Africas new slave trade: how migrants flee poverty to get sucked into a world of violent crime

[muriel_volestrangler]

Less well-known are the dangers of Libya itself for migrants fleeing poverty across West Africa. The country’s slide into chaos following the 2011 death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the collapse of the government have made it a breeding ground for crime and exploitation. Two rival governments, an Isis franchise and countless local militias competing for control of a vast, sparsely populated territory awash in weapons, have allowed traffickers to flourish, checked only by the activities of their criminal rivals.
...
Female migrants are generally sold into sexual slavery, a trade so lucrative it makes them more valuable as a commodity than men. In Sabha, the clearing house and brothel used for trafficking migrant women was well-known, said Fasan Olaside, a 27-year-old Nigerian builder who was himself kidnapped and held for ransom twice inside Libya.
...
They said captors looked for skilled tradesmen among new slaves, and sold electricians, plumbers and others to buyers who needed particular trades. The rest were auctioned off as labourers, or often simply held as human bargaining chips. In grim private jails, their captors forced them to call families across West Africa, demanding ransoms of hundreds of dollars.

Those whose families can’t or won’t pay are beaten and tortured, often while smugglers are on the phone to relatives, the cries of agony used to wring out faster payment. “People were tied up like goats, beaten with broom handles and pipes every blessed day, to get the money,” said Isoomah, from Liberia. “If they do not do that, the money will not come.”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/13/modern-slavery-african-migrants-libya

The article points out that other countries still have the largest numbers of people living in effective slavery: the Global Slavery Iindex estimates that 58% of those living in slavery are in five countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

[Igel]

1. Linguistic legerdemain.

In many cases people do sell themselves or others into slavery. For example, the Irish in the 2800s. (An example not usually accepted, though it meets the definition used.)

Or they pay somebody who betrays them, and

Note that for most people "slavery" means chattel slavery in which people are taken by force and held by force sanctioned by law.

Many people operate at the level of words. Define a word and let meanings slip and they don't notice.

18th century chattel slavery =/= indentured servitude =/= war slavery or the way slavery is run mostly by immigrants in the west or sweatshops or even traditional marriage. The details matter for accuracy but for rhetorical purposes are obscured.

A lot of "modern slavery" is a known risk. In some cases it's chosen by parents for their kids. Some kinds can be mitigated by stopping something illegal--betrayal by human traffickers or illegal immigration. By stopping abuses by those wrangling visas for their future slaves. Or by revamping traditional cultures and imposing Western "universal" values.

In more than a few cases the slaves could easily escape. It's not their owners but their cultures or needs or ignorance binding them.

The Guardian often engages in rhetoric and bills it as fact.