The Global Center on Human Trafficking
MANSOUR – BANGLADESH/LYBIA
Mansur sold family land to pay a Dhaka employment agency that promised him well-paying work in Libya. When he and some 40 other Bangladeshi workers landed at the Tripoli airport, two men from the agency met them and immediately took away their passports. The agents then took the workers to an abandoned warehouse in a suburb of Tripoli and told them to wait there. They threatened to deport the men if they disobeyed. Not able to speak any language other than Bangla, Mansur and the others remained in that warehouse for two months, helpless and nearly starving. When the agents finally took the men to work, they deducted more than half of the promised monthly salaries for food and accommodation. When fighting erupted in Libya in February, Mansur and the group of Bangladeshi workers fled with whatever little money they had managed to save. The men were robbed and joined more than 10,000 other Asian and African migrant workers at a refugee camp near the Tunisia-Libya border, waiting to go home empty handed after years of toil. (Source)