The U.N. migration agency called on social media giants on
Friday to make it harder for people smugglers to use their platforms to lure
West African migrants to Libya where they can face detention, torture, slavery
or death.
The smugglers often use Facebook to reach would-be migrants
with false promises of jobs in Europe, International Organization for Migration
(IOM) spokesman Leonard Doyle said.
When migrants are tortured, video is also sometimes sent
back to their families over WhatsApp, as a means of extortion, he said.
“We really ... ask social media companies to step up and
behave in a responsible way when people are being lured to deaths, to their
torture,” Doyle told a Geneva news briefing.
There were no immediate replies from Facebook or WhatsApp to
requests by Reuters for comment.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants have attempted to cross
the Mediterranean to Europe since 2014 and 3,091 have died en route this year
alone, many after passing through Libya.
This year, the number of migrants entering Europe is
165,000, about 100,000 fewer than all of last year, but the influx has
presented a political problem for European countries.
IOM has been in discussions with social media providers
about its concerns, Doyle said, adding: ”And so far to very little effect. What
they say is ‘please tell us the pages and we will shut them down’.
“It is not our job to police Facebook’s pages. Facebook
should police its own pages,” he said.
Africa represents a big and expanding market for social
media but many people are unemployed and vulnerable, he said.
“Facebook is pushing out, seeking market share across West
Africa and pushing out so-called free basics, which allows ... a ‘dumb phone’
to get access to Facebook. So you are one click from the smuggler, one click
from the lies,” he said.
Social media companies are “giving a turbo-charged
communications channel to criminals, to smugglers, to traffickers, to
exploiters”, he added.
Images broadcast by CNN last month appeared to show migrants
being auctioned off as slaves by Libyan traffickers. This sparked anger in
Europe and Africa and highlighted the risks migrants face.
Doyle called for social media companies to invest in
civic-minded media outreach and noted that on Google, pop-up windows appear if
a user is looking at pornography images, to warn of danger or criminality.
The IOM has helped 13,000 migrants to return voluntarily to
Nigeria, Guinea and other countries from Libya this year. It provides them with
transport and pocket money and documents their often harrowing testimonies.
Doyle said it was currently repatriating 4,000 migrants to
Niger. Switzerland said on Friday it was willing to take in up to 80 refugees
in Libya in need of protection, among 5,000 whom the UN refugee agency says are
in a precarious position.
Reuters
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