Marie Tihon / SOS MEDITERRANEE
In Ghana, even people who have high education don’t find work.
Women often need to sleep with people in the company to get hired, and men need to pay bribes.
They don’t care about diplomas. If you want to get a public job, like in the police, migration, firefighting, you need to pay your way in. It’s totally corrupted.
As a result, people work in Galamsey, which is illegal gold mining, in order to make ends meet. And to stop these illegal activities, leaders don’t hesitate to kill the workers if they get caught. So the youth risk their life every day just to be able to buy food.
Many people leave to work in horrible conditions in the Gulf countries, in the hope to send money to their families, because in Ghana they cannot provide enough.
In my neighbourhood, there are many conflicts between leaders. They kill each other for the control over specific parts of town, and they have armed groups working for them. It impacts civilians a lot. It’s very dangerous. They even imposed curfews at night and in the morning which prevents us from going to our farmland and getting food.
I come from a farmer’s family. We own cacao trees. But the prices of cacao have fallen, and we cannot make a living from this business anymore.
Ville Maali / SOS MEDITERRANEE
I traveled to Libya after being victim of a scam. Someone told me: “If you come to Libya, you’ll find work, they will pay you well.” But once I arrived in Libya, I realised it was a lie.
They force you to work, but they won’t pay you. It’s very hard labour. People often fall sick and have no access to medication.
Every day people die.
The Libyans drive in and out to take the dead bodies. We don’t know where they took them to.
It’s slavery. If you are not Libyan, the Libyan people treat you like animals.
They can beat you, kill you and leave you there, with no consequences.
They do human trafficking. They sell people.
They use men for hard work, and they kidnap Nigerian women and use them for forced prostitution.
They ask for ransoms that you need to ask your family to pay, and only if they get the money will they release you. They torture you, with electric wires, with knives, by sexually abusing of women.
Some never manage to pay. Many lose their lives that way. Others lose their mind after being detained for so long.
I have heard of people who don’t have money and get their kidney taken for organ trafficking.
The people who control the detention center are the same people who force you on a boat, and who catch you at sea, and bring you back to the detention center. They’re all connected.
Ville Maali / SOS MEDITERRANEE
One day, the people who detained me woke me up and told me we were going to a boat. They forced people onto the boat.
I saw someone die in front of me because of the gasoline inhalation.
Many people got burned by the mix of fuel and water.
I got pulled back by the Libyan Coast Guard.
Then a second time, and a third.
They force you onto the boat at gunpoint. You have no other choice than to get into the boat.
Even if we are afraid of the sea and we are crying to turn back, we are afraid of turning back because the same people who forced us onboard would still be there with guns.
The sea was very rough and our engine broke down.
