US report – 2 million migrants ‘on Malta’s doorstep’
Libya could be hosting as many as 2 million migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, the US Department of State’s report on human trafficking claims – a population roughly one-third of Libya’s.
Of these, 20,000 may be victims of illegal human trafficking.
Both migrants and trafficking victims are routinely smuggled through Libya to Europe, especially to or through Italy and Malta, en route to various locations on the continent.
Libya is described as a transit and destination country for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation. Most migrants seek employment in Libya as labourers and domestic employees.
Smuggling debts and illegal status leave migrants vulnerable to coercion, resulting in cases of forced prostitution and forced labour. Employers of irregular migrants sometimes withhold payment or travel documents, the report denounced.
But the report finds no evidence of government involvement in or tolerance of trafficking at any level. However, Libya lacks a single law specifically prohibiting trafficking in persons. Its labour law does not even criminalise forced labour, although holding an employee’s passport is illegal.
Irregular migrants and trafficking victims remain liable to deportation or punishment for unlawful presence in Libya.
Eastern sex traffic The same report also claims Malta remains a destination country for women from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and other European countries trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.
Malta is criticised for its inadequate efforts to prosecute trafficking in persons offences, according to the State Department.
Although Malta’s criminal code prohibits trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation and prescribes punishments of two to nine years’ imprisonment, traffickers were “slowly working their way through the Maltese legal system”.
The report refers to a 2004 case that came to trial in 2008, in which a Maltese woman was convicted of trafficking Russian women into forced prostitution in Malta and given a sheer two-year suspended sentence.
It also mentions a police officer convicted in 2005, who remained out of jail pending an appeal.
This year however, the police trained 60 police officers in identifying and assisting trafficking victims. Social welfare agency Appogg also conducted a training session on victim assistance for government social workers. The report reveals that an NGO assisting irregular migrants identified four potential trafficking victims in a migrant detention centre, but the government determined they were not trafficking victims and did not offer trafficking-specific services to them, though it released them from detention.
The report praises Malta for encouraging victims to assist in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking crimes. In 2008, the one victim referred to Maltese police by a foreign embassy was allowed to provide testimony against her trafficker through video conferencing.
According to the State Department the government did not report any specific actions to reduce the possible participation of Maltese nationals in child sex tourism abroad.
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