The Libyan slave trade markets
A similar agreement was signed with the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, and the effect was a near total blockade of all the routes into Italy, as well as into Libya usually taken by human traffickers. As a consequence, thousands of the migrants were trapped inside Libya, some in various detention camps set up by Libya and financed by the EU. The timing of the blockade coincided with the peak of demand for laborers by Libyan farmers.
In the absence of their traditional Malian, Burkinabe and Nigerienne seasonal workers, the Libyan farmers engaged any able-bodied migrant to work for them. On the other hand, the traffickers - Nigerians, Libyans and Maltese - who could no longer ferry their trafficked victims across the Mediterranean to Italy, at the cost of between $2000 and $3000, had the opportunity to cut their loses by selling off the migrants. Slave trade is like any other economic transaction; there is demand, supply and price. With the glut in the market, the price of the slaves plummeted from $1000 per person to about $300. Apparently, Nigerians, Ghanaians and Senegalese were the most affected. The slaves will continue to work on farms until they are able to redeem themselves for $3000 - $4000, about ten times the price they were bought. In this deal, you can say, “Everybody is Happy”! It’s a very lucrative business, which cannot be stopped by moral situation alone. And, as far as the Europeans are concerned stopping the inflow of the migrants is the most important thing to them; the end justifies the means.
At least four of these markets are in areas controlled by Marshall Haftar. Being outside the control of the Tripoli-based government, poses huge difficulty for Nigeria to arrange the evacuation of her citizens, without having talks with the Marshall, or his secret protégé, the Italians. The promise made by President Buhari to repatriate and rehabilitate “all the Nigerians stranded in Libya and other parts of the world”, is very encouraging but how realistic is it, when Nigerian illegal migrants litter every country on the earth? Also, should relieving the self-inflicted pains of the migrants be given priority over the 2 million IDPs in various parts of the country, who are yet to be rehabilitated in spite of a similar promise? In the last ten years not less than 100 repatriation missions of Nigerian migrants in Libya had been carried out - some of which I was involved in - but sadly, majority of the returnees re-embarked on the same treacherous journey a few months later. I am, therefore, not sanguine if the on-going repatriation would yield a different result unless the government decides to take a hard look at the socio-economic factors that push our youth to risk their lives in crossing the desert, the Sea, and facing the possibility of being sold as slaves, all for the dream of a better life in Europe! Lakhdar Brahimi, the iconic UN and Algerian diplomat said, “Our Youths are not running to Europe; we are pushing them”! At Nigeria’s current population growth rate, unless urgent action is taken to control it, by 2050 Nigeria could end up with at least 250 million restive youth. At that stage even the ECOWAS free movement protocol could collapse!
Amb. M.K. Ibrahim, was former Nigerian Ambassador to Libya.