Fanoush warns migration is becoming a permanent reality
LIBYA – Libyan political analyst Hossam Fanoush has said migration in Libya is no longer simply about boats setting off for Europe, but is starting to become an issue bound up with the structure of the state, the labour market and the country’s population make-up.
From transit point to a place to live and work
Speaking to Erem News, Fanoush said Libya, long seen mainly as a transit point, had become a place to live and work for a growing number of migrants, especially given some economic sectors’ need for foreign labour and weak government oversight of the labour market and borders.
He added that UN estimates point to large numbers of migrants in Libya, some of whom live outside legal and institutional frameworks. He argued that talk of “the million living in the shadows” goes beyond the numbers to the question of whether their presence is temporary and manageable, or a population, demographic and economic reality taking shape gradually without a clear national policy.
Issue moving into the social and political spheres
Fanoush said that, in his assessment, the issue had begun moving beyond security and migration into the social and political spheres as protests against resettlement policies grow. He stressed the need to distinguish between regulating the presence of foreign workers and turning Libya into a permanent space for absorbing migration flows that Europe is unable to absorb.
The problem is the absence of a regulating state
He concluded that the problem is not the presence of migrants as such, but the absence of a state able to determine who enters, who works and who resides, and on what terms, in addition to the issue of people displaced by the civil wars in Sudan.
