This period has seen a new trend of mass exodus of the Eritrean population during which time the country has become one of the most militarised states in the world. It also has alarming record of human rights violations and exceedingly high levels of poverty and economic deprivation, which are the most important factors for forced migration and human trafficking.
Given this sad reality, the designation of the Eritrean population by Kibreab as a society severely inflicted by a ‘powerful obsession to migrate’ should come as no surprise (Kibreab 2007, 99). Likewise Hepner also argues that militarisation, political repression, lack of educational and employment opportunities have reduced Eritrean citizenship to a status of ‘bare life,’ thereby necessitating a mass exodus of the population in the last decade (Hepner 2009, 116, 121). This is further epitomised by the metaphoric observation of Meyers who travelled to Eritrea in mid-2010 and observed that Prison Break2 was the television series most Eritreans wanted to watch (Meyers 2010). Beneath this penetrating metaphor is the tragedy of Eritrea becoming an open giant prison where every member of the population considers herself/himself a prisoner and relatives outside of the country are deemed rescuers. As a result of these sad developments, Eritrea has become synonymous with the ‘North of Korea of Africa’ and its leader is often described as the ‘Stalin of Asmara’ (Meyers 2010; Jeune Afrique 2010). In 2008, for example, Eritrea was the second highest refugee-producing country in the world in absolute numbers (UNHCR 2009, 16). Given Eritrea’s small population of around four million people, the figures are exceedingly high.
Several other authors have written extensively on the alarming level of human rights violations in Eritrea (Tronvoll 2009; Ogbazghi 2011; Mekonnen 2011; Mekonnen and Van Reisen 2011). A study, authored by one of the current authors in 2009, concludes there are sufficient factual and legal grounds to establish that crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in Eritrea with impunity (Mekonnen 2009). Credible and well documented reports on the alarming levels of human rights violations in Eritrea are also available from the periodic reports of independent media and human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Committee to Protect Journalist, Reporters Without Boarders and others. Citing Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Watch, for example, states that there are currently about 40, 000 victims of detention without trial and enforced disappearance in Eritrea (Human Rights Watch 2009, 19). Based on the accounts of Eritrean refugees and exiled civil society organisations, Tronvoll suggests that estimates of political prisoners vary between 10, 000 and 30, 000 (Tronvoll 2009, 76). Space limitations may not allow analysing all such reports in greater detail in such a short paper. However, we would like to elaborate on one of the major causes of gross human rights violations in Eritrea, which is also a major factor for forced migration. This is excessive level of militarisation.
As noted before, in the aftermath of the 1998–2000 border conflict with Ethiopia, Eritrea has remained one of the most militarised states in the world. According to the Bertelsmann Stiftung/Foundation, Eritrea has an estimated army personnel of 600 000. This figure translates into a minimum of fifteen percent of the total population (estimated roughly at around four million), a figure which is exceedingly high given Eritrea’s miniature economic and population size. The percentage could be higher than this if the number of Eritreans not residing in the country is subtracted from it, which then gives about twenty-four per cent of the population inside the country. According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), the maximum limit of military mobilisation is normally believed to be ten per cent of the total population of a given country. If the figure goes beyond this limit, a society ceases to function normally (ICG 2010, 13). This is what is exactly happening in Eritrea, creating an exceedingly difficult situation for citizens to realise their personal aspirations in life even if they are not personally affected by abhorrent human rights violations, such as torture and imprisonment. Hirt calls this ‘social anomie,’ a state of large scale disturbed order and societal disintegration as a result of the inability of a large proportion of the society to realize one’s personal aspirations (Hirt 2010, 131–132, 163). O’Kaine and Hepner on their part describe the Eritrean conundrum as a ‘biopolitical experience of being reduced to “bare life.”’ In this context ‘biopolitics’ is defined as a state-led deployment of disciplinary technologies on individuals and population groups which ultimately renders citizenship to ‘bare life’ by producing pernicious perversions of governance and power (O’Kane & Hepner 2009, xxxiii–xxxiv; Hepner 2009, 121). Accordingly, Eritrea has now become one of ‘the hardest and worst dictatorships anywhere’ and ‘a hell on Earth’ (Prunier 2010). From a long list of credible sources that can be cited to support our claim on the alarming level of political repression, economic meltdown and excessive militarism in Eritrea, the metaphoric observation of Meyers, which compares the mass exodus of Eritreans with the American television series, Prison Break, stands out as a most eloquent of recent accounts (Meyers 2010).
Global indicators measuring economic progress and development indicate that Eritrea ranks at the bottom of the list of countries in the world. One example is the 2010 Global Hunger Index, which ranks Eritrea, together with Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as three major African countries with alarming levels of hunger. Disillusioned by such a disheartening situation of ‘social anomie’ and reduction of citizenship to ‘bare life’, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans have fled the country in the last decade -- in an unprecedented scale since the country’s independence in 1991. Indeed, Eritrea has become a most important case study in showcasing how a combination of excessive militarism, authoritarianism and social anomie, can lead to a speedy fragmentation of societal fabrics and state apparatus. This can possibly lead to a failed state, unless the sad state of affairs is halted immediately. Cognizant of such a possibility, ICG warns that at present the future of Eritrea as a viable state looks bleak (ICG 2010), ii). The political situation in Eritrea is replete with all the relevant factors that prompt alarming levels of individual and collective victimisation, which are a major cause of mass exodus. The following section analyses the trend of human trafficking in Eritrea since the early years of Eritrea’s independence.
3. Trends of human trafficking
Until recently human trafficking has not been a major challenge in Eritrea. As a result there has never been hard and fast numbers about the victims of human trafficking and the topic remained, like most other human rights issues, an under-researched area. However, with some latest developments that are taking place in the Sinai Desert, human trafficking in the Eritrean context has become one of the most topical issues for activists and researchers. It is evident that the Eritrean government is not making any significant effort to address the challenge of human trafficking. In fact, as will be seen later government officials are implicated of complicity in the ongoing illicit practice of human trafficking which has victimised thousands of Eritreans in recently years.
The Eritrean government does not comply with established international minimum standards, such as those provided by the UN Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking (UNGIFT 2009) and the annual Trafficking in Persons Report of the US Department of State. The government does not even acknowledge human trafficking as an emerging national challenge. For instance, a member of the Eritrean delegation to the Thirty-Fourth Session of the CEDAW Committee stated that trafficking of women is not a problem in Eritrea except concerns arising from Eritrean women who travel to the Middle East.3 However, this runs contrary to the findings of Anti-Slavery International which say that there seem to be no efforts by the Eritrean authorities to address trafficking in persons. In particular, Anti-Slavery International laments that:
It proved rather complicated to gain information on Eritrea. Despite the research findings and outcomes of the interviews in several countries (Lebanon, Ethiopia, Yemen), which indicated that Eritrean women are migrating for work abroad and can find themselves in a situation of forced labour, the Trafficking Programme Officer was unable to identify an organisation with experience in human rights and an interest in trafficking, information-sharing and collaboration (Anti-Slavery International 2006).
With no comprehensive research done in this area, there is no in-depth systematic record or a coordinated response to earlier trends of human trafficking in Eritrea. However, there are some reports of human trafficking chronicled by some independent sources and activists which classify Eritrea as one of the origin points for human trafficking, one of which is the report by Anti-Slavery International (2006). In 2007 and 2008 Trafficking in Persons Reports Eritrea is also mentioned as a source country for victims of human trafficking but only in the context of reports of other countries. Eritrea was for the first time tired only by the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report. In the following sub-section we discuss earlier trends of human trafficking in Eritrea.
3.1. Earlier trends of human trafficking
Some of the earliest trends of human trafficking in Eritrea, involving women as victims, date back to the mid-1990s when many female ex-tegadelti (ex-freedom fighters) begun to migrate to the Middle East as domestic workers. This particular trend of migration was an outcome of one of the most adverse government policies in post-independence Eritrea, which is the hasty demobilisation programme of thousands of ex-freedom fighters in mid-1990s. This had serious repercussions on the well being and human rights of the demobilised ex-freedom fighters, particular on female ex-combatants (Mekonnen & Van Reisen 2011). Left without effective supporting mechanisms, many have resorted to socially unacceptable forms of self-employment such as commercial sex work. Others have been forced to travel to some Middle East countries as domestic workers where they suffered maltreatment and abuse.
In the 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report (pp. 65, 253, 262) Eritrea is mentioned for the first time in the report as one of the countries of origin from which men and women travel willingly to Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen to work as labourers and domestic servants. Some of them subsequently face conditions of involuntary servitude such as excessive work hours without pay, unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, and physical or sexual abuse. In the case of the UEA, the report particularly states that women from Eritrea (and other countries) are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. Some of them ‘were reportedly recruited to work as secretaries or hotel workers by third country recruiters, but were coerced into prostitution or domestic servitude.’
Semi-official accounts of the Eritrean government indicate that migration of Eritrean women, mostly ex-freedom fighters, to some Middle East countries was facilitated via the Labour Office, a government organ responsible for labour relations. According to a letter authored by a former Director General of the Labour Office, the facilitation was done in full knowledge of the fact that the migrants were often to be subjected to conditions of coercive labour and to debt bondage as they were required to pay off recruitment costs exorbitantly in excess of what they can afford, should they desire to return to Eritrea. The letter clearly states that women migrants had to expect tough working conditions such as restrictions on movement and excessive work hours. This, it was indicated in the letter, was acceptable as long as it complements government efforts aimed at reducing unemployment levels in the country (Berhane 2008). In another report compiled by the US Department of Justice Eritrea is also mentioned as one of the countries of origin for individuals trafficked to the US. In particular, the report narrates the following notable incident of human trafficking involving an Eritrean victim in the US:
For instance, in a case during Fiscal Year 2003, the Complaint Line received a call relaying allegations that an Eritrean domestic worker had been held captive in the home of suspected traffickers for approximately twelve years. Within three weeks, Civil Rights Division prosecutors, with Federal Bureau of Investigation and non-governmental organization partners, conducted an operation to secure the victim’s liberation. While the criminal investigation proceeds as of this writing, the victim is receiving TVPA victim services and has been reunited with family members (US Department of Justice 2004, 40).
Children are also some of the earliest victims of human trafficking in Eritrea. The aftermath of the 1998–000 border conflict has increased the number of children and destitute living on the streets. In recent years, a growing number of HIV/AIDS victims have also been noticed in the country with serious repercussions on the increase of number of orphaned children. For the year 2000, the ILO estimated that there were 183, 000 economically active children in Eritrea. Children between the ages of ten and fourteen represent 38.4% of the total figure from which 90, 000 were girls (Global March Against Child Labour 2004; International Labour Office 1997). Child prostitution is another emerging challenge in Eritrea. A data on commercial sex workers in the country collected in 1999 by the Eritrean Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare revealed that 5% of commercial sex workers surveyed were children between the ages of 14–17 years. It was reported that a ‘majority of the children entered the trade at an early age, with most of them starting off as street children and bar maids’ (Global March Against Child Labour 2004; ECPAT International 2007). In addition, the more than four thousand members of the UN peacekeeping forces who were stationed in the common border between Eritrea and Ethiopia were accused of purchasing sex from vulnerable Eritrean children and women (Reilly 2003). Children are also abused in the Eritrean army in the form of child soldiers, this practice dating back to the era of liberation struggle.
One earlier case study of child trafficking in Eritrea bears extraordinary characteristics. It involves an alleged participation of the Eritrean government in the trafficking of child jockeys to the Gulf States (Awate Team 2007). Conventionally, human trafficking is referred to as an ‘illicit market’ that pits governments against agile, stateless and resourceful networks of criminal syndicates empowered by globalisation (Naím 2003). In the Eritrean child jockeys scandal, however, the government had reportedly played the role of a trafficker, making the Eritrean experience typically unique from many other cases. According to the allegations, Eritrean government officials have organised the trafficking of child jockeys from the surrounding areas of Tessenei in western Eritrea via Sudanese rebel groups operating in Eritrea under deceptive Eritrean diplomatic passports (Awate Team 2007). As will be seen in the next sub-section, this has some remarkable similarities with latest developments of human trafficking that are taking place as late as in 2011, which involve the complicity of Eritrean government officials.
3.2. The ordeal of Eritreans in the Sinai Desert
In the aftermath of the 1998–2000 border conflict with Ethiopia militarisation has been the most single important cause of forced migration in Eritrea. It is also a major cause of the human rights crisis in the country. The current excessive level of militarisation started in the form of a seemingly popular national military service programme (NMSP) promulgated in 1991 by the First National Service Proclamation, Proclamation No. 11/1991. Kibreab notes that in recent years the NMSP and its concomitant, the Warsai-Yikealo Development Campaign, have degenerated to a level of forced labour, a practice which is prohibited by the jus cogens (peremptory) norm of international law (Kibreab 2009, 4, 49). As a result, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans have been fleeing the country in the last decade. Many have been conscripted in the Eritrean army for more than a decade without a formal salary and pay. In addition to this, conscripts suffer from unbearable treatment and abuse, including routine torture and other forms of human rights violations. The NMSP is equally applicable to male and female adults. Female conscripts are more vulnerable to abuses such as sexual exploitation, which is very common in the Eritrean army.
Frustrated by such grossly abusive practices of the NMSP, hundreds of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries in an unprecedented numbers. In their escape, they face grave violations, such as torture, extortion, sexual exploitation and death, as discussed in the following paragraphs. Ethiopia and Sudan are the first destination countries of Eritreans who are fleeing the country in an unprecedented mass exodus. Many of the escapees continue their flight to North America and Europe via different routes. For many years Libya was a major migration route to Europe. In recent years the Libyan route was blocked as a result of a bilateral agreement between Italy and Libya, prompting many Eritrean refugees to take an alternate route visa Egypt to Israel. This has resulted in an increased number of Eritrean refugees in Israel. Citing UNHCR sources, Weldehaimanot notes that by the end of 2009, there were 11, 852 Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel (Weldehaimanot 2011). The Egypt-Israel route has become a notorious spot of human trafficking in which context horrendous violations are committed against Eritreans. The violations are well documented by a number of Eritrean human rights activists as well as advocacy groups in Egypt, Israel, Italy and other parts of the world. A legal opinion prepared by the Eritrean Law Society also discusses the violations with a view to proposing possible legal remedies under international law.
In many cases the journey of Eritreans from Ethiopia and Sudan to Egypt begins in the form of a smuggling arrangement agreed between smugglers and the smuggled people (Weldhaimanot 2011). As can be seen from numerous reports and interviews of victims, the journey takes a different shape when the refugees arrive in the Sinai Desert. At this spot refugees are asked to pay more money than was initially agreed when they made the deal with the smugglers at the initial point of departure. The situation develops to hostage-taking and kidnapping. However, as reported by some interviewees there are also victims who have been hijacked by human traffickers before they reach the Sinai Desert. Such victims are hijacked from refugee camps in Sudan or Ethiopia. For example, two of the four underage Eritrean victims, aged between 11 and 14 years of age, interviewed by Estefanos earlier this year, were hijacked by traffickers from Sudan. The two underage children say they were kidnapped from the river that flows alongside the UNHCR Refugee Camp in Sudan, where refugees normally wash their clothes. Another interviewee, a 13-year old victim, told Estefanos that he was kidnapped from Eritrean territory near the town of Geluj. Many others are kidnapped from the agricultural fields in the vicinity of the UNCHR Refugee Camp in Sudan. On the other hand, a number of other victims interviewed by Estefanos tell that they were hijacked from the Mai Ayni Refugee Camp in Ethiopia under mysterious circumstances and brought by traffickers to Sudan and finally to the Sinai Desert. Another victim in the Sinai Desert, who has heart and kidney complications, told Estefanos that he was kidnapped on his way from Eritrea to the UNHCR Refugee Camp in Sudan and he asserted that he had no intention of migrating to Israel but he ended up becoming a hostage in the Sinai Desert (Estefanos 2011a; Estefanos 2011b).
According to an Egyptian human rights activist, Hamdy Al-Azazy, who was interviewed by CCN, ‘victims are chained and kept in camps in the open with no bathrooms and little water and food.’ Furthermore, ‘refugees are forced into slave labour, often working marijuana fields that flourish all over Northern Sinai.’ Al-Azazy adds that, ‘The women and men are kept in open areas. These Bedouins don’t have any morals or conscience. One girl told me that three Bedouins had raped 14 girls in one night (CNN 2011a). Some of the information given by Hamdy Al-Azazy is also corroborated by some of the interviews Estefanos conducted with more than 100 victims. One Eritrean woman who made it safely to Israel has told CNN that she was raped almost daily on a journey that took several months to get to Tel Aviv. The woman says, ‘Every night, they took me separately, and they did whatever they wanted to my body’ (CNN 2011a). Stories like this are replete in the more than 100 interviews conducted by Estefanos between February and November 2011.
Once in the Sinai Desert victims are also compelled to pay exorbitant prices to secure their release or smuggling to Israel. In recent months traffickers have asked victims to pay anything between US$ 20 000 and US$ 30 000. In order to ensure payment of the ransom, traffickers force victims to speak to their relatives and friends over satellite mobile-phones under the influence of torture and severe beating. In several instances victims speak to their relatives and friends while being beaten and abused by the traffickers. Many have paid the required random after hearing the groaning appeal of their loved ones. As such the cynical technique of the traffickers has effectively worked in several instances. Those who are unable to pay the ransom face a number of horrendous violations such as torture, electrocution, rape and other forms of violations. Some have suffered removal of organs to settle the ransom. As revealed by the Egyptian daily newspaper Youm7 the traffickers are equipped with sophisticated techniques of organ harvesting which implies that they have the support of medical personnel involved in this illicit activity. Once organs are extracted from victims they are injected with anaesthesia and preserved in a refrigerator to help prolong their viability. According to Youm7, evidence in this regard was collected from a car crash which involved the death of a doctor (possibly also a trafficker) who was travelling with mini refrigerators containing human organs (Saleh 2011).
In several instances victims are also killed to terrorise others. The following story, told to Estefanos by an interviewee named Biniam [last name unknown], is a typical example in this regard:
Well, they are continually threatening us. Whatever the case may be, we have told the hostage takers that we have no update, we have not made any developments in terms of the request for ransom that they have made. We were told we were given enough time, three days and now they think we are stalling with getting them the money. So they killed him before our eyes … They murdered him with a gun before my eyes (Interview of February 2011).
Physicians for Human Rights - Israel is one of several NGOs involved in the medical treatment of refugees who arrive in Israel via the Sinai Desert. In October 2010 the organisation conducted a survey of refugee patients who arrived in the country recently. The study reveals that 77% among 167 patients surveyed in the study were physically assaulted. Thirty-eight per cent of women reported sexual abuse. Between November 2010 and March 2011 the organisation facilitated 165 abortions. Half of these medical terminations of pregnancy were requested by women who had been sexually abused in the Sinai Desert (Weldehaimanot 2011). As late as November 2011, some Eritrean women still held hostage in Sinai and interviewed by Estefanos, tell that they have been raped multiple times by traffickers. In relation to the suffering Eritreans endure in the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea, Mekonnen has previously noted that the ordeal is comparable only with paranormal stories told by best seller novels or by Hollywood blockbuster adventure movies (Mekonnen 2011). With regard to the experience of Eritreans in Sinai this might look an understatement. The following paragraphs illustrate the situation.
The tragedy faced by Eritreans and other African refugees received broader international coverage after a special investigative report was broadcasted by the Egyptian TV Chanel 25 in October 2011. The investigative report materialised after a notorious trafficker was chased out of town by the locals who found out about his illicit activities. Mohammad Rashid, the sheikh of the Altyaha tribe told the daily Youm7 newspaper that after the trafficker was chased out the locals from his tribe found a mass grave filled with torn bodies and skeletons underneath 500 meters from the house of the trafficker. Some documents proving the transfer of money from Israel into the account of the suspect were also found. This is in addition to 80 captives who were found in a secret cave 40 kilometres away from Nakhl town and 155 from Arish (Saleh 2011).
The Egyptian TV programme showed the mass grave of African refugees mentioned above. One scene was characteristically figurative. It showed a decomposed body of an African refugee, some part of his organs were apparently taken out by traffickers. This is clear from the decomposed body which displays a huge deformity in the part surrounding the abdomen. In the vicinity of the mass grave the television programme discovered some identity documents depicting Eritrean and Sudanese names. In the surrounding area there were poignant inscriptions written on the wall, apparently by the victims. Surprisingly the inscriptions were in Tigrinya, one of the nine vernacular languages in Eritrea and one of the two de facto official languages of the Eritrean government. The inscriptions include the names of Eritrean individuals and towns written in Tigrinya. Three desperate Tigrinya quotes written on the wall have particularly broken the hearts of many Eritreans who followed the TV broadcast online, including on Facebook forums. One inscription reads: ‘In God we Trust.’ Another one reads: ‘For those who have no body, there is the Almighty.’ The third one, depicted in the following still picture, extracted from the original video clip of the TV broadcast, reads: ‘This shall too pass.’
Still photo taken from a video clip showing the Tigrinya script, ‘This shall too pass’ [ezi win yhalif] as depicted in the Egyptian TV Chanel 25 broadcast (courtesy of: the Egyptian TV and www.asmarino.com)
The broadcast of the Egyptian TV was heart-breaking and in many ways it sent a wakeup call to all Eritreans, including to ardent supporters of the Eritrean government who are known for their obstinate denial of the unfolding tragedy of Eritreans in the Sinai Desert. In few weeks’ time the report by the Egyptian TV was supplemented by another coverage broadcasted by the Freedom Project at CNN. The report, Death in the Desert, depicts in detail the ordeal of what it describes as mostly Eritrean, Ethiopian and Sudanese refugees (CNN 2011a). The report of organ harvesting initially reported by the Egyptian TV was corroborated by the CNN programme. In a follow report, CNN notes that more than 600 refugees were released after the initial CNN report was aired. The report hinted that the traffickers released the hostages for fear of reprisal by Egyptian authorities after the broadcast of the CNN report (CNN 2011b). Undoubtedly the international media coverage given by the Egyptian TV and CNN has helped a lot in raising awareness about the plight of Eritrean victims of human trafficking in Sinai. However, Estefanos has conducted a new set of interviews with victims still held hostage in Sinai after the two reports by CNN and the previous report by the Egyptian TV. Moreover, in response to the CNN report on the freedom more than 600 refugees, a group of human rights organisations have also published the following press release: