Libya slave auction raises tough questions

It took six or seven minutes to auction 12 migrants, or about half a minute to haggle over the worth of each human life.

Footage of the auction shot in an undisclosed Libyan town and aired on CNN almost two weeks ago has since sparked global outrage. There were protests, condemnations, promises to investigate and even calls to declare Libya’s slave markets a crime against humanity.

While this story may be the flashpoint that rallies the world to action, we must not forget that the auctions, happening in at least nine locations according to CNN, were hardly taking place in a vacuum.

Each of those locations is not a just dot isolated on a map. Rather, it is part of a complex transnational network whose roots lie far beyond Libya.

BETTER LIFE

It is a network that is nourished by a series of malaises that are pushing Africans from their homes on the illusory promise of a better life abroad.

These malaises are also partly fuelling other types of transnational crimes, including wildlife and drug trafficking.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that there are between 700,000 and one million migrants in Libya, most of whom are planning an onward journey to Europe. Niger, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria and Chad are the main countries of origin.

The latest IOM surveys of migrants in Libya show that they are young - 29-years-old on average - and that 88 per cent of them have left their home countries for economic reasons. The journey to a better future quickly turns sour for most of these migrants.

MIGRANTS

IOM, the United Nations migration agency, has recorded the horrors these migrants go through on their journey across the desert and later across the Mediterranean, the “world’s deadliest” border crossing.

Libyan authorities, supported by the European Union (EU), have recently been intercepting more boats headed for Europe. The plan has had unintended consequences — traffickers are now stuck with migrants whom they cannot push off to sea. It is these migrants that are finding themselves on auction blocs, painfully reminiscent of the slave markets of the past.

Present conditions indicate that the crisis is likely to get worse. This is exacerbated by the effects of climate change as well as the security threat posed by terrorism.

Governments in the region seem unable to singularly address these challenges.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The gravity of human trafficking and modern slavery cannot and should not be compared to other crimes. However, the story of the migration crisis that led to those migrants being auctioned off has uncomfortable echoes for us here at the Africa Wildlife Foundation (AWF).

Both human and wildlife trafficking are fuelled by – and contribute to – insecurity. Criminal networks profit by beggaring the dignity of life and putting a dollar value on something that ought to be priceless.

The international community recognises that wildlife trafficking belongs among a group of transnational crimes, including drug, arms and human trafficking, that are raking in  billions in profit for terror groups and other organised criminal organisations.

TERRORISM

In our work in Central Africa, we have increasingly seen the nexus between terrorism, climate change, wildlife and human trafficking.

These crises overlap and feed off each other. Conflict has pushed humans out of their homes, to seek refuge or to fight in areas that have traditionally been the territory of wildlife. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) funded its operations by hunting elephants while it swelled its ranks by abducting children.

The parallels between human and wildlife trafficking suggest that they cannot be addressed in isolation.

The instability that fuels and is fuelled by these atrocities often bleeds across borders, meaning that solutions must similarly be transnational.

Mr Sebunya is President of African Wildlife Foundation. [email protected]