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About a month ago, 450 Eritreans were let out of the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, and marched through the streets. They knew that nothing would protect them in a city bursting with human traffickers. Many locals look for refugees to buy and sell into slave labor or prostitution or the Africans might be sold to traffickers of human organs, or be locked in a storeroom and tortured until someone pays a ransom.

So the Eritreans marched for hours to the Gathering and Departure Facility of the UNHCR refugee agency, hoping to join refugees who had already found new homes in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Refugees at the UNHCR facility receive treatment and food until their departure.

The detainees who left Abu Salim knew this, so they stood outside the fence that surrounds the UNHCR compound and begged to be let in but they were told there was no room.

They spent the following day, their first outside the prison, at the fence. The UNHCR staffers, most of them locals partly because Libya strictly limits the United Nations authority in the country told them they had to return to prison. Two days later they were allowed to enter the compound, but there wasnt enough room, so they were told to sleep outside.

Only a few months earlier, the United Nations had declared that conditions in Libyas detention facilities were unacceptable and the detainees should be evacuated. Still, new groups of refugees are being sent to the detention camps after being seized by the authorities along the Libyan coast or out at sea.

In the past year, refugees have ramped up their efforts on social media, including videos showing their prison conditions. Despite the harsh images from inside prisons including Zintan, Zawiya and Qasr bin Ghashir, there has been no noticeable change in the refugees plight.

And last week, The Guardian reported on a plan to suspend food supplies to the Tripoli Gathering and Departure Facility from January 1 not only for the refugees sleeping in the yard but also for anyone who arrived before them, including dozens of people with tuberculosis. A leaked document mentions a directive to UN staff to hide this fact until mid-December. A staff member told The Guardian that the move was meant to starve out the new arrivals from the compound.

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The paper said it asked whether denying food to former Abu Salim detainees in the facility was a deliberate policy on UNHCRs part, but this email and further requests for comment went unanswered.

Kenan Malik, a columnist for The Observer a sister paper of The Guardian wrote over the weekend: The UNHCRs actions, if the reports are true, are scandalous. They are also unsurprising. Starving refugees out of a place of safety is a fair metaphor for western policy towards unwanted migrants. Malik likened the move to a hospital that finds its patients so burdensome that it denies them medical care. A homeless hostel that turfs its residents out on the streets.

Charlie Yaxley, a spokesman for the UNHCR, told The Associated Press over the weekend, The situation is very difficult, and we do not have the resources, because the center in Tripoli is at about twice its capacity, with some 1,200 migrants.

The UNHCR asked the unregistered refugees to leave the facility and receive an assistance package that includes cash for two months, underwritten by the European Union. In the meantime, the refugees remain in the yard of the Gathering and Departure Facility weighing their next move, if they can fathom one.

As a resident of the yard told Haaretz, Were living without support, without food and without any possibility of evacuation.

These people, of course, have no intention to return to prison. Another refugee who left Abu Salim after spending a year or so there is Abraham (not his real name). On WhatsApp he told me that the beating of prisoners there is a matter of routine. Prison guards have tried to harass women many times; the prisoners had to be on their guard and try to smuggle the women out. From October 2018, the prison staff stopped providing food. The detainees had to look out for themselves.

Another refugee, who spent several months in the prison, explained how they obtained food. We would ask our families in Eritrea for money for food. They would send cash via agents. The money passed through Sudan and Libya, with the agents along the way taking their share in fees, he said.

Sudanese detainees would leave the prison they were the only ones who knew Arabic to meet the final agent who had arrived in the city, to receive the money from him, buy food with it and then return to the prison. The money didnt always arrive. Sometimes it was stolen or would disappear. Even when it did come, it wasnt enough to feed 450 people, so we were always hungry. Some of our families sold their property. My parents sold the house in order to feed me.

Not long ago, their situation deteriorated further. The prison guards wanted to lock the cell and confiscate our cellphones, Abraham said. They also threatened that they would shut off the water and prevent Doctors Without Borders from entering. We objected. We knew that without telephones, without medical care, in a locked cell, our situation would decline even further. He said the prison warden told them: These are the conditions here. You dont want to be here? Then leave and look for food outside.

And so it was that hundreds of detainees left, little by little, including women and children, tuberculosis sufferers and a few who had developed severe psychological problems. Every so often someone in prison went crazy and his friends would try to get him under control, Abraham said. One of them got into the prisons sewage system one night, got stuck there and died. Its not clear how he got in there.

Although the prison warden himself opened the gate, the refugees didnt really feel they were free. They knew what they could expect outside starvation or abduction, two experiences they had already endured on their way to Libya.

Lost at sea

For years, Libya has been a way station for refugees from Eritrea and other African countries, including Somalia and Sudan, on their way to Europe. The smugglers crowded, flimsy boats sometimes run aground or sink in the middle of the sea. These vessels have become a symbol of the European refugee crisis.

Some countries have adopted an iron fist policy toward the refugees. Italy says rescuing them from the sea and bringing them to the Italian coast is illegal, and rescuers have been charged with human trafficking. In 2017, the EU began supplying the Libyan coast guard with funding and sophisticated locating devices to let it send refugee boats back to Libya.

Columnist Malik wrote about this as well: Central to the EUs strategy over the past decade has been the outsourcing of immigration control, paying countries from Libya to Sudan, from Niger to Turkey, to deter potential migrants to Europe. In this process a new form of imperialism is emerging, whereby rich nations, in the name of protecting their borders from migrants, trample all over the borders of poorer neighbours.

He added: Nor does the EU particularly worry about whom its partners lock up, so long as they lock up potential migrants to Europe. In the Sahel [region of Africa], 80% of migration is not to Europe but is regional, involving people who for decades have moved around an area in which borders are naturally porous. Militias and security forces dont care to sift through different kinds of migrants, so all become targets for the new kidnap and detention industry. The result is the disruption of traditional trade routes, growing economic instability and rising discontent feeding the desire for migration.

The EU turns a blind eye to the treatment of detainees, too. European governments are not just aware of the torture, sexual abuse and extortion to which detainees are subject but also, in the words of Amnesty Internationals John Dalhuisen, complicit in these abuses. The whole point of outsourcing is to pay others to do Europes dirty work. The more hostile the climate for migrants in countries such as Libya or Niger, the more effective the policy of keeping migrants away from Europe.

Niger, Italy and Rwanda

About 6,000 refugees currently live in detention facilities in Libya. With the increased media coverage, the Libyans tried to expel some of them; some were sent to Niger, where they await resettlement. But this move was suspended because no immigration quotas were offered in Europe.

In April, the UNHCR restarted the evacuations, and 163 refugees were sent to Niger. About two months later another 149 were evacuated from Zawiya and Zintan to Italy. Then smaller groups were transferred to Rwanda. Last Thursday, for example, 117 refugees were sent there. Still, its still unclear how much longer the Rwanda plan will continue, how many refugees will be evacuated under its aegis and whether a solution has really been found for thousands of refugees all told.

A dictatorship has been in power in Eritrea for over two decades, headed by President Isaias Afwerki. Even though the country isnt at war, its citizens must perform military service that begins at age 17 and can continue to age 50. Their service includes a wide variety of labor like construction work, road paving, fishing and mining. But there is no pay aside from pocket change from the military. This system has been recognized around the world as slavery. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are limited, and many people are imprisoned and/or disappear.

The regime is known for its long arm, even abroad, including spying on refugees in their new countries, and the abuse of human rights activists, whom it has deported. In that respect, Eritrea is one of the largest refugee exporters in the world; around 15 percent of its citizens now live abroad. Many of them pass through Libya in their attempt to reach Europe; they represent a large portion of the detainee population there.

I began corresponding with refugees from Eritrea as early as the first week they were brought into the compound of the Gathering and Departure Facility. They speak to anyone willing to hear. Many of them are sick and hungry, and their access to the internet is spotty. Once every few days I tried to learn if they were receiving any food, and they always said no. One time they received a few cookies from the UN staffers, and also bread that was contributed by veteran refugees at the compound out of their own meager rations.

Most of the food was given to the 50 tuberculosis patients; the others sit in the yard and wait. We were told that they had to give us food, but the days pass and that isnt happening, Abraham said.

A number of them are suffering from the effects of hunger swollen feet, diabetes, a skeletal appearance. A few days ago, a month after they entered the compound, Abraham announced: Weve been told to leave the facility. Weve been told that if we dont cooperate, well have no chance to be included in any relocation plan out of Libya.

They were given two options either return to the Abu Salim prison, which refuses to feed them, or go to the Gurji neighborhood, where the community center is coping poorly and barely offers any remedy to the few refugees there. Gurji was a magic word offering a nonexistent solution.

After being interviewed by the UNHCR, some of the migrants Ethiopians, Somalis and Eritreans found out that they werent entitled to refugee status. They say no one told them why. A situation has come about where even in Libya, Eritrean refugees are afraid to talk about the situation in Eritrea or criticize the regime, Abraham said.

Theyre seeing that not everyone receives refugee status. They fear that some of them will be deported back to Eritrea. And anyone whos deported there could be imprisoned, undergo torture and give information about his brothers in Libya. So everyone is being cautious around each other.

*

The UNHCR said in response that the claim about starving refugees "is totally inaccurate. The facility was set up as a transit centre a safe place for vulnerable refugees, who we had managed to get released from detention, pending evacuation to third countries.

"Since July, approximately 900 new people (including those held in Tajoura and Abu Salim, as well as some from the urban community) have gained entrance in the GDF/its transit area, hoping they could get on flights out of Libya. However, given the small number of resettlement places that are available worldwide, we have to prioritise the most vulnerable and 'at risk' cases, and these individuals had not been previously identified as priorities.

"Their presence has, unfortunately, meant that the centre is vastly overcrowded and this has impacted the provision of services. There are also women and unaccompanied children in detention, whom we cannot release and transfer now to the GDF because it is overcrowded.

"We have been trying to find solutions since the new arrivals in July. We have told people, who are free to leave at any time, thatwe can provide outside at our Community Day Centre: cash assistance, relief items, medical referrals and protection interviews.

"We will maintain basic services at the centre, including health and sanitation, but we are phasing out catering next year, as we are offering individuals the urban assistance package, which includes cash that they can use for food and shelter".

Link:
Refugees in Libya hoped for help from the UN. Instead, they were abandoned - Haaretz

The use of lethal drones was once an area dominated by the US, but has spread rapidly, drawing in new conflicts and causing more civilian casualties as warfare is revolutionised.

The principal battleground is Libya, where both sides in the ongoing civil war are trying to gain air superiority with cheap Chinese-made craft run by the United Arab Emirates on one side, and equally inexpensive Turkish-made drones on the other.

Libya is ground zero for drone wars, said Chris Cole, who runs the Drone Wars research group. A complex network of countries are involved and nobody is precisely sure who is doing what.

The conflict pits the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar, the 76-year-old military strongman who controls Benghazi and much of the east of the country, against the forces of the rival Government of National Accord (GNA), which holds the capital, Tripoli.

More than 1,000 people have already been killed in the fighting with 120,000 displaced, according to UN estimates. In April, Haftar launched a new offensive, attacking Tripoli and advancing into the south-west of the country. Since, there have been more than 900 drone missions, the UN estimates.

The use of drones intensified when, after rapid early gains, Haftars forces were stalled by resistance from a coalition of militias fighting for the GNA. This led to an increasing reliance on air power to gain a tactical advantage in what had become a stalemate and to avoid further military casualties, experts say.

Haftar is supported by Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The UAE operates a handful of Chinese-made Wing Loong drones, with an estimated cost of $1m-$2m (800,000-1.5m), a fraction of the price of a US-made Reaper, where the entry level price is about $15m.

The GNA, recognised by the UN as the legitimate government of Libya, is backed by Qatar and the fast-emerging drone power Turkey, which has supplied its Bayraktar TB2 drones in at least three waves this year.

In August, UAE-operated Chinese drones fighting for Haftar were blamed for a double strike targeting a town hall meeting in south-western Libya that killed at least 45 people.

Using a controversial double tap technique pioneered by the US, the second strike came a few minutes later to target first responders, in the belief they would be connected to the original targets. Guests at a nearby wedding who had come to help were among those killed.

The death toll, which included many children, represents one of the largest single loss of civilian life since conflict began in 2011 after the fall of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Jalel Harchaoui, an expert at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, said that in recent months Haftar had switched to using cheaper drones after he had abandoned hope of a successful conventional military attack on Tripoli they were the ideal weapons for a drawn-out campaign aimed at undermining the morale of opponents.

Air power is playing a bigger role and drones are very useful. We have seen a greater tendency to go after soft targets. Slowly but surely there is a higher tolerance for civilian casualties and there has been no real international condemnation, Harchaoui said.

There have been dozens of smaller-scale strikes in recent months, including one that hit a riding club close to the UN compound in Tripoli in early October, injuring several children. Most have been blamed on Haftars forces, who have been using drones to destroy the GNAs Turkish-made aerial vehicles on the ground.

Complicating the picture further, the US periodically conducts its own drone strikes aimed at Isis-affiliated groups in the south of the country. Four recently disclosed strikes were claimed to have killed 43 militants in late September, launched from bases in Italy and Niger.

In November last year, Tuareg people living in the south of the country claimed a US drone strike had killed 11 civilians. But Washington said terrorists had been targeted and it believed no civilians were killed.

The military effectiveness of the GNAs Bayraktur TB2 drones has been proven in Ankaras long-running battle with the separatist PKK in the south-east of Turkey, which has spilled over into Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria, where they have been involved in lethal strikes.

Such is Turkeys success that it has rapidly become a major exporter of medium-range drones, meeting a demand because the US remains unwilling to allow countries in the conflict-torn Middle East to buy its Reaper drones.

The GNA bought 20 TB2 drones from Turkey in the summer, although some replaced drones knocked out by the LNA. Ankara also struck a deal to sell six TB2s to Qatar in 2018 and this year 12 were sold to Ukraine.

Analysts say that in Libya, the deadly air war has been prolonged by the use of the relatively inexpensive drones. Jennifer Gibson, from the human rights charity Reprieve, adds that a long history of secrecy around drone use by the US and its allies has created an increasingly amoral environment around their use.

New users of drones do not feel any great obligation to admit what they have done, because a precedent for non-disclosure has already been set, she said.

More here:
'Libya is ground zero': drones on frontline in bloody civil war - The Guardian

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, announced today that it is increasing its support to refugees and asylum seekers in urban areas of Libya and reassessing the role and functioning of the Gathering and Departure Facility.

As the Libyan conflict intensifies, we have decided to expand the assistance provided to the refugees and asylum seekers living in urban areas, said UNHCRs Chief of Mission for Libya Jean-Paul Cavalieri.

There are already some 40,000 refugees and asylum-seekers living in urban areas, some of whom are extremely vulnerable and in desperate need of support. Humanitarian assistance to refugees and asylum seekers is available at our Community Day Centre (CDC) in Gurji, district of Tripoli, where those in need can access primary health care, registration and cash assistance to help meet food and accommodation needs.

The agency is also reassessing the role of the Gathering and Departure Facility (GDF), in light of severe and unsustainable over-crowding. The GDF was opened a year ago as a transit facility for vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, mostly women and unaccompanied children at heightened risk in detention and for whom solutions outside Libya had been identified. These solutions remain very limited and require us to identify and prioritise the most acutely vulnerable people within a much broader population, many of whom are in great need. UNHCR and partners operate inside the facility, which is under the overall jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior.

However, since July, following a deadly airstrike at Tajoura detention centre, hundreds of former detainees made their way into the GDF. They were followed by another group of around 400 people from Abu Salim detention centre in late October, as well as up to 200 people from urban areas. They are part of a broader population of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants who are vulnerable and exposed to risks in Libya but have not been prioritised for evacuation or resettlement.

The GDF is now severely overcrowded. It has capacity for around 600 people, but currently hosts nearly double that figure many of whom have been there for several months. UNHCR, UN agencies and our partners have been providing them with humanitarian assistance, including medical care, psycho-social support, hot meals and high-energy biscuits. However, the situation at the GDF is unsustainable and it no longer functions as a transit facility, hampering UNHCRs ability to evacuate the most acutely vulnerable refugees, for whom solutions outside of Libya have been found, out of detention centres and to safety.

We very much welcome the release of asylum seekers and refugees from detention by the Libyan authorities, and are now expanding our programme of support in urban areas so that they can get the help they need, said Cavalieri. We are also encouraging partners and donors to step up support to urban migrants and other vulnerable communities.

We hope that the GDF will be able to return to its original function as a transit facility for the most acutely vulnerable refugees, so we are able to evacuate them to safety, he added, while noting that the GDF has de facto become an open centre for urban migrants and asylum-seekers where UNHCR will continue to provide medical assistance and sanitation services for the foreseeable future, based on available resources.

With the broader package of urban assistance in place, UNHCR will phase out food catering at the GDF in the New Year. UNHCR will continue to inform and counsel individuals who informally entered the GDF about their options and the availability of the urban assistance package. Those with a valid claim for international protection are being offered the urban assistance package to help them move out, including emergency cash for an initial two months, relief items, access to primary health care and medical referrals. They will also be offered to meet with our staff to identify specific vulnerabilities and solutions. We continue to appeal for additional resources that would allow us to provide more substantial and sustained support.

Around 40 people have already agreed to this option, which does not rule out their eligibility for possible future evacuation or resettlement outside of Libya. For example, four individuals who accepted the package have been assessed as eligible for humanitarian evacuation following protection interviews.

The processing of individual cases, including protection assessments and identification of possible durable solutions outside Libya, will continue to take place at UNHCRs Sarraj registration office, in order to ensure the integrity of UNHCR procedures.

UNHCR reiterates that options for resettlement remain unfortunately extremely limited, with the number of available resettlement places worldwide being far outstripped by the needs. Less than 1% of refugees identified by UNHCR as in need are able to be resettled each year. We urge the international community to come forward with more resettlement places and faster processes to help us evacuate more refugees in need of resettlement to safety.

For more information:

In Tunis: Caroline Gluck gluck@unhcr.org +216 299 25506In Tunis:Tarik Argaz, argaz@unhcr.org, +216 29 9612 95In Geneva: Charlie Yaxley, yaxley@unhcr.org, +41 79 580 8702

Continue reading here:
UNHCR expands help to refugees in urban areas in Libya, reassesses role of Gathering and Departure Facility [EN/AR] - Libya - ReliefWeb

A dark canopy of air pollution has been consuming the cities at an unprecedented rate. The alarms have long gone off. Today, at least 2 Indians are losing their lives every two minutes due to air pollution and there is little time to realize its appalling effects on our day to day lives. Acknowledging the need and importance of clean air, way ahead in time, Volvo Cars has always been a frontrunner taking strides to counter air pollution.

When we talk about air pollution, It is quite natural to hold the day to day automobiles responsible. But VolvoCars asa brand has not just acknowledged the issue of pollution that is long impending but has actively taken giant steps to reduce its carbon footprint in many ways.

In the previous year, this time around, Volvo Cars had rolled out a hard-hitting video on air pollution under its #BreatheFree campaign that had resonated with over 15 million people across all platforms. The initiative reimagined the popular childrens rhyme, Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars and encouraged people to join in their vision to democratise the air. The impact that it created generated multiple important conversations around air pollution. Because why not? We only have one planet!

As they say, change is a consistent process, just like last year, Volvo Cars, that is ever so committed to the cause of beating air pollution has a lot in store this year as well. It encourages the active and aware citizens to not just participate but also actively involve themselves in its vision and commitment to have a pollution-free clean air. To know what Volvo has in store for this year, click on this!

The brand with its message, Do your bit today, to clean the air of tomorrow continues to take aggressive strides towards beating air pollution that is by far the most urgent and pressing crisis that needs attention. Apart from employing the clean zone technology inside the car, Volvo also committed to electrification and greener technology. The Logical Indian community appreciates the brand VolvoCars for its continued contribution towards a greener future.

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UN-Run Refugee Facility In Libya Accused Of Starving Hundreds Of Refugees - The Logical Indian

Tue, Nov 26, 2019

MENASourcebyEmily Burchfield

Related Experts: Emily Burchfield,

Libyan women with taped mouths take part in a silent march in support of the women who were raped during the recent war in Libya, in Tripoli November 26, 2011. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

At a recent United NationsSecurity Council (UNSC) meeting on November18, 2019 concerning Libya, members were privileged to hear from Rida Al-Tubuly,advocate for peace and co-founder of Together We BuildIt, a nonprofit that supportsa peaceful democratic transition in the country by empowering women to play anactive role in peace-building. Ms. Tubuly addressed the systematic exclusion ofLibyan women from the UN-led peace process and suggested a different pathforward.

Libya experts frequentlycall for greater inclusion of civil society and local governance leaders inpeace-building efforts in order for the peace process to be more representativeof ordinary Libyans. And yet, Libyan womens powerful role in civil society andthe fact that they make up half of the population of ordinary Libyans isoften overlooked. For the peace process to be truly by and for Libyans and successfullyadvance a long-term solution, a broad and diverse range of Libyan women must begiven a seat at the negotiating table.

Why have women beenexcluded from the peace process?

As Ms. Tubuly explained to UNSCmembers, [Libyan women] are often told by international decision makers thatthe reason women are excluded from formal peace and political negations isbecause the Libyan actors are against womens political participation. Thisbegs the question: if there are no means for ordinary Libyans to take part inthe political process, then how will we be able to change things on theground? It is misguided and reductive to imagine that the majority of Libyansare opposed to womens involvement in the peace process. Womens inclusion isnot just a feminist issue, it is an issue of reflecting Libyas nationalculture and traditions in the peace process.

Libyan women have longplayed a key role innegotiating or mediating conflicts within families, clans and localcommunities. This legacy is often overlooked because it lives in local culturesthrough oral history rather than written documentation, according to ZaraLanghi, scholar and head of Libyan Womens Platform for Peace. Women also play an outsize role incivil society organization and activism in Libyaindeed, nonviolent action byurban women was central to the 2011 uprising that ousted former LibyanPresident Muammar Qaddafi. Libyan womens active engagement in the revolution empowered their political and socialstatus, but the chaos and dysfunction of the post-revolution era led tobacksliding in womens empowerment.

War-related insecurity hasin many instances limited womens freedom of movement in public. Traditionaland religious injunctions against women traveling without a male guardian(mahram) have been invoked in some areas. Further, patriarchal strains ofLibyas culture have fused withthe ideas of masculinity, militarism, and fundamentalism promoted by the violentconflict, giving rise to political actors with interests and objectives thatexclude women. These factors created obstacles to womens participation inpolitical activities, but women found ways to overcome them. Women facilitatemany of theinformal peace processes throughout the country and are activeorganizers for peace. However, their formal participation in the peace process isfurther hindered by the UNs neglect in the post-revolutionary period.

How does the ongoingviolence affect Libyan women?

Libyas local and regionaldiversity means that womens experience throughout the country is highlyvariable. However, it is important to address the conflicts differentialeffect on women. The war has led to a loss of gains in womens rights andpolitical empowerment. Women who do participate in politics are increasingly atrisk: Seham Serghewa, a rights activist and member of the House ofRepresentatives, was abducted in July and her fate remains unknown toinvestigators. As UN Special Representative for Libya Ghassan Salame noted inhis briefing tothe UNSC on November 19, Ms. Serghewas fate is part of a larger pattern ofviolence against women across the country that includes several instances ofkilling and forced disappearances in recent months. Women are among thecivilians that bear the brunt of the conflict and are also increasingly at risk of sexual and gender-basedviolence, but,as Libyan womens organizations have pointed out, the absence of gender disaggregateddata on conflict casualties and sexual and gender-based violence among womenserves to further their marginalization and the erasure of the gendered impactof armed conflict.

Libyan women have ideas for a path forward in their country, and deserve to have their input amplified at an official level.

The attack on Tripoli inApril by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and the Libyan National Army (LNA) significantlyimpacted women and girls. Of the 90,500 civilians displaced by first month ofthe offensive, an estimated 51 percent were female; they face disproportionate risks in shelters and internally displacedpeoples camps that lack safe places,privacy, security and freedom from harassment. Most women and children displaced from Tripoli and its surroundingareas are traumatized by the ongoing conflict and in need of some form of psychosocialsupport, and an estimated 400 women are at risk of sexual violence in thisenvironment. And if the ongoing conflict creates security vacuums in the restof the country that Salafi jihadist militants can exploit, the impact on womens rights andsecurity in those locales could be devastating. It would also be remiss to omitthe fact that women migrants and refugees in Libya are at risk of rape and other forms of sexual andgender-based violence, sexual exploitation, and forced prostitution indetention and at large.

The increased instance ofsexual and gender-based violence during conflict is not a phenomenon unique toLibya: the UN has noted that violence against women and girls is widespread during conflict and usedas a war tactic worldwide. Wartime rape, trafficking, forced prostitution, andviolence targeting women is frequently used as a strategy of war; it not only terrorizes women but also contributes to malehumiliation when men fail to protect their women. Continued conflict in Libyaposes special threats to the security of women and girls.

Why should the UN include morewomen in the peace process?

Women must be included inpeace processes not necessarily because they are inherently peaceful, butbecause they have unique meditation and negotiation skills imbued by theirculture, are equal stakeholders in peace with men, are highly motivated toterminate conflict given the differential effect of war on women. This is truein Libya, where women have overcome great odds to play an important role inpeacebuilding. However, their absence or diminished presence at UN-led internationalconferences like Palermo and Paris meant that no space was made for arepresentative range of Libyan women to contribute their experiences,perspectives, and ideas to the formal decision-making process.

Not until 2015 did the SpecialRepresentative for Libya at the time, Bernardino Len, instruct that womenmust get involved in talks at the municipality and tribal level. While nomention was made of their inclusion in the formal process, some progress hasbeen made in terms of womens role in local dialogues since then. The Libyan National Conference Process, which was initiated at the request ofthe UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) under the auspices of the Centre forHumanitarian Dialogue, held more than seventy separate meetings of localleaders with a grand total of more than 7,000 Libyans participating; over aquarter of whom were women. While 25 percent is not representative or sufficient, the increase in womens involvementwas an improvement. One outcome of womens participation in the meetings wasthe inclusion of references to women in the final report of the conference,including the recommendation that women should be integrated into the militaryaccording to Libyan social needs and norms in order to improve the militaryseffectiveness. This is a great idea: womens participation in the securitysector has been shown to improve community relations, provide mission-critical intelligence and insights, and reduce sexual violence. These are the types of women-driveninitiatives the peace process is lacking in and could benefit from if womenspresence was representative. The National Conference Process meetings werewidely seen as more successful than their international counterparts, andwomens participation in themwhile still not at paritywas likely a causalfactor.

Research showsthat womens active participation in a peace process makes it 64 percent lesslikely to fail, and 35 percent more likely to last at least fifteen years. Theinclusion of women at the negotiating table can produce agreements that improvegender equality, which in turn decreases conflict between and within states,increases stability, and promotes post-conflict recovery. Despite the evidenceof womens valuable contribution to peace and security, their representationhas only marginally improved. Worldwide since 1992, women have made up only 3 percent of mediators, 4 percent of signatories,and 13 percent of negotiators.

UNSMIL and theinternational community would do well to consider the evidence of womensutility in peace processes and make a concerted effort to include them atinternational fora like the forthcoming Berlin conference, as well as increasing theirparticipation in national dialogues. Furthermore, as long as elections are notpossible, UNSMIL must be creative in facilitating and leading a politicalprocess that is gender-inclusive. To restorepower to ordinary Libyans, the peace process must be reconfigured: women musthave representation at the negotiating table as well as in dynamics on theground. Libyan women have ideas for a path forward in their country, anddeserve to have their input amplified at an official level. Not only that,Libya deserves the kinds of solutions women can drive forward.

Emily Burchfield is an assistant director at the Atlantic Councils Middle East Programs.

Thu, Sep 19, 2019

One of the unfortunate consequences of Libyas crisis is that the main players with decision-making power in Libyas conflict are the regional and international powers involved in the crisis.

MENASourcebyKarim Mezran

Thu, Aug 22, 2019

In 2020, when Tunisia begins its two-year term as non-permanent member of the Security Council, the country will have the biggest opportunity to influence international affairs since becoming a democracy in 2011. In response to the appointment, Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui declared Tunisia will be the voice of Africa and the Arab worldTrying to []

MENASourcebyKeith Jones

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How the exclusion of women has cost Libya - Atlantic Council