While boat drivers are labeled and criminalised as smugglers, the real traffickers, like Libyan warlord and torturer Gheniwa, who came to #Italy not long ago unscathed, or Almasri before him, remain untouched.

No one who had to pass through #Lybia and its prisons to cross the #CentralMed can deny having been subjected to systematic violence, torture, sexual harassment and rape.

How can the Italian government equate captains and the people who actually are on the boats with those who profit from their suffering like Gheniwa and Almasri? The latter take flights, sometimes state owned, their entry is accepted and their health is taken care of.

We ultimately need safe escape routes and human rights for all. Human trafficking and the criminalization of people on the move must finally be brought to an end.

#HumanRights #SAR #FreedomOfMovement

Photo2: GettyImages, 3 ANSA