The Business of Human Suffering: Inside Libya’s Migrant Extortion and Enslavement Networks

Since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has transformed into one of the most dangerous migration corridors in the world. For thousands of Africans hoping to reach Europe, the journey through Libya is marked by a litany of abuses: arbitrary detention, torture, forced labour, sexual violence, ransom kidnappings (madax-furasho in Somali), extortion, and, in some cases, literal slave sales. These violations are committed by an array of actors, human traffickers, smugglers, local militias, clan-based warlords, criminal networks, and, at times, state-linked forces such as coastguard units. The scale of the brutality has provoked international condemnation and raised urgent questions about legal responsibility under both global and African human-rights frameworks.

For more than a decade, researchers, NGOs, and UN agencies have described Libya as a “black box” of migrant abuse, a chaotic territory where lawlessness and lucrative smuggling economies collide. Migrants arriving from Niger, Sudan, Chad, Somalia, Eritrea and beyond rarely find the transit corridor they were promised. Instead, many are seized immediately at border towns and thrown into makeshift detention centres run by militias or armed groups. Survivors describe suffocating rooms without light, food rationed to almost nothing, and beatings used to maintain order. Medical care is nearly nonexistent.

A former Somali detainee describe Libya’s detention network as an archipelago of cruelty  prisons operated not by accountable authorities but by whoever controls the street or neighbourhood on a given day. He said he still hears the chains at night. The young Somali man, barely in his twenties, described how his bus was stopped outside Sabha, where armed men dragged everyone into the back of a pickup and drove them to a desert compound. “They beat us until we gave them numbers to call for madax-furasho,” he said softly, turning a rosary in his hands. His family sold their properties and borrowed from neighbours to pay the ransom, but the guards refused to release him. Instead, he was forced to carry bricks on construction sites for months, eating once a day and sleeping on concrete. “Some boys died there,” he whispered. “When I escaped, I didn’t run to Europe. I just ran to survive.”

For many, captivity becomes a business transaction. Smugglers and militiamen often demand large ransom payments from families back home, a practice widely described by Somali migrants as madax-furasho, the “price for one’s head.”

Those unable to pay are forced into labour: construction sites, farms, weapon depots, kitchens and streets. The work is unpaid and often accompanied by beatings. Some migrants report being passed from one group to another like “property,” the debt increasing with each transfer.

Women and girls face especially brutal treatment. Numerous survivors recount being raped repeatedly, sexually blackmailed, or forced into prostitution to repay debts fabricated by smugglers. The violence is systematic, not incidental, a method to extract obedience, silence, and profit.

In 2017, the world was forced to confront these horrors when video footage surfaced showing African men being auctioned off for a few hundred dollars. International outrage erupted, but investigators confirmed what migrants had been saying for years: Libya’s trafficking economy includes the direct sale of human beings.

The auctions are often hidden today, but the underlying system persists, one in which people are bought, sold, exchanged or enslaved by the armed groups that dominate different regions.

Libya’s political fragmentation has carved the country into fiefdoms controlled by militias and clan-based warlords. In towns like Bani Walid, Gharyan, Sabratha and Sabha, these groups act as de facto governments, running prisons, taxing smugglers, and controlling migrant flows.

Journalists and investigators have documented collusion between militias and corrupt officials, including members of the coastguard who intercept migrant boats only to return people into the very system of abuse they fled.

These intersecting power networks form a profitable economy of extortion each checkpoint, gate, or detention centre another opportunity to squeeze money from people with none left to give.

Though individual stories vary, the broad pattern is eerily consistent. In one widely reported case, dozens of West African migrants were held in a warehouse outside Tripoli, beaten daily, and auctioned off to local buyers. Survivors described their captors as laughing while announcing prices.

In another case, families in Somalia and Eritrea received videos of their loved ones being tortured, burned with hot irons, whipped, or hung from ceilings with ransom demands attached. Payments, even when made, did not always guarantee release.

Those who survive captivity often attempt the Mediterranean crossing, hoping to leave Libya behind forever. Hundreds die at sea each year. Those intercepted by coastguard units are usually returned to detention, restarting the cycle.

Rescue workers aboard NGO vessels say the trauma is visible long before migrants speak: bodies covered in scars, emaciation, untreated wounds, and the haunted look of those who have seen too much.

Human-rights organisations stress that these atrocities are not the acts of a few rogue groups. They form a system a predictable, organised chain of capture, exploitation, ransom, forced labour and sale. And this system thrives because no authority is strong enough, or willing enough, to dismantle it.

Under global conventions including the UN Trafficking Protocol, the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol, and the Refugee Convention states must prevent, investigate and punish trafficking, protect victims, and ensure no one is returned to a place where they risk torture or abuse (the principle of non-refoulement).

African regional instruments reinforce these obligations. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights prohibits slavery, torture and discrimination, while the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention expands protection for those fleeing conflict.

Libya is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, meaning there is no formal domestic asylum system. Yet, Libya is still bound by international customary law prohibiting slavery, torture and inhumane treatment. In practice, however, the state’s weakness means that treaties offer little real protection on the ground. Where slavery, forced labour, rape or the sale of persons occur, international law classifies these as grave crimes, potentially even crimes against humanity. But prosecutions inside Libya are exceedingly rare. Judicial institutions have fractured since 2011, and militias operate with impunity. Officials are sometimes complicit themselves, whether through corruption or direct participation in smuggling networks.

European cooperation with Libyan coastguard units complicates the legal picture. Critics argue that by funding, training or coordinating with these forces, European states risk contributing indirectly to the return of migrants into conditions where torture and slavery are widespread — raising serious legal and moral questions about complicity.

Despite all risks, thousands continue to take the Libya corridor each year. The reasons are clear.

Across West, Central and East Africa, high unemployment, rising food prices and lack of opportunity push people to seek alternatives abroad. Many migrants describe the decision not as a choice but a last resort. Wars in Sudan, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and parts of West Africa combined with droughts, floods and agricultural collapse leave families with little to survive on.

Smuggling networks aggressively advertise “safe passage” through Libya, while legal labour migration channels to Europe remain extremely limited. With few alternatives, migrants gamble everything including their lives.

Families often borrow heavily to finance the journey. When migrants are captured, this debt becomes a tool of extortion. Parents and siblings back home sell land, livestock or homes to pay ransoms, sometimes multiple times.

UN agencies and NGOs continue to document abuses, provide humanitarian support, and advocate for evacuation of the most vulnerable. Several states have condemned slave sales and trafficking networks, calling for investigations and sanctions. Some countries have funded Libyan border forces to intercept departing boats. But human-rights organisations argue that without improving conditions inside Libya, interceptions simply “return people to the torture zone.”

Recommendations;

-          Militia leaders, traffickers and complicit officials must face investigation and prosecution whether domestically, internationally, or through hybrid mechanisms.

-          Expanding legal labour migration and humanitarian corridors would reduce reliance on smugglers and undercut the trafficking economy.

-          Survivors need trauma care, legal support, and safe reintegration or resettlement options. Voluntary return alone is insufficient without safeguards.

-          Targeting the profits of militias and smuggling groups through sanctions, asset freezing, and anti-money-laundering measures is essential to dismantling their power.

 

Conclusion.

The migrant trail through Libya exposes a grim truth: in the 21st century, desperation still collides with predation in ways that mirror humanity’s darkest chapters. Slavery and torture remain outlawed in every legal system on earth, yet Libya’s fragmented landscape has become a place where those prohibitions carry little weight. With the state fractured and militias ruling by force, enforcement is nearly impossible. The world watches from afar, issuing condemnations while failing to protect those who are most vulnerable — young men and women fleeing poverty, conflict or climate disaster, only to be trapped in a machinery of exploitation.

Until real alternatives exist safe migration pathways, accountable security institutions, and a Libyan government capable of upholding basic rights migrants will continue to gamble their lives on a route lined with danger. The economy of abuse, thriving on ransom, forced labour and extortion, will persist as long as armed groups profit from it. The Libya story is not just about migration. It is about the price of instability, the cost of impunity, and the lives caught between the two.