But consider it from the perspective of those who find themselves detained there. Libya not only has one of the worlds worst records on human rightsit is also in the middle of a civil war. Reports have emerged of African migrants being sold by smugglers into manual labor or sexual slavery. Many are held for ransom until their families pay for their release; if families cant or wont pay, migrants are killed or abandoned. Those held in detention centers run by the Libyan governmenta number estimated at 5,600fare little better. Theyre confined to cramped and unsanitary spaces, deprived of food, and regularly suffer torture, beatings, and sexual violence at the hands of guards. Some are pressed into manual labor inside the camps, while others are sold into slavery outside them. The plight of detainees went largely unnoticed until earlier this year, when General Khalifa Haftars army conducted airstrikes on detention facilities, killing dozens.

The EU insists that it is doing all it can to protect migrants and fairly evaluate the asylum claims of those waiting in limbo. And in response to international outcry after the airstrikes, it is expected to make another deal, this time with Rwanda, to accept migrants evacuated from Libyathough only a mere five hundred. Theyre expected to be transferred as they await resettlement in Europe or, more likely, deportation to their countries of origin. But, as in Libya, Turkey, and Niger, migrants can expect no guarantee of safety; by the EUs own admission, Rwanda also has a record of serious human-rights abuses. As Judith Sunderland of Human Rights Watch put it, Theres not much hope then that the exact same process in Rwanda would lead to dramatically different outcomes.

Human-rights activists have called on the EU to change its approach entirely, to stop outsourcing the care of the displaced to underequipped and dangerous countries. The same demand could be made of the United States, Australia, and other wealthy nations enacting similar policies. Better still would be a truly international reckoning with the fact that mass migration is only likely to increase thanks to factors like climate change and food insecurity. People dont want to flee their homes unless they have to, and then they need somewhere to go.

Link:

Migrants in Limbo - Commonweal