Human trafficking has been reported to be on the rise with African migrants seeking to enter Europe being sold off for as little as $200 as slaves in Libya.
Going by confirmed reports by international monitors, International Organization for Migration (IOM), those sold into slavery are used for sex while others are held forcefully so that their families can pay ransom to the traffickers.
The victims who have testified to the organization point out that their lives ended up in slavery after paying money to get to Europe in the hope of getting a better future.
The international monitor cited that criminal gangs in the human trafficking syndicate are increasingly on the rise.
Othman Belbeisi, IOM’s chief of mission in Libya, told reporters in Geneva that, “Selling human beings is becoming a trend among smugglers as the smuggling networks in Libya are becoming stronger.”
He remarked that migrants are being sold openly in markets from as low as $200 and $500 per head.
In one case as cited by IOM, a Senegalese migrant only known as S.C told of his harrowing tale.
S.C said he had paid more than $300 to a trafficker to be driven across the desert only for him to get to Libya and be held hostage. The truck driver alleged that he was not paid by the trafficker.
He was taken to a slave market together with others who had traveled with him on the same truck.
He was later bought off and taken to a private home where he found more than 1000 other migrants. “Sub-Saharan migrants were being sold and bought by Libyans,” read a statement from S.C as he narrated to IOC in Niger.
He also said that they were beaten up and forced to call their families to demand money while women migrants were sold off to private individuals as sex slaves.