After a video surfaced showing migrants apparently being sold at auction in Libya, people worldwide have been calling for action.
Last week, CNN published a report on modern slavery in Libya, featuring a video that reportedly was shot in August and appeared to show a man selling African migrants for farm work.
“Big strong boys,” the man said in the video, according to a CNN narrator. “400 … 700 … 800,” he called out the mounting prices. The men were eventually sold for about $400 each, CNN reported. The Libyan government said it has launched an investigation into slave auctions in the country.
Several world leaders spoke out as well. The chairman of the African Union, Guinean President Alpha Condé, called it a “despicable trade ... from another era” on Friday. The U.N. Support Mission in Libya said Wednesday that it was “dismayed and sickened,” and is “actively pursuing” the matter with Libyan authorities.
“I am horrified at news reports and video footage showing African migrants in Libya reportedly being sold as slaves,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said to reporters on Monday. “Slavery has no place in our world, and these actions are among the most egregious abuses of human rights and may amount to crimes against humanity.”
Migrants from Africa who are trying to reach Europe walk toward a detention center off the coastal town of Guarabouli, Libya, on July 8. (Photo: MAHMUD TURKIA via Getty Images)
Guterres called for the international community to unite in fighting the abuse and smuggling of migrants, notably by increasing avenues for legal migration and enhancing international cooperation in cracking down on smugglers and traffickers.
However, rights advocates caution that real action may be slow in coming. “People are rightfully outraged,” Human Rights Watch researcher Hanan Salah told Reuters of CNN’s video on Monday. “But don’t hold your breath that anything real is going to happen.”
In Libya, migrants have become particularly vulnerable to human trafficking. The country functions as the main gateway for Africans to reach Europe, but it is also one of the world’s most unstable, mired in conflict since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed in 2011.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing poverty or conflict travel to Libya each year, hoping to set off from the country’s coast to Europe. Once in Libya, they find themselves at the mercy of smugglers operating the dangerous boat passages across the Mediterranean.
Operating without many constraints, smuggling networks have adopted ruthless methods ― often killing, torturing, extorting and detaining migrants at will. The Libyan government does not have the means nor the commitment to crack down. European countries’ efforts to keep migrants from their own borders have forced the travelers to take ever greater risks to reach the continent.
TOPSHOT - Migrants try to pull a child out of the water as they wait to be rescued by members of Proactiva Open Arms NGO in the Mediterranean sea, some 12 nautical miles north of Libya, on October 4, 2016. At least 1,800 migrants were rescued off the Libyan coast, the Italian coastguard announced, adding that similar operations were underway around 15 other overloaded vessels. / AFP / ARIS MESSINIS (Photo credit should read ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images)
Migrants wait to be rescued by members of Proactiva Open Arms NGO as they drift in the Mediterranean Sea, some 12 nautical miles north of Libya, on October 4, 2016. At least 1,800 migrants were rescued off the Libyan coast, the Italian coastguard announced, adding that similar operations were underway around 15 other overloaded vessels. / AFP / ARIS MESSINIS (Photo credit should read ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images)
Migrants hang from a boat as they wait to be rescued as they drift in the Mediterranean Sea, some 12 nautical miles north of Libya, on October 4, 2016. At least 1,800 migrants were rescued off the Libyan coast, the Italian coastguard announced, adding that similar operations were underway around 15 other overloaded vessels. / AFP / ARIS MESSINIS (Photo credit should read ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images)
SICILIAN STRAIT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA - MAY 25: Migrants in an overcrowded boat, which was about to capsize, are rescued by Bettica and Bergamini ships of Italian Navy at Sicilian Strait, between Libya and Italy, in Mediterranean sea on May 25, 2016. The Italian Navy saved around 500 migrants as they found dead bodies of seven migrants in the sea during the operations. (Photo by Italian Navy / Marina Militare/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
SICILIAN STRAIT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA - MAY 25: Migrants in an overcrowded boat, which was about to capsize, are rescued by Bettica and Bergamini ships of Italian Navy at Sicilian Strait, between Libya and Italy, in Mediterranean sea on May 25, 2016. The Italian Navy saved around 500 migrants as they found dead bodies of seven migrants in the sea during the operations. (Photo by Italian Navy / Marina Militare/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
SICILIAN STRAIT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA - MAY 25: Migrants in a capsized boat are rescued by Bettica and Bergamini ships of Italian Navy at Sicilian Strait, between Libya and Italy, in Mediterranean sea on May 25, 2016. The Italian Navy saved around 500 migrants as they found dead bodies of seven migrants in the sea during the operations. (Photo by Italian Navy / Marina Militare/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
SICILIAN STRAIT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA - MAY 25: Migrants in a capsized boat are rescued by Bettica and Bergamini ships of Italian Navy at Sicilian Strait, between Libya and Italy, in Mediterranean sea on May 25, 2016. The Italian Navy saved around 500 migrants as they found dead bodies of seven migrants in the sea during the operations. (Photo by Italian Navy / Marina Militare/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
SICILIAN STRAIT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA - MAY 25: Italian marines rescue migrants from a capsized boat at Sicilian Strait, between Libya and Italy, in Mediterranean sea on May 25, 2016. The Italian Navy saved around 500 migrants as they found dead bodies of seven migrants in the sea during the operations. (Photo by Italian Navy / Marina Militare/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
SICILIAN STRAIT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA - MAY 25: A helicopter approaches to the capsized boat as Italian marines rescue migrants from an overcrowded boat at Sicilian Strait, between Libya and Italy, in Mediterranean sea on May 25, 2016. The Italian Navy saved around 500 migrants as they found dead bodies of seven migrants in the sea during the operations. (Photo by Italian Navy / Marina Militare/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY ELLA IDE - Coffins are ready for the autopsied body of migrants or refugees who died at sea on April 18, 2015, trying to cross the mediterranean to reach Europe, on November 5, 2015 at Marisicilia military Base in Melilli, Sicily. The military base hosts forensic medics of the Labanof Forensic Pathology laboratory, which specialises in identifying decomposed, burned or mutilated remains, who perform autopsies to make a database where DNA and other distinguishing features can be catalogued, allowing relatives in other EU countries or family members back home to find their dead. Since the first largescale wrecks off Lampedusa in 2013, Italy has been looking at ways to name those who had been fleeing war, poverty or persecution in places as far flung as Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan or Syria. AFP PHOTO / MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO (Photo credit should read MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO/AFP/Getty Images)
A forensic medic of the Labanof Forensic Pathology laboratory prepares to perform autopsies on bodies of migrants believed to have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean. The autopsies will be used to make a database cataloguing DNA and other distinguishing features. Nov. 5, 2015, Marisicilia military base in Melilli, Sicily.
In this photo taken on Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, Cristina Cattaneo puts victims' personal belongings inside labeled plastic bags in a lab in Milan, Italy. Cattaneo, a professor at the University of Milan, is leading a team of forensic pathologists who have volunteered to identify and catalogue roughly 800 migrants who lost their lives in one of the worst tragedies in the Mediterranean migrant crisis. Her work is a unique, historic project expanding the field of humanitarian legal medicine and also a multi-million euro effort on the part of the Italian government to shame Europe into paying attention to migrants lost at sea and help Italy face the inundation. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Mediterranean Island of Lampedusa between Sicily and Malta , Lampedusa Gate to Europe, monument in memory of migrants drowned in the attempt to reach Europe from North Africa . Every year, thousands of migrants and refugees from Africa pay smugglers to help them cross the Mediterranean sea and reach the island. (Photo by: Andia/UIG via Getty Images)
Lampedusa (italy), midnight between august 27h and 28th. Migrants rescued by the Italian Coast Guard disembark at the Favarolo peer. (Photo by Marco Panzetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Dr Pietro Bartolo stands in front of a dilapidated migrant boat one of the many on show on a patch of shrubland in Lampedusa
TARANTO, ITALY - OCTOBER 20: Spanish ship ''Rio Segura'' carrying the 633 refugees rescued by Frontex's Operation Triton which was carried out between Italian island of Lampedusa and Libya, and the dead bodies of 8 refugees, arrive in Taranto port, Italy on October 20, 2015. (Photo by Alvaro Padilla Bengoa/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
LAMPEDUSA, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 12: Inside a former migrant detention center on September 12, 2014 in Lampedusa, Italy. Personal messages and graffiti by detainees marked some of the walls of the structure. This camp was closed in 2007 after a new, more secure site, was built on the island. At the height of the migrant influx on Lampedusa in 2011 some 30,000 plus took refuge on the island before being ferried to the Italian mainland. This figure represents over ten times the Island's usual population of around 3,000.(Photo by Giles Clarke/Getty Images)
A young migrant makes a walk outside the 'Temporary Permanence Centre' (CPT), a refugee camp on the Lampedusa island on February 19, 2015. Authorities on the Italian island of Lampedusa struggled to cope with a huge influx of newly-arrived migrants as aid organisations warned the Libya crisis means thousands more could be on their way. Officials on the tiny island south of Sicily were trying to process more than 1,200 exhausted, often traumatised and ill Africans in a reception centre designed for less than a third of that number. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLI (Photo credit should read ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
Men and women refugees make a walk in the center of Lampedusa, on February 19, 2015. Authorities on the Italian island of Lampedusa struggled to cope with a huge influx of newly-arrived migrants as aid organisations warned the Libya crisis means thousands more could be on their way. Officials on the tiny island south of Sicily were trying to process more than 1,200 exhausted, often traumatised and ill Africans in a reception centre designed for less than a third of that number. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLI (Photo credit should read ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
LAMPEDUSA, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 8: A migrant ship graveyard on September 8, 2014 in Lampedusa, Italy. In the early days of mass migration from North Africa, Italian authorities would tow the ships full of migrants into the port, where they dumped into this boatyard. Nowadays, Italian authorities are ordered to destroy the migrant boats at sea after having transferred the migrants onto coast guard boats. Many of the boats are bought by human trafficking gangs for the sole purpose of transporting migrants over the Mediterranean Sea. They're often steered by inexperienced and poorly trained crew members.(Photo by Giles Clarke/Getty Images)
MSIDA, MALTA - APRIL 23: Friends and families attend the funeral service for 24 drowned Mediterranean refugees on April 23, 2015 in Msida, Malta. Up to 920 refugees died while trying to reach the Southern coasts of Italy, when the ship carrying them capsized in waters between the Italian island of Lampedusa and Libya. PHOTOGRAPH BY James Galea / Barcroft Media (Photo credit should read James Galea / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
MSIDA, MALTA - APRIL 23: Friends and families attend the funeral service for 24 drowned Mediterranean refugees on April 23, 2015 in Msida, Malta. Up to 920 refugees died while trying to reach the Southern coasts of Italy, when the ship carrying them capsized in waters between the Italian island of Lampedusa and Libya. PHOTOGRAPH BY James Galea / Barcroft Media (Photo credit should read James Galea / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Migrants make a walk outside the 'Temporary Permanence Centre' (CPT), a refugee camp on the Lampedusa island on February 19, 2015. Authorities on the Italian island of Lampedusa struggled to cope with a huge influx of newly-arrived migrants as aid organisations warned the Libya crisis means thousands more could be on their way. Officials on the tiny island south of Sicily were trying to process more than 1,200 exhausted, often traumatised and ill Africans in a reception centre designed for less than a third of that number. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLI (Photo credit should read ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
Dr Pietro Bartolo sits in the childrens playroom at the hospital in Lampedusa which has been set up especially for migrant and refugee children
A migrant stands behind a fence of the 'Temporary Permanence Centre' (CPT), a refugee camp on February 17, 2015 in Lampedusa. The Italian coastguard launched a massive operation Sunday to rescue more than 2,000 migrants in difficulty between the Italian island of Lampedusa and the Libyan coast, local media said. The emergency rescue came on the same day Italy said it was evacuating staff from its embassy in Libya and suspending operations there, highlighting the worsening security situation in the violence-plagued country. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLI (Photo credit should read ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
BERLIN, GERMANY - APRIL 08: A refugee from Niger stands by near huts that were being torn down at a temporary, city-tolerated refugee camp at Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg district on April 8, 2014 in Berlin, Germany. Refugees, many of them from Africa who came to Germany via Lampedusa, began dismantling their shelters today after many of them agreed to a deal with city authorities to move to a renovated hostel. Not all of the several hundred refugees, some of whom have been living at the Oranienplatz camp almost a year, have agreed to the deal, and while some said they will go elsewhere, some insist they will stay, despite a city order to vacate. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
The coffins with the bodies of immigrants who died trying to reach the Italian coast arrive from Lampedusa on February 11, 2015 in Porto Empedocle where they will be buried in cemeteries of the area. More than 300 migrants are feared drowned after their overcrowded dinghies sank in the Mediterranean, triggering calls for the world to act after the latest boat disaster in a perilous crossing from Africa to Europe. The victims were mainly from sub-Saharan Africa who had left the coast of conflict-wracked Libya at the weekend in four small inflatable boats, the UN refugee agency said. AFP PHOTO / MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO (Photo credit should read MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO/AFP/Getty Images)
Our final 2024 mock draft projects four quarterbacks in the first five picks, but the Cardinals at No. 4 might represent the key pivot point of the entire board.
Trump is entitled to an additional 36 million shares if the company's share price trades above $17.50 "for twenty out of any thirty trading days" over the next three years.
Dan Wetzel, Ross Dellenger & SI’s Pat Forde react to the huge performance this weekend by Texas QB Arch Manning, Michigan and Notre Dame's spring games, Jaden Rashada entering the transfer portal, and more
Ford offers the new Mustang's updated 5.0-liter Coyote V8 as a crate engine, and it also sells a supercharger kit that unlocks a total of 810 horsepower.
Arch Manning gave Texas football fans an enticing look at the future, throwing for 355 yards and three touchdowns in the Longhorns' Orange-White spring game.
