Current Issues

These are articles on current issues surfacing through the news or popular culture that are relevant to the lives of some Africana peoples.  Even though these issues arise in popular culture, Afrometrics works to place such events in greater historical and cultural context than one would find in the mainstream media.  Our current issues articles also take on a prescriptive or solution oriented approach.
  • Welcome
  • About
  • The Team
    • Africologists' Publications
  • Empirical Research
    • The Black Unity Center at San Francisco State: A Case Study of the Impact of a Black Student Center
    • African Americans Weigh In on Solutions to Police Brutality
    • The Relationship between Culture, Learning Styles, and Academic Achievement: A Case Study of Young Black Men
    • Gender, Achievement, and Learning Styles
    • Effects of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Case on American Thought
    • Black People Say What it Means to be Black
  • Research Based News
    • Research Based News Episodes
  • Current Issues
  • Africana Religious Studies Series
  • DEC.IMA
  • Africological Research
  • Join
  • Afrimation Podcast
  • Welcome
  • About
  • The Team
    • Africologists' Publications
  • Empirical Research
    • The Black Unity Center at San Francisco State: A Case Study of the Impact of a Black Student Center
    • African Americans Weigh In on Solutions to Police Brutality
    • The Relationship between Culture, Learning Styles, and Academic Achievement: A Case Study of Young Black Men
    • Gender, Achievement, and Learning Styles
    • Effects of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Case on American Thought
    • Black People Say What it Means to be Black
  • Research Based News
    • Research Based News Episodes
  • Current Issues
  • Africana Religious Studies Series
  • DEC.IMA
  • Africological Research
  • Join
  • Afrimation Podcast

Afrometrics & SFSU Black Unity Center Position Statement on Enslavement in Libya

12/5/2017

1 Comment

 
Written by Serie McDougal and Sureshi Jayawardene

In the past month or so, there has been increased attention brought to the ongoing practice of the enslavement and trafficking of Black African migrants in Libya.  Libyan ‘slave markets’ are not a new phenomenon, however. The International Organization for Migration, the UNs migration agency, reported in April this year that North African migrant routes were rife with ‘slave markets’ where “hundreds of young African men bound for Libya” were subject to treacherous conditions. For Black African migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe by sea, Libya is the main transit point. Many of them, from countries like Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, face rape, torture, starvation, disease, and murder. Since the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has struggled to implement the rule of law and descended into civil war and lawlessness. Given this unstable political climate, Libyans see the slave trade as a lucrative industry. TIME reports some important figures for the dangers facing Black African refugees and migrants in Libya:
  • Approximately 450,000 people have crossed the Meditteranean Sea from Libya in the past 3 years
  • Approximately 3,000 refugees have died from drowning while attempting this dangerous journey in each of the last 4 years
  • Anywhere between 400,000 and 1 million Black Africans are currently bottled up in Libyan detention centers
The Black Unity Center at San Francisco State University joins Afrometrics in condemning, not only the practice of enslavement in Lybia, but the NATO-backed interventions into Libya in 2011 for their irresponsibitly and failure to facilitate an end to the humanitarian violations committed against Black African people which had been well-documented at the time. Instead, the abuses intensified in the destabilization and chaos left behind. UN Human Rights Commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad Al Huseein stated in September that “The situation of migrants crossing Libya was appalling during Gaddafi’s era, but it has become diabolical since.” Because of the combined effects of racism, anti-Blackness, and economic marginalization, people of African descent around the world are at a particular risk, from the enslavement of Black Africans in Lybia to to the sexual enslavement and inquitable legal treatment of people like Cyntoia Brown in the U.S. 

As a Pan-African community, this is a time for a multilayered response to the situation of our people in Libya. We commend the US foreign policy efforts advanced just this week by Congresswoman Karen Bass, who is also the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Africa. Rep. Bass introduced a bill calling for the U.S. government to “impose sanctions against Libya if the country fails to end slave auctions and other forms of forced labor”and hold accountable parties to human smuggling and trafficking as well as Libyan “detention center guards.” Rep. Bass’s resolution also calls for the U.S. Secretary of State and Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Develop to use allocated funds to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants and refugees in Libyan detention centers. This bill urges the African Union to conduct its own independent investigation into the Libyan slave crisis.

We commend African countries making efforts to facilitate the repatriation of captives; all those placing pressure on countries to adopt the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; the shared commitments of the African Union, European Union, and United Nations (reached on Wednesday, November 29th) to work collectively to “freeze the assets of human traffickers” and refer them to the ICC; and, all those pressuring the international community to not only investigate but issue convictions.

Lastly, as a research institution, we urge Africana scholars and practitioners to counter any evasion of the protracted history of abuses targeted at indigenous Black African ethnicities and cultural practices in North Africa so that present abuses may be placed in proper context and not rendered invisible or detached from a larger history of North African oppression targeting Black African people. 
1 Comment
Carlos Diaz link
9/3/2023 12:14:45 am

Hello mate nnice blog

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2022
    June 2019
    November 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    October 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    November 2013
    August 2013

    Categories

    All
    Africana Studies
    Black Cultural Centers
    Black Males
    Black People
    Budget Cuts
    College Of Ethnic Studies
    Culturally Relevant Education
    Gun Violence
    Police Brutality
    President Obama
    San Francisco State University

    RSS Feed

© 2013 Afrometrics. All rights reserved. 1600 Holloway Avenue, Ethnic Studies + Psychology Building, Department of Africana Studies, San Francisco, California. 
Afrometrics
  • Welcome
  • About
  • The Team
    • Africologists' Publications
  • Empirical Research
    • The Black Unity Center at San Francisco State: A Case Study of the Impact of a Black Student Center
    • African Americans Weigh In on Solutions to Police Brutality
    • The Relationship between Culture, Learning Styles, and Academic Achievement: A Case Study of Young Black Men
    • Gender, Achievement, and Learning Styles
    • Effects of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Case on American Thought
    • Black People Say What it Means to be Black
  • Research Based News
    • Research Based News Episodes
  • Current Issues
  • Africana Religious Studies Series
  • DEC.IMA
  • Africological Research
  • Join
  • Afrimation Podcast
  • Welcome
  • About
  • The Team
    • Africologists' Publications
  • Empirical Research
    • The Black Unity Center at San Francisco State: A Case Study of the Impact of a Black Student Center
    • African Americans Weigh In on Solutions to Police Brutality
    • The Relationship between Culture, Learning Styles, and Academic Achievement: A Case Study of Young Black Men
    • Gender, Achievement, and Learning Styles
    • Effects of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Case on American Thought
    • Black People Say What it Means to be Black
  • Research Based News
    • Research Based News Episodes
  • Current Issues
  • Africana Religious Studies Series
  • DEC.IMA
  • Africological Research
  • Join
  • Afrimation Podcast
Founded in January 2013. An Independent Research Institute for Africana People.