Minors accuse Libyan detention center of sexual assault News of the Middle East

A group of teenage migrant girls housed in a detention center by the Libyan government have accused guards of European Union-funded facilities of sexual assault, according to a report by the Associated Press.

A 17-year-old Somali girl, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the AP that she was raped by a guard in April at the Shara al-Zawiya center in the capital Tripoli. More girls at the center have come out with similar allegations, a calvary that some share with the AP.

The teenager was rescued by Libyan security forces in February, more than two years after he was caught by traffickers, who sexually abused him. Traffickers are notorious for migrating, torturing and attacking migrants and refugees like him in an attempt to reach Europe.

But the 17-year-old said sexual assaults against him continued, now only by guards at a government center that keeps many migrants or refugees.

He and four other Somali teenagers who suffer similar abuses are demanding the release of Shara al-Zawiya from the center.

It is one of the networks of centers run by the Libyan Department or DCIM to combat illegal immigration. The European Union supports Libya in its campaign to build Libya against African migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

“While it’s not the first time I’ve been sexually assaulted, it’s more painful than the people who need to protect us,” the 17-year-old told The Associated Press via a smuggled cell phone.

“You have to offer something to go to the bathroom, call family, or avoid being beaten,” he said. “It’s like traffickers arrest us.”

The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault, and asked not to name women either, fearing reprisals.

Smugglers and traffickers

In Libya, smugglers and traffickers – many of them members of militias – have long been known for brutalizing migrants. Rights groups and the United Nations say there is also ill-treatment in official facilities managed by DCIM.

“There is a lot of sexual violence and exploitation in detention centers (for migrants) across the country,” said Libyan activist Tarik Lamloum Belaady, who works with the Human Rights Organization.

The UN refugee agency has also documented hundreds of cases of women raped in DCIM arrests or in prisons for traffickers, some of whom are impregnated by guards and give birth during detention, said UNHCR special envoy for the Mediterranean, Vincent Cochetel.

The group of teenagers is the only migrants kept in Shara al-Zawiya, a facility that usually has only short processing times for migrants. Human rights organizations have said they have been ensuring release for weeks.

After being rescued from traffickers in February, the 17-year-old was taken to Shara al-Zawiya with eight other young migrant women. The other four were later released in clear circumstances.

One April night, around midnight, he said he had asked a guard to go to the bathroom. When he finished, the guard attacked him and grabbed him by force, he remembered.

“I was petrified and didn’t know what to do,” he told AP. The guard attacked him while crying, fighting and asking him to leave.

“I was lucky because it ended quickly.”

He then remembered that the guard had ordered him to wash his clothes, breaking down in tears.

Frightened, he returned to his cell and told another girl what had happened. He soon learned that he was not the only victim. She said all the girls, aged 16 to 18, had been abused or treated similarly to the guards.

Sexual harassment

A 16-year-old man from the same cell told the AP that he had arrived at the center and had been sexually harassed for a few days. When he asked a guard to call his family, he gave her a phone call and took her out of her cell to call her mother. Once he hung up, he put it behind her and grabbed her, she said.

He removed his hands and began to cry. The guard stopped only after he realized the other staff were at the center, he said.

“They do that every day,” he said. “If you hold on to it, you will be beaten or everything will be taken away from you.”

The Libyan government has not responded to requests for comment from the AP.

Libya’s local Crime Watch group and UN agencies reported that at least two girls were allegedly beaten and raped in late May when they tried to kill themselves.

One of them, a 15-year-old man, was taken to hospital on May 28 and treated by the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to return him to the detention center.

Libyan MSF spokeswoman Maya Abu Ata confirmed that both staff members had been treated at her clinic.

MSF groups “advocated the release of the detainee and made various protective agents and interlocutors. However, these attempts were unsuccessful,” he said.

Monitoring of human rights violations

UNHCR has said it is working with Libyan authorities to release five young women still detained in Shara al-Zawiyan and then evacuate them from Libya.

The case of teenagers in Shara al-Zawiya raises questions about the EU’s role in the cycle of violence that plagues migrants and asylum seekers in Libya.

The EU trains, equips and protects the Libyan Coast Guard to capture people trying to cross the Central Mediterranean to Europe.

It is known that at least 677 people have been killed or disappeared this year on board ships taking that route.

The Libyan Coast Guard has captured nearly 13,000 men, women and children – a record number – and returned to Libyan shores from the beginning of the year to June 12. Most are located in centers run by DCIM.

In some 29 centers run by DCIMs across the country, rights groups have documented a lack of basic hygiene, health, food and water, and beatings and torture. DCIM receives support, supplies and training, including human rights, through the EU’s $ 5.1 million trust fund for Africa.

Libya has praised the West for its ceasefire last year and the appointment of an interim government earlier this year, visits by European leaders and the reopening of several embassies. Although it appears that political stability is on the rise, activists and human rights organizations have said that access to detention centers for migrants is being reduced.

“Weapons are silent, there is a ceasefire … but human rights violations continue unabated,” said Suki Nagra, a representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Libya, as Sharan continues to report allegations of ill-treatment. al-Zawiya.

Even if the cases are documented and the alleged perpetrators are arrested, they are often released for lack of witnesses who are willing to testify for fear of reprisals. For example, Abdel-Rahman Milad, who was under UN sanctions and arrested last year on human trafficking and fuel smuggling, was released in April without trial.