Migrant labour laws place a particular burden on employers to ensure compliance with heavy
administrative requirements, reportedly leading to high levels of non-compliance and
employment of irregular migrants outside of a legal framework.43
While article 10 of the 2011 interim Constitutional Declaration provides that “the State shall
guarantee the right to asylum in accordance with the law. The extradition of political refugees
shall be prohibited”, Libya has not established an asylum system in law or practice. As a result,
asylum seekers or refugees in Libya without appropriate documentation, including those rescued
and disembarked, face detention for illegal entry under Law No. 19 of 2010.
5.2.
Practice
Increasingly since 2011, and particularly since 2014, the Libyan justice system has been severely
hampered due to ongoing fighting and insecurity. Many courts have not been functioning or only
partially function. Armed groups have threatened and attacked judges, lawyers, prosecutors and
law enforcement officials. Human rights violations and abuses have not been addressed
adequately by the formal justice system, impeding the right of victims to effective remedy.44.
Armed groups have also taken on law enforcement functions, and effectively control many
official detention centres or run their own unofficial detention centres, further increasing the
vulnerability of those detained.
Armed groups, criminal gangs and networks, smugglers, traffickers have cooperated and
competed in the smuggling and trafficking of migrants through Libya, while carrying out serious
human rights abuses and violations against migrants. UNSMIL has also received credible
information that some members of State institutions and some local officials have participated in
the smuggling and trafficking process. Exploitation and the buying and selling of individuals
have taken place frequently. Such individuals are often subject to labour exploitation. In the case
of those migrants who wish to travel across the sea to Europe, many are compelled to work to
earn their onward transport. They are also subjected to extortion by smugglers and traffickers
who force them to request additional money from their families though a complex system of
money transfers. Migrants are among the most vulnerable people in Libya, as they do not have
tribal or other community protections to which others may have recourse. Women are often the
most exposed, amidst numerous and consistent reports of rape and other sexual violence.
During the Qadhafi period, the Passport Investigations Department, under the General People’s
Committee for Public Security, managed a number of immigration detention facilities, holding
thousands of individuals suspected of being irregular migrants, including refugees. Others were
43
See Assessment of Priorities for the Development of Libya’s Migration Policies: A Strategic Vision, Final
report to IOM by Eurasylum Ltd. 2014, p. 31
44
ICCPR, art. 2
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