe were being sold as slaves by some criminal gangs in Libya. Libya has become the face of the new "Middle Passage"  to Europe according to CNN. In 2017, between 700,000 and 1 million African migrants died at sea making the voyage across the Mediterranean Sea. According to a reporter most of these migrants in Libya "are feeling armed conflict, persecution or severe economic hardship in sub-Saharan Africa". Another problem in Libya are their issues with jobs. This young African migrant said that they can either jump on the back of truck for a job for construction or sit in the back of a pickup to be sent to a detention center. He also said that on a good day at his job he makes five dollars and there are days where his contractor would refuse to pay him after an exhausting journey. When migrants arrive in Tripoli, they are put in prison. Tripoli has prisons that only have Africans where they beat them on a daily bases. The migrant said that they let him use a mobile phone to call his family back in Nigeria but while he was calling his sister, they still kept beating him. They also told his sister that she had to pay 740 dollars (1,000 Libyan dinars) as a ransom, otherwise they would beat him to death. There are estimate to be three million refugees in Libya. The migrants wait and work towards the passage to Europe. "What else could we possibly do?" says Basiru, a 32 year old Gambian. "There's nothing for me back home and I rather prefer to risk my life at sea than staying in this country."




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