GENEVA - Migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya are subjected to ruthless and systematic human rights violations and abuses, which include killings, torture, sexual violence and trafficking, according to a UN report published today.
The report by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Support Mission in Libya finds that migrants are rounded up and abducted by criminal trafficking networks, often with ties to the Libyan authorities, and criminal networks abroad. It describes how they are separated from their families, arrested and transferred to detention facilities without due process, often at gunpoint, in what amounts to arbitrary detention.
In detention, migrants are routinely subjected to horrific violations and abuses, including slavery, torture, ill-treatment, forced labour, forced prostitution and other forms of sexual violence, ransom, extortion, as well as the confiscation and re-sale of their belongings and identification documents.
Covering the period from January 2024 to December 2025, the report uncovers an "exploitative model preying on migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees in situations of heightened vulnerability [that] has become 'business as usual' - a brutal and normalised reality".
The report is based on interviews with almost 100 migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, from 16 countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
"I wish I died. It was a journey of hell," said an Eritrean woman, who was detained for over six weeks at a trafficking house in Tobruk, in eastern Libya. "Different men raped me many times. Girls as young as 14 were raped daily," she said. The perpetrators released her after her family paid a ransom.
Another Eritrean woman, who had been subjected to female genital mutilation in the past, described how she and her friend were forcibly cut open by traffickers, and then raped. Her friend later died due to severe bleeding.
A survivor, who was detained in a hangar, said men with weapons used to take women at night and rape, torture and beat them in front of others. "I was raped twice in that hangar before my daughters and other migrants. A Sudanese man tried to help me and stop them, but they beat him severely. My daughter was traumatised and is still asking me about that night," the woman said.
Migrants also described horrific attempts to cross the central Mediterranean. "Interceptions by Libyan actors were frequently dangerous and involved threats, hazardous manoeuvres, and excessive use of force, putting people's lives at risk," said the report. Those intercepted are often forcibly returned to Libya, where they risk facing the same cycle of abuse.
Additionally, the report decries frequent collective expulsion from Libya to other countries in violation of international human rights and refugee law, and invokes protections stipulated in the African Union Refugee Convention. "Expulsions and forced deportations occur without examination of each individual's case, breaching the prohibition of collective expulsions, denying the right to seek asylum and human rights protection and assistance, and exposing individuals to the risk of refoulement," it says. It adds that those expelled along the borders are often left in life-threatening conditions, without access to water, food and healthcare.
"There are no words to describe the never-ending nightmare these people are forced into, only to feed the mounting greed of traffickers and those in power profiting from a system of exploitation," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said.
"This abusive 'business model' preys on individuals in situations of heightened vulnerability, with detention facilities serving as breeding grounds for gross violations of human rights," said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya, Hanna Tetteh.
The report calls on the Libyan authorities to release immediately all those arbitrarily detained in both unofficial and official detention centres, to cease dangerous interception practices, and to decriminalise irregular entry, stay and exit from the country. Ending all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking, and ensuring accountability for human rights violations and abuses are also crucial.
Türk and Tetteh emphasised the importance of life-saving search and rescue operations at sea. The report urges the international community, including the European Union, to establish a moratorium on interceptions and returns to Libya until adequate human rights safeguards are ensured.
They should also "rigorously apply human-rights due diligence to all funding, training, equipment, technology, and cooperation involving Libyan entities credibly implicated in gross human-rights violations and abuses". Technical and financial assistance should be strictly conditioned on demonstrated, consistent respect for international human rights standards and should not proceed where such compliance is not met.
