Disrupting the ‘continuum of violence’ linking the movement of people to the Libyan conflict economy will require both a transnational approach and policy tools beyond those traditionally associated with conflict response.
This paper has shown how structural violence in Edo State relates to structural and direct violence along the movement of people, and how both connect to and fuel the Libyan conflict. A continuum of violence lens therefore makes clear the significant role that the movement of people has not only in fuelling the Libyan conflict economy that has engulfed Libya for over a decade, but also in the vicious cycles of violence in Edo State.
Consequently, the paper argues that a systematic and transnational approach to conflict response must be developed to sustainably tackle the interconnected violences observed. Such an approach must consist of interventions in multiple geographies, and will require policymakers to consider how their policies on a range of issues – from development to different forms of capacity-building and conflict response – relate to one another.
This paper shows such an approach in action. In the context of the Libyan conflict, the amount of violence related to the movement of people and its close connection to the conflict economy make this transnational flow particularly relevant. Based on the analysis conducted in this paper, four overarching policy priorities are proposed below. First, the policy tools used to mitigate the violences produced in the movement of people from Edo State to Libya should be expanded beyond only those associated with law enforcement, such as sanctions or border closures. Second, and connected, there is a need to take a wider view of who should be considered a stakeholder in conflict reduction and prevention. Third, and in keeping with the previous two priorities, policymakers need to emphasize people’s experiences of violence and conflict. Fourth, and finally, policymakers must consider how other policy and programmatic interventions impact conflict – in the case of Libya, primarily border and migration management.
Drawing on this paper’s systems analyses, each of the following broad recommendations includes a specific potential intervention identified along the transnational movement of people to illustrate how the approach might be implemented.
Viewing the movement of people through an expansive transnational conflict lens
The movement of people to Libya from Nigeria is underpinned by conflict and violence. For policymakers, this movement must therefore be considered through a conflict lens that includes the full range of violences and deaths discussed in this paper. A wider ‘conflict and violence’ lens – instead of a narrower one focused on ‘border and migration management’ – will help conceptualize the question of the movement of people to Libya in a way that allows for productive responses.
Existing policy approaches have viewed conflict resolution in a limited fashion. For example, stabilization policies to date have prioritized the division of state resources between rival elites – almost exclusively men – as a means of securing peace in Libya and have, therefore, had the effect of entrenching the same conflict dynamics which make people a conflict resource.
Such approaches have had the effect of limiting the people, sectors or deaths considered relevant to resolving conflict. This provides a means of making conflict analysis more manageable for policymakers. However, such an approach risks missing the expansive nature of the conflict and, resultantly, ignores the second-order effects of conflict – for instance, human-smuggling and trafficking-in-persons. The continuum of violence perspective highlights the need for inclusive peacebuilding concepts, which are a staple of feminist approaches to conflict. Inclusive peacebuilding emphasizes the need to expand assumptions about which stakeholders are relevant to conflict and its resolution. Inclusive approaches further highlight the need to expand our understanding of which violences and deaths are related to or a result of conflict – not limited to battlefield deaths – and which sectors of the economy should be considered part of a conflict.
Addressing violent conflict in Libya, but also violence along the movement of people and in Edo State, will require international donor countries to aim for more than just stabilization. It will require reassessing who is considered a stakeholder to identify a broader range of relevant actors; working towards democratization of access to resources; and adopting a human rights-based approach that considers people’s needs and addresses a wider range of violences and abuses.
Unlocking additional policy tools
By expanding the stakeholders, sectors, violences and deaths considered as part of a conflict, a feminist approach unlocks an expanded policy toolbox to mitigate the violences produced by the transnational movement of people. Sanctions, border closures and kinetic attacks, for example, are traditional tools to address conflict and deal with conflict actors. Instead, many other tools that could effectively address conflict would traditionally be considered part of development programmes.
Such tools need to be implemented transnationally in response to conflicts or, where they are already implemented to respond to conflict, be considered part of a transnational approach. For instance, programmatic interventions aimed at reducing structural violence in Edo State could make people less likely to become vulnerable to human-smuggling and -trafficking recruitment. Such outcomes would undermine the ‘trafficking–detention–extortion complex’ by reducing the source of people most likely to become its victims.
One way to address both the economic/class-based and gender-based inequity and related structural violence may be through the agricultural sector in Edo State, building on existing initiatives. Many of the focus group respondents indicated the importance of agriculture to the state’s economy, as well as the current difficulties faced by farmers and the sector at large in Nigeria. These difficulties have also been linked to concerns about food prices, increased food insecurity and the loss of agricultural land. Therefore, support for the agricultural sector could help redress some economic inequities by creating sustainable opportunities for employment. As much of the labour in the sector is performed by women, additional support could also address gender-based inequity by both opening up economic opportunities and giving women greater autonomy over decision-making on topics such as migration and sex work.,
The federal government of Nigeria and the Edo State government have committed to fostering agricultural development in recent years. Opportunities are already available for international programming to play a bigger role in such initiatives, and existing initiatives can be expanded. For example, in 2020, the FCDO-funded SoSiN programme proposed expanding the Lagos Agripreneurship Programme operating in Lagos State to cover Edo State. Moreover, a senior figure in Edo State’s Ministry of Agriculture highlighted the ongoing and ‘sustainable’ Edo State Oil Palm Programme, which has used degraded forests to expand palm oil and cassava production in the state:
Though the state ministry representative expressed a clear preference for domestic funding for such programmes, they stressed the importance of, and opportunity for, international funding that builds on the World Bank’s limited support.
Reflecting experiences of conflict and violence in policy terminology
The use of language that is inclusive and acknowledges the depth and breadth of exclusion and abuses suffered is a necessary step in developing effective solutions. Such an approach requires an acknowledgement of the tensions between international ‘border and migration management’ approaches and peacebuilding approaches in Libya. For instance, important questions remain over how distinctions are drawn between funding humanitarian provision and financing the detention centres themselves.,
In all of the journeys discussed by research participants, violence, exploitation and coercion were present. Interviewees spoke about forced labour, starvation, imprisonment, forced sex work, sexual assault and rape. Currently, policy and programming work to address this coercion and exploitation as part of certain journeys but not others. Instead, many journeys are statically characterized only as ‘migration’. However, all these experiences are abusive and exploitative, making a ‘border and migration management’ approach ill-suited and potentially violent. It risks underestimating the far-reaching nature of the exploitation and, as a result, further perpetuating existing exclusions and conflict – particularly in the context of Libya where one fuels the other.
The centrality of the violence is increasingly acknowledged by policymakers. For instance, in statements at the UN Security Council meeting on international peace and security, the UK deputy political coordinator linked migration, human-smuggling and exploitation when discussing the treatment of people moving through Libya. Such acknowledgment can and must be translated into action by, for instance, extending programming such as the UK’s Modern Slavery Fund and Modern Slavery Innovation Fund to Libya and Niger – as many of the experiences at some or all points along the journeys would constitute human-trafficking.
Creating more safe and legal routes
The high threshold for legal migration to Europe – in terms of available funds, application process and accessible processing sites and many countries’ restrictive migratory management approaches – means that safe, legal routes are inaccessible to many people in Edo State. The creation of further safe and legal avenues for movement would sever some of the connections between Edo State and the Libyan conflict economy.
Currently, awareness campaigns and organizations are educating people on the ways in which safe, legal migration can be accessed. For example, Nigeria’s Ministry of Labour and Employment, in collaboration with IOM, has set up migrant resource centres in Benin City (as well as in Abuja and Lagos). While a key part of these centres’ role is to provide information to returnees, they are also set up to educate those intending to move on how to do so safely. Supporting and growing these functions would help reduce human-smuggling and -trafficking by making it clear that safe routes may be more accessible than people may think. A focus group respondent also suggested that lower visa fees would help make such routes more accessible and stressed that refunding visa fees to applicants in cases where a visa is denied for reasons beyond the applicant’s control would also help reduce financial barriers to safe migration.
Improving the accessibility of routes other than those over land must be a part of any efforts to disrupt the continuum of violence. Such a policy does, as it stand, appear contrary to many European countries’ current approaches to borders and migration. However, the provision of safe alternative routes is – in both practical and ethical terms – an effective and sustainable solution, given the benefits for those countries in gaining access to a larger labour force, reducing human-smuggling and -trafficking and the associated required response in terms of social and health care, administrative burdens and policing responses, as well as upholding international human rights law.
There is also space for specific targeted approaches that combine existing relationships and priorities. A specific example could be a review of the UK’s seasonal worker visa scheme, especially given the importance of the agricultural sector to Edo State and the existing skills of the population. There is also an opportunity to link this transnationally to the proposed mechanism for supporting the agricultural sector in Edo State – by making capacity-building and access to funds part of temporary visa programmes. Such a scheme would make safe and legal migration more accessible to Nigerians with experience in the agriculture sector, who might be considered low-skilled workers but would be particularly well placed to support the UK’s agricultural sector.
