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Brooke F Adams  11/19/2006 09:02:10 AM  From  DB/Inbox:  Brooke F Adams

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C O N F I D E N T I A L        TRIPOLI 00671

SIPDIS
CXCAIRO:
    ACTION: POL
    INFO:   RSO PA ORA OMC LEGAT IPS ECON DEA DCM DAO CONS
            AMB AID

DISSEMINATION: POL
CHARGE: PROG

VZCZCCRO006
PP RUEHEG
DE RUEHTRO #0671/01 3211330
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 171330Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1426
INFO RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY PRIORITY 0005
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO PRIORITY 0477
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM PRIORITY 0033
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 0221
RUEHNJ/AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA PRIORITY 0055
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS PRIORITY 0345
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT PRIORITY 0330
RUEHTU/AMEMBASSY TUNIS PRIORITY 0012
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI 1612

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TRIPOLI 000671 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR NEA/MAG; GTIP FOR GAYATRI PATEL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  10/2/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM GTIP LY
SUBJECT: LIBYA: TIP SPECIAL WATCH LIST ASSESSMENT 
 
REF: (A)  STATE 175900, (B) TRIPOLI 506 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Elizabeth Fritschle, Pol/Econ Chief, United 
States Embassy, DOS. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1.  (C) SUMMARY:  The most salient feature of trafficking in 
Libya is the lack of information about it.  Governments, 
non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental 
organizations, and the media all appear to know very little 
about the phenomenon.  While slightly more information is 
available about aspects of labor trafficking, the closed nature 
of Libyan society has prevented even local officials from 
estimating the true scope of trafficking for the purpose of 
either sexual or labor exploitation.  Preliminary indications 
suggest that human trafficking does occur in Libya, although it 
is not yet possible to estimate its extent. 
 
¶2.  (C) SUMMARY CONTINUED: Libya has long, porous borders and 
serves as a transit point for migrants desperately seeking 
access to continental Europe.  Migrants currently comprise 
almost one quarter of Libya's approximately 7 million residents. 
 International organizations have concluded that the 
institutions designed to protect Libya's 6,500 kilometers of 
borders and coastline suffer from corruption and gross 
mismanagement.  Indicators of potential sex trafficking stem 
from individuals who claim that the majority of inmates in 
Tripoli's only prison for women are prostitutes from sub-Saharan 
Africa.  Indications of labor trafficking derive from the 
reportedly common practice among Libyan employers to confiscate 
the passports of their foreign workers, and to fail to pay them. 
 The government has expressed an openness to learning about 
trafficking in persons, but appears to lack even a rudimentary 
understanding of the phenomenon.  Post has adopted a pro-active 
approach to two of the more immediate problems - lack of 
information in general and lack of skills among officials.  The 
Public Affairs Officer awarded September 28 a grant of almost 
$60,000 to IOM to build capacity among local officials and law 
enforcement agencies.  Through this project, IOM, post and the 
Government of Libya (GOL) hope to improve their understanding of 
trafficking in Libya and how best to respond to it.  END SUMMARY. 
 
--------------- 
SEX TRAFFICKING 
--------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The Government of Libya (GOL) has not conducted 
research or produced reports about trafficking for the purpose 
of sexual exploitation.  The government-controlled media has not 
published any articles.  Independent, domestic, non-governmental 
organizations (NGOs) are illegal and do not exist in the 
country.  Foreign-based Libyan "NGO"s, such as those working in 
Geneva, have not reported about the problem.  Semi-official 
local organizations, such as the Qadhafi International 
Development Foundation, have not investigated the phenomenon. 
Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), and the 
International Organization for Migration (IOM) all confessed to 
Poloff their ignorance about the extent and nature of the 
problem.  In 2004 and 2005, respectively, AI and HRW visited 
Libya.  They visited prisons and spoke extensively to foreign 
workers.  HRW Director For The Middle East And North Africa 
Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW Researcher Frank Abrahams, and AI 
Researcher Phillip Luther told poloff, over the course of 
several conversations in September, that they produced no 
information about sex trafficking or sex workers during their 
trips to Libya.  IOM has worked with the GOL since 2004, and 
signed an official status agreement in August.  IOM's Tripoli 
Chief of Mission Laurence Hart admitted to poloff August 31 that 
IOM has so far obtained very limited information about sex 
trafficking in Libya. 
 
¶4.  (C) Prostitution is illegal in Libya, and it is a very 
sensitive topic.  In informal and off-the-record conversations, 
Libyan men have told Poloff that the majority of prostitutes in 
Libya used to come from Morocco, only to be replaced more 
recently by women from sub-Saharan Africa.  Most men agreed that 
sub-Saharan Africans now outnumber Arab women.  (See reftel for 
information about Libya's "open door to Africa" migration policy 
of the 1990s, and the resulting influx of African migrants and 
refugees.)  Mansour El Mesalati, an IOM local hire who has 
studied in the U.S. and worked in the Ministry of the Interior, 
told Poloff that many prostitutes come from Nigeria and Ghana. 
Pastor Jean Clement Ali of the Union Church in Tripoli told 
poloff that he has visited Libyan prisons for the past six 
years, as part of an officially-sanctioned program run by the 
church.  He reported that he has regularly visited the only 
women's prison in Tripoli, which he said contains about 300 
inmates.  The majority of women in the prison come from 
countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ali claimed, adding that the 
majority of women in the prison have worked as prostitutes in 
Libya.  Four Union Church council members and another Union 
Church pastor corroborated Ali's story.  Ali blamed "deception" 
and "shattered dreams" for driving these women into poverty and 
then prostitution.  Their smugglers led them to believe that 
they could work in Libya to make enough money for the passage to 
Europe, he said.  Instead, Ali reported, these women learned 
when they arrived in Libya that they had been misled, and 
entered into a traumatic state of destitution and dislocation. 
Out of desperation, they turned to prostitution.  Ali said that 
he did not know how many of these women had been coerced or 
deceived directly into working as prostitutes. 
 
----------------- 
LABOR TRAFFICKING 
----------------- 
 
¶5.  (C) A population of about 5.5 million Libyan citizens has 
witnessed since the 1990s a dramatic increase in foreign 
residents, currently estimated at 1.6 million.  Some of these 
migrants entered the country under the GOL's formerly liberal 
migration policy, and many entered illegally.  Laurence Hart of 
IOM asserted that the majority of all migrants hail from 
Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Ghana, and Egypt.  Most came to Libya to 
work.  Sub-Saharan Africans constitute the majority of the 
migrants, and also those most vulnerable to labor trafficking, 
according to Hart.  Hantush Al-Wash, United Nations High 
Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) Tripoli Chief of Mission, 
confirmed this assertion, and reported that he currently handles 
a caseload of about 12,000 asylum requests (reftel).  Al-Wash 
told Poloff that his staff has been overwhelmed by the number of 
applicants.  Asylum-seekers face an eight-month waiting list for 
an interview, he said.  Al-Wash has met and interviewed a wide 
swathe of foreign workers since he arrived in November 2005. 
Professional smuggling to and through Libya, he said, "is a 
fact."  He has been impressed by the planning carried out in 
Egypt.  Many migrants transit Libya very rapidly, he said, in 
three to four days, and he reported that Egyptians comprised 51% 
of the people arrested last year in Lampedusa on their way to 
Italy. 
 
¶6.  (C) Al-Wash reported that migrants who remain to work in 
Libya most frequently complain about unpaid wages.  "Every week 
workers tell me they're not getting paid," he said.  He also 
said that employers commonly confiscate the passports of their 
foreign workers.  "They have a practice of keeping the passports 
of their employees - mainly for security, to make sure employees 
will not do something wrong."  The bureaucratic procedures 
required to hire workers legally from abroad are so cumbersome, 
Al-Wash said, that barely anyone uses official channels.  "A 
farmer can request 10 workers from Sudan...but he will to pay 
taxes and be obliged to pay his workers," Al-Wash explained. 
"The majority of Libyans avoid doing this."  Recently, Al-Wash 
noted, a trend emerged with employers firing both legal and 
illegal workers, in order to find new employees at lower wages. 
Workers have no one in the government to whom they can address 
complaints or ask questions about their rights.  "The 
administration in this country on this issue is close to zero," 
Al-Wash complained.  "There are no institutions.  It's up to the 
manager or director.  Even if you ask what are the policies or 
guidelines, you won't have a satisfactory answer."  Al-Wash 
noted, however, that he has not heard reports of employers 
refusing to return passports to their employees.  "The employers 
take passports, but I have not heard that when they [foreign 
workers] finish work, the employer wouldn't give it back.  Maybe 
it exists, but I haven't heard." 
 
--------------------------------- 
MANAGEMENT OF BORDERS AND CUSTOMS 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) Libya has approximately 2,000 kilometers of 
Mediterranean coastline and shares a land border with six 
different countries that totals approximately 4,500 kilometers. 
GOL officials and state-run media outlets commonly cite these 
statistics in explaining the government's failure to stem the 
flow of migrants transiting through Libya to Europe.  IOM Chief 
of Mission Laurence Hart told Poloff August 31 that GOL 
officials have also quietly acknowledged widespread corruption 
among customs and border officials, and they claim to have begun 
fighting it.  The World Bank's July 2006 country economic report 
for Libya cited key flaws in the customs administration and 
border management currently employed by the Libyan government, 
which could permit human smuggling directly through the official 
points of entry.  According to the report, the customs system 
does not have the capacity "to tackle the reportedly high levels 
of informal trade and smuggling that occur between Libya and 
neighboring countries."  The report highlighted the lack of an 
integrated information technology system and its associated 
infrastructure.  The current system relies completely on 
physical verification and is "entirely paper-based."  Moreover, 
the report stated that the customs administration lacks 
detection technology and its officials lack professional skills 
and training.  Customs officials do not currently monitor key 
statistics, such as the percentage of goods selected for 
physical verification, the results of these verifications, or 
the compliance record of individual traders.  Most 
significantly, the customs administration does not coordinate 
with other key border agencies, such as agriculture and health 
officials.  (COMMENT: The report did not mention whether customs 
officials consulted with border security officials.  The report 
strongly suggests that they do not coordinate their efforts, and 
that vehicles smuggling human beings could readily slip through 
the poorly administered customs regime.  END NOTE.) 
 
------------------- 
GOVERNMENT ATTITUDE 
------------------- 
 
¶8.  (C) Laurence Hart and Mansour El Mesalati of IOM told Poloff 
September 11 that the GOL had approached them to help fight 
trafficking in persons.  Hart and El Mesalati described Libyan 
government officials as open to learning about and addressing 
the problem.  They reported that government officials know very 
little about the global phenomenon of trafficking in persons. 
El Mesalati, who previously worked in the Ministry of the 
Interior, admitted that he did not know the difference between 
human smuggling and human trafficking.  He was unaware that 
women who came to Libya knowing they would serve as prostitutes 
could find themselves in conditions that constitute trafficking. 
 He did not realize that employers could coerce migrants to work 
by confiscating their passports, withholding their wages, or 
threatening them with detention and deportation.  Nor did he 
know that mediation fees charged by smugglers to transport 
workers to Libya could place the workers in debt bondage to 
creditors in their countries of origin.  El Mesalati explained 
that if he is unfamiliar with these basic facts about 
trafficking, then government officials and border guards 
certainly do not know them.  Both Hart and El Mesalati said that 
Aliah Al Erishi, the new GOL Secretary for Expatriates, 
Migration and Refugees, has a vital role to play in Libya's 
fight against trafficking in persons.  Hart said that Al Erishi 
has expressed a willingness to learn about and engage with the 
issue.  Hart said that Al-Erishi has thus far demonstrated 
patience and intelligence.  Al-Erishi reportedly told Hart that 
he rejected the first draft of Libya's new law on migration 
because, "I found it too primitive."  (NOTE:  Al-Erishi is a 
resident of Massachusetts who returns to Libya a few times a 
year.  It is unclear to us how much of a player he is on issues, 
during the stretches of time when he is not here.  End Note.) 
 
---------------- 
EMBASSY APPROACH 
---------------- 
 
¶9.  (U) Post has identified the urgent need to bolster awareness 
and skills among local officials.  The Public Diplomacy and 
Political/Economic Sections worked together with IOM to devise 
an eight-month project aimed at strengthening the capacity of 
government officials and law enforcement agencies to identify 
trafficking victims, prevent trafficking, and prosecute 
traffickers.  On September 28, the Public Affairs Officer 
granted $59,850 to IOM to administer the project.  IOM will 
implement it in close collaboration with the GOL and 
semi-official local organizations.  Post intends to learn from 
more about the problem, and how best to counter it, through this 
capacity-building project.  IOM is currently working with the 
GOL to develop a national strategy to combat illegal migration, 
and plans to include in the strategy lessons learned through 
this post-funded project.  In addition, post has continually 
raised the issue with GOL counterparts, and has presented IOM 
with a formal request to help answer detailed questions about 
trafficking in Libya. 
CECIL