Routes to Justice for Migrants in Libya

Thanks to your generosity, we were able to continue building momentum and support for #RoutesToJustice. Over the past three months, the project team has continued to monitor the situation of migrants in Libya and undertake projects to raise awareness and improve their situation. Unfortunately, during this time period our capacity to take action was restricted due to limited funds.

However, we were incredibly lucky that George the Poet, a social commentator and recording artist specialising in musical poetry, dedicated an entire podcast episode on 20 September 2018 to the issue of slavery in Libya and highlighted LFJL’s work in this area. The show resulted in the podcast 'The Journey - Part II', which explores the modern slave trade in Libya, calls for grassroots action, and features Elham Saudi, LFJL's Director.

We were also fortunate to have Sirage Saudi and Nas Marref brave the parks of London and run the Royal Parks Half Marathon in pouring rain to raise much needed funds for #RoutestoJustice. We cannot thank them and their supporters enough for this kind act and generosity of time, spirit, and energy!

LFJL also continued to work on its Human Rights Archive project, which aims to create a digital archive of evidence related to human rights violations in Libya. LFJL held a workshop in November in Tunis with its network of on the ground partners to partner with them on archiving and documenting human rights violations in Libya, including in relation to human rights abuses against migrants.  

On an organisational level, LFJL welcomed a new Operations Manager and Programmes Assistant. We also launched our new Research Fellows Programme, which will be an integral part of its Research and Capacity Building Programme. The Research Fellows are senior researchers with expertise on a diverse range of subjects including international criminal justice, constitutional law and gender equality,with whom LFJL will engage to produce distinct pieces of research on a regular basis. Get to know more about our Research Fellows here.

During this time, LFJL has continued to monitor the political situation of Libya on a local and international level.  LFJL staff kept abreast of numerous new stories and reports that emerged over the months on the continuing plight of migrants in Libya and were particularly affected  by the news story of asylum seekers and migrants refusing to get off the boat to be sent back to camps in Libya. We are now looking into how to contact these people and what we can do to support them. We hope with your continued support that stories like this one will become few and far between.

What’s next?

LFJL is launching a joint research project with postgraduate students in the Human Rights Law Clinic at SOAS, University of London. The students will produce a report on slavery, forced labour, and trafficking offences suspected to be taking place in Europe involving migrants who have crossed through Libya. LFJL will investigate how to use the work to bring cases on behalf of migrants against individuals and businesses implicated in this action across Europe.

We will continue to keep you updated on the progress of the project through GlobalGiving, however please don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list here to stay tuned and follow all of our work across our programmes. Many thanks again from all the LFJL team for supporting our work!