7° Edition
Libya : a human marketplace
Mexican photojournalist Narciso Contreras spent time between February and June 2016 in northwest Libya, from where he brought back striking images of human trafficking carried out by militias and armed groups.
Undocumented migrants and Sub-Saharan refugees reach their hands through the window of a cell at the Garabuli detention center, pleading for water, cigarettes, food, and their release. Garabuli, Libya. © Narciso Contreras for the Fondation Carmignac.
Six years after the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in October 2011, Libya is gripped by an unprecedented political, military and humanitarian crisis. While the UN-backed Government of National Accord still fails to assert its authority, violent clashes continue to erupt daily across the country between militias and rival factions. The wave of hope that followed the revolution has now given way to chaos.
The Carmignac Photojournalism Award chose to support an in-depth project on this country, from which we now receive almost no images.
The Mexican photographer and anthropologist Narciso Contreras— who had already documented multiple war zones, from Myanmar to Yemen, and received a Pulitzer Award in 2013 for his photo essays on Syria—was the first to tackle the monstrous reality of human trafficking on the borders of post-Gaddafi Libya, observing the region from February to June 2016.
Overcrowded prisons, non-existent healthcare, abject misery, arbitrary violence: the thousands of sub-Saharan migrants and refugees who end up in these labour camps are bought and sold every day like cattle by tribal militias and armed gangs, with the complicity of whatever Libyan authorities remain in power. By keeping his visits short and always under surveillance, Narciso Contreras became a precise, compassionate, overwhelmed witness: “The migrants I met have been victims of the slave trade for so long that they have been broken. All they want is to go home.”
Toubou militiamen pray at dusk in the middle of the desert, near the border with Niger, in southern Libya. Al Toum, Libya. © Narciso Contreras for the Fondation Carmignac.
Libya: A Human Marketplace NARCISO CONTRERAS
Skira Editions, November 2016
Clothbound hardcover 30 × 28 cm, landscape format 102 pages 35 color illustrations Bilingual French/English
OUT OF PRINT
Presided over by BRETT ROGERS, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery in London, the jury of the 7th edition of the Award was composed of:
PATRICK BAZ, Founder of the Middle East and North Africa photo desk at Agence France-Presse
REZA, Photojournalist
JANINE DI GIOVANNI, Editor-in-Chief for the Middle East at Newsweek
THIERRY GRILLET, Director of Cultural Outreach at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF)
MIKKO TAKKUNEN, Photo Editor at The New York Times
CHRISTOPHE GIN, Laureate of the 6th Carmignac Photojournalism Award
Surman Detention Center, June 2016. Undocumented Sub-Saharan women in the courtyard of the detention center prepare to board buses to be transferred to another facility after having been sold by the militia group running the Surman center, in western Libya.
In the hope of escaping the detention centers, undocumented migrants, asylum seekers or refugees in search of a better future try to slip through Libyan territory, but most of them will fall victim to human trafficking or be forced into labor.
Arrested or kidnapped at their workplace, in migrant camps or on the street, migrants are taken to detention centers where militias extort ransoms for their release or, worse, force them to work without pay until they have bought back their freedom.
