Slavery in Libya
Since Ancient times, the territory of modern Libya was a transit area for the slave trade from Sub-Saharan Africa across the Sahara desert to the Mediterranean Sea.
Abolition was, however, a gradual and slow process, and the institution of slavery continued long into the colonial period, particularly in the interior desert areas, where the Italian control was weak.
[4][5][6][7] As a Roman province, Tripolitania was a major exporter of agricultural products, as well as a centre for the gold and slaves conveyed to the coast by the Garamentes, while Cyrenaica remained an important source of wines, drugs, and horses.
[8] When Amr ibn al-As conquered Tripoli in 643, he forced the Jewish and Christian Berbers to give their wives and children as slaves to the Arab army as part of their jizya.
Even so, Musa "never ceased pushing his conquests until he arrived before Tangiers, the citadel of their [Berbers’] country and the mother of their cities, which he also besieged and took, obliging its inhabitants to embrace Islam.
"[14] The historian Pascual de Gayangos observed: “Owing to the system of warfare adopted by the Arabs, it is not improbable that the number of captives here specified fell into Musa’s hands.
It appears both from Christian and Arabian authorities that populous towns were not infrequently razed to the ground and their inhabitants, amounting to several thousands, led into captivity.”[15][16] Successive Muslim rulers of North Africa continued to enslave the Berbers en masse.
"[17] Arab chronicles record vast numbers of Berber slaves taken, especially in the accounts of Musa ibn Nusayr, who became the governor of Africa in 698, and who "was cruel and ruthless against any tribe that opposed the tenets of the Muslim faith, but generous and lenient to those who converted.
[20] Musa went out against the Berbers, and pursued them far into their native deserts, leaving wherever he went traces of his passage, killing numbers of them, taking thousands of prisoners, and carrying on the work of havoc and destruction.
There are records of some being sold in Tajura,[27] and according to tradition, some enslaved Gozitans were taken to Tarhuna where they and their descendants converted to Islam and assimilated into the local population.
Reports of Barbary raids and kidnappings of those in Italy, France, Iberia, England, Ireland, Scotland and as far north as Iceland exist from this period.
[39] Human Rights Watch documented cases of migrants frequently being arbitrarily detained and sold in Libyan detention centers.
[40] Amnesty International also noted that migrants traveling through Libya were subject to detention in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, and torture.
[42] Since the overthrow of the Gaddafi government after the First Libyan Civil War in 2011, Libya has been plagued by disorder, leaving migrants with little cash and no papers vulnerable.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) published a report in April 2017 showing that many of the migrants from West, Central and Sahelian Africa heading to Europe are sold as slaves after being detained by people smugglers or militia groups.
[47][48] After receiving unverified CNN video of a November 2017 slave auction in Libya, a human trafficker told Al-Jazeera that hundreds of migrants are bought and sold across the country every week.
[53] In June 2018, the United Nations applied sanctions against four Libyans (including a Coast Guard commander) and two Eritreans for their criminal leadership of slave trade networks.
[61] President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou summoned the Libyan ambassador and demanded the International Court of Justice to investigate Libya for slave trade.
[62] France on 22 November 2017 sought an emergency meeting of UN Security Council, while President Emmanuel Macron called the footage "scandalous" and "unacceptable."
[66] Former Nigerian aviation minister Femi Fani-Kayode published images on Twitter claiming that slaves were having their organs harvested and some of their bodies are burnt.
