December, 09 2010, 08:00am EDT
Egypt: End Traffickers' Abuse of Migrants
Rescue People Held for Ransom From Sinai Hideouts, Prosecute Captors
NEW YORK
Egyptian authorities should rescue migrants held for ransom and abused by human traffickers in the Sinai desert, Human Rights Watch said today. The government has neither prosecuted the traffickers nor closed down their detention sites, Human Rights Watch said.
According to media reports, in late November and early December 2010, traffickers shot or beat to death six Eritrean nationals who were among hundreds of asylum seekers and migrants held at one location near the Israeli border since late October. Two migrants held by traffickers confirmed to Human Rights Watch that traffickers are holding 105 Eritreans, including nine women, for ransom in about 10 underground rooms.
"Egyptian authorities frequently say they are cracking down on organized crime in the Sinai," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "But the government is slow to react when human traffickers are holding hundreds of migrants for ransom."
Responding to media reports, on December 8 Egyptian security officials told the Egyptian daily Al-Shurouq that police were interrogating individuals connected to smugglers or traffickers in Sinai who may be detaining up to 300 Eritreans.
A sizable network smuggling sub-Saharan migrants through Egypt to Israel has been operating in Sinai since at least 2007. In addition to smugglers who guide people across borders unlawfully for money but who do not otherwise exploit and abuse them, there are also human traffickers operating in Sinai who abuse the migrants under their control and hold them for ransom.
Throughout 2010, Human Rights Watch has obtained numerous credible reports - including detailed statements by Eritreans apprehended by Israel near Egypt's Sinai border - of a well-established trafficking network. Traffickers regularly hold hostage hundreds of mostly Eritrean and other sub-Saharan asylum seekers and migrants, including children, in various locations for weeks or months until their relatives abroad pay thousands of dollars to secure their release.
In 30 statements that Human Rights Watch reviewed, migrants described how traffickers shackled their legs and chained three or four men or women together at a time, in some cases for as long as four months. Dozens of migrant women told medical staff in Israel that traffickers had repeatedly raped them, and both men and women said they had been burned with hot iron bars, whipped with electrical cords, beaten, and forced to do work for the traffickers while awaiting ransom payments or even after payments had been made.
Egypt's 240-kilometer border with Israel in the Sinai is a restricted military zone to which Egypt prohibits unauthorized entry. Egyptian border security forces have arrested thousands of asylum seekers and migrants in recent years and prosecuted many of them before military tribunals.
Security sources told Reuters that, in the most recent mass arrests on December 8, police arrested 83 asylum seekers and migrants - 63 Ethiopians and 20 Eritreans - 10 kilometers outside the town of Suez. The Egyptian authorities do not allow the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) access to asylum seekers and migrants arrested in Sinai and do not attempt to identify potential trafficking victims among them.
Since July 2007, Egyptian border guards have also shot and killed at least 85 people trying to cross into Israel - 28 of them since the beginning of 2010, including some who appear to have been seeking asylum. The vast majority were killed at the border in circumstances where smugglers were not present. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any Egyptian government investigations into these incidents.
"The authorities cannot justify shootings of migrants on the grounds that they are trying to halt smugglers or traffickers," Stork said. "Law enforcers may only use lethal force when absolutely necessary to protect lives."
Numerous migrants reported that smugglers ask for US$2,500 to $3,000 to guide them to the border with Israel. But once these migrants arrived in Sinai, they found themselves in the hands of traffickers who shackled them and demanded additional money - ranging from $500 to $10,000. They threatened to kill or otherwise harm the migrants - in several cases, to remove and sell their kidneys for a large illegal market in Egypt - if they did not pay. In dozens of cases asylum seekers and migrants said that to coerce relatives to make payments, traffickers would make them call their relatives by mobile phone and then shoot in the air or physically abuse them so the relatives would hear their screams.
Some migrants said that once their relatives paid the additional money, the traffickers handed them over to other traffickers who asked for more money. In other cases, Eritrean asylum seekers said they were kidnapped in Sudan, brought to Sinai against their will, and then forced to call their relatives to demand money in exchange for their release.
Local and international organizations working with refugees and migrants in Israel have interviewed dozens of women who said that traffickers raped them. Some women said they were repeatedly raped, often by many men, including Eritrean men forced to work with the traffickers, often at gunpoint and in some cases repeatedly for days or weeks. At times the women were raped close to where other migrants were being held hostage; at other times traffickers drove the women to an isolated area.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel told Human Rights Watch that about 80 abortions it carried out in the first 11 months of 2010 were for asylum seekers and migrant women whom the group believes had been sexually assaulted in the Sinai. It also said that out of 1,303 gynecological examinations conducted during the same period, a "large percentage" of the cases resulted from trauma experienced in Sinai.
Asylum seekers and migrants described traffickers abusing them by burning them with hot irons, using electric shocks, whipping with "metal whips" or electric cords on the back, feet, head or entire naked body, and beating the soles of the feet with "plastic objects" and the rest of the body with sticks. Some said they were abused in one or more of these ways every two to three days, sometimes for months. One woman said she watched her husband die of his burns, after which the traffickers raped her.
Human Rights Watch has been unable to establish the locations or structures in which traffickers hold the migrants. In reports reviewed by Human Rights Watch, migrants said they were held in rooms or buildings with other migrants. An account in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz described a situation in which 50 to 70 migrants were held in "metal containers," where some died of dehydration and a child burned his hands touching the hot walls. Some migrants say they were held in "purpose-built containers" or "underground cells."
Five migrants said that they were forced to urinate in bottles and that the traffickers then poured the contents over their heads. Almost all said they were allowed to wash their bodies only once or twice during their entire captivity. Migrants reported that traffickers gave them very little food, ranging from two pieces of bread a day to porridge once every three or four days. Migrants say they were only given "salty water" or water that contained residues of fuel from petrol jerrycans to drink, sometimes only once a day.
Migrants reported that traffickers forced them to engage in manual labor for 8 to 12 hours a day - mostly building houses - for periods ranging from 10 days to several months. Some said they were forced to work for weeks, even after their relatives had paid the ransom. Some men said they were forced to work at night because the traffickers said they did not want the police or military to see them. Women, including those who had been raped, said they were forced to prepare meals and clean for the traffickers. Both men and women said the traffickers referred to them as "slaves."
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which Egypt ratified in 2004, defines trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons through "the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion...or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control of another person, for the purpose of exploitation." Human Rights Watch said that the people in the Sinai controlling these migrants through force and threats and subjecting them to forced labor, rape, and extortion for money meet the definition of traffickers and should be brought to justice.
International law distinguishes traffickers, who depend on threats or force to exploit others, from smugglers, who take people across borders unlawfully without coercion.
According to UNHCR, about 85 percent of the migrants entering Israel through the Sinai desert in recent months have been Eritrean nationals fleeing an extremely repressive state. Most Eritreans reportedly begin their journey to Israel in refugee camps near the town of Kassala in Sudan and travel north - sometimes by boat from Port Sudan and sometimes overland - and into Sinai without passing through Egypt's capital, Cairo. Credible sources have told Human Rights Watch that some migrants die in the back of closed vehicles due to lack of water or oxygen and are simply thrown off the vehicles.
The second-largest group entering Israel is Sudanese nationals from Darfur, followed by smaller numbers of Ethiopians and other Africans. According to Israeli government figures, approximately 35,000 asylum seekers and migrants are in Israel, with about 1,100 having entered every month between August and October in 2010. Israeli officials frequently refer to them as "infiltrators."
Israel reviews very few individual asylum requests, but grants "temporary protection" to Eritrean and Sudanese nationals, which keeps them from being deported to their countries of origin. Israel's Interior Ministry recently announced it would revoke work permits of those with temporary protection.
The Israeli government also continues to implement a policy of forcibly returning to Egypt some migrants who enter Israel at the Sinai border without giving them a meaningful opportunity to lodge refugee claims, a practice Israel calls "hot returns." Israel's Supreme Court first heard Israeli rights groups' petitions against the "hot returns" procedure in 2007 but has not yet ruled on its legality. So far in 2010, the Israeli government is known to have sent back to Egypt 136 border-crossers. International refugee and human rights law prohibit refoulement, the forcible return of refugees to persecution or situations threatening their life or freedom, and of anyone to circumstances in which they face torture.
The Egyptian authorities regularly refer to organized criminal activity in Sinai involving the smuggling and trafficking of people, drugs, and weapons when justifying its prosecution before military tribunals of migrants charged with unlawful presence in Sinai, and also in explaining the scores of shooting deaths by Egyptian border security forces. In May, Egypt adopted a new anti-trafficking law and issued implementing regulations on December 6, which Human Rights Watch has yet to review. Egypt's penal code, its 2008 Child Law, and its Organ Transplant Law all criminalize trafficking.
"Egypt now has the laws but needs to take immediate and effective steps to combat trafficking and smuggling in the Sinai," Stork said. "Until it does, the terrible fate of some of the region's asylum seekers and migrants will only become more desperate."
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Defeating 'MAGA Dark Money,' Summer Lee Wins Primary in Landslide
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said the executive director of Justice Democrats.
Apr 24, 2024
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a member of the progressive "Squad," won the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District on Tuesday, fending off an opponent whose campaign was backed by a billionaire Republican megadonor and ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lee, a vocal critic of the Netanyahu government and leading supporter of a cease-fire in Gaza, handily defeated Bhavini Patel, a borough councilmember in Edgewood, Pennsylvania whose effort to unseat the progressive incumbent was bankrolled by Jeffrey Yass, the state's richest man. Patel actively courted Republican and pro-Israel voters, characterizing Lee as "fringe."
With more than 95% of the vote counted, Lee is ahead of Patel by more than 20 percentage points.
"I am so humbled and proud to win my first primary reelection to be the congresswoman for this incredible district I've spent my life fighting for," Lee said after the race was called in her favor. "Our campaign was built on a record of delivering for our democracy, defending our most fundamental rights, and expanding our vision for what is politically possible for our region's most marginalized communities."
"Our victory is a rejection of right-wing interests and Republican billionaires using corporate super PACs to target Black and brown Democrats in our primaries—be it AIPAC or Moderate PAC or any other MAGA billionaire in Democratic clothing," Lee added. "Western PA is the blueprint for the future all of America deserves."
Through the misleadingly named Moderate PAC, Yass—a prolific tax dodger who has been floated as a possible treasury secretary pick if former President Donald Trump wins another term—spent hundreds of thousands of dollars boosting Patel and attacking Lee.
Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn Political Action, said that by ushering Lee to victory, residents of Pennsylvania's 12th District "soundly rejected MAGA dark money."
"MoveOn members are ready to defeat this dangerous flood of dark-money spending against progressive champions and ensure that we continue to elect working-class people to Congress," said Epting.
"Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
During her 2022 campaign, Lee faced and overcame huge spending by the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC via its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. But the organization opted to stay on the sidelines this time around, even as it plans to spend $100 million to defeat progressives in this year's cycle amid growing public opposition to Israel's war on Gaza.
"They had every intention of spending in this race—but they didn't, because they realized they would likely lose," Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas wrote in an email late Tuesday. "And that is because all of us had Summer's back and supported her campaign to out-organize AIPAC in every way."
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said Rojas. "Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
While AIPAC ultimately sat out the Pennsylvania race, it is devoting considerable resources to ousting other progressive lawmakers, including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).
The pro-Israel lobbying group has endorsed Bush challenger Wesley Bell, calling him a "strong advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship." As The Guardianreported last week, Bell has "raised more than $650,000 in earmarked contributions through the group Democracy Engine Inc. PAC—a donation platform that allows unpopular PACs to obscure their donations and lists AIPAC as a client on its LinkedIn page."
AIPAC is the largest donor to Bowman challenger George Latimer, who has supported Israel's war on Gaza and denied that Israel is committing genocide. The Democratic primary for New York's 16th Congressional District is on June 25.
We must be clear-eyed about what's next.@JamaalBowmanNY & @CoriBush are facing an existential threat from AIPAC, their GOP megadonors, and the politicians willing to compromise on core Democratic values to try to take a school principal & nurse out of Congress. #ProtectTheSquad
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) April 24, 2024
Michele Weindling, political director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said Tuesday that following Lee's victory, "we're ramping up to take on AIPAC in Jamaal Bowman's race."
"With a candidate like George Latimer willing to sell their lies to the district, we are going to prove once again that a politician's commitment to their community beats dark money every time," said Weindling. "Whether it's in Pittsburgh or New York, Minneapolis or St. Louis, our generation is going to send billionaires packing and reelect the squad."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
"FERC has again failed to protect the public interest, instead favoring a profit-making corporation," Sligh added.
Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular