Justice, vacationing Eritreans eye

justitie-houdt-vakantievierende-eritreeers-in-gatenEritreans seeking asylum in the Netherlands have applied for but also go on holiday to Eritrea this summer extra monitored by the Ministry of Security and Justice.
How the control will look exactly out, is not known. Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff said earlier in the House that the Ministry together with the IND and the Royal Military Constabulary looks at how big the problem is precisely ”then by grabbing”.

”If someone can demonstrably safe return to Eritrea, there is no reason to grant a residence permit,” replied Dijkhoff parliament.

human rights
There are many Eritreans fled to the Netherlands. The country is poor and human rights are there under pressure. The Human Rights Commission of the United Nations concluded last month that Eritrea is guilty of crimes against humanity.

That Eritreans are fleeing to the Netherlands for the regime but go back for holidays, calls according to experts in De Telegraaf question marks.

The results of the control of the Ministry shared this autumn.

By: NU.NL

Remittances To Eritrea Shrink As Refugees Spend Money On Helping Others Leave

Remittances to Eritrea, once estimated to account for about a third of the country’s gross domestic product, are shrinking with Eritreans in the diaspora now spending the money on helping people leave Eritrea instead of supporting relatives at home, an official told BBC.

Five thousand Eritreans leave the country each month, making it one of the world’s top producers of refugees, according to a U.N. commission report.

The scale of the migration has drawn Western interest and attention to conditions inside what is one of the world’s most closed countries. With a population of 3.5 million to 6 million, it’s one of Africa’s poorest countries. Eritrea is a one-party state with no functioning constitution and no independent media, BBC reported.

Youth who have risked their lives to flee Eritrea describe a long-standing system of forced labor, among other human rights violations. A U.N. commission said these may constitute crimes against humanity, according to the Council On Foreign Relations, a U.S. foreign policy think tank.

In the past, Eritrean authorities were happy for disaffected youth to leave the country, a diplomat told BBC. They were a potential threat to stability and once working abroad, were likely to end up sending remittances home if they made it safely to their destinations.

But Eritrea now faces a shortage of workers and is doing more to encourage youth to stay, including paying more. The Eritrean national service is increasing its pay from about $50 to $130-to, said Hagos Ghebrehiwet, economic adviser to the president, BBC reported.

The cost of living has shot up in Eritrea, and there are electricity and water shortages.
Families receive food subsidies for cereal, oil and sugar but other items are expensive. A liter of milk costs more than $2.

Taxi drivers, shopkeepers and hoteliers say their incomes have been cut in half since a new form of currency was introduced at the end of 2015 — part of a government effort to control smuggling and human trafficking. They say restrictions on imports and limits on the amount of money they can withdraw from banks are hurting business, BBC reported.

Conscription in the national service program is the factor most commonly cited by asylum seekers who have fled the country, according to the Council On Foreign Relations. The Eritrean government justifies the program as one that will develop the country and foster a common sense of national identity. A statutory requirement of 18 months of military or civilian service was extended in 2002, following the war with Ethiopia. In practice, many adults report serving into their 50s, often earning less than subsistence wages.
For many, desertion and immigration are the only way to leave the Eritrean national service, according to the U.N. Commission.

The Eritrean foreign ministry refutes the U.N. Commission report, saying it is part of a “politically motivated campaign to undermine the political, economic, and social progress the country is making.”

The Eritrean government is ambivalent about people leaving because it benefits from the large diaspora, the International Crisis Group reported. The government collects a 2 percent income tax from many immigrants through consulates or party affiliates overseas. In 2011 the U.N. Security Council called on Eritrea to “cease using extortion, threats of violence, fraud, and other illicit means” to collect this tax, which yielded $73 million for the country from 2010 to 2013, the U.N. monitoring group found in 2014.

According to the International Crisis Group:

After initial, sometimes brutal attempts to obstruct emigration, a symbiotic system has emerged that benefits a range of actors, including the state. The government ostensibly accepts that educated, urbanised youths resistant to the individual sacrifices the state demands are less troublesome and more useful outside the country – particularly when they can continue to be taxed and provide a crucial social safety net for family members who stay home. Meanwhile, those who remain tend to be the more pliant rural peasant and pastoralist population. Yet, the exodus is not limited to urbanised and educated youth; migrants, including an increasing number of minors, now come from a wider cross-section of society.

Eritreans in the diaspora contribute to Eritrea’s economic survival by sending their families remittances, which provide the country with foreign reserves and help families survive.

Where do Eritrean immigrants go?

About 250,000 Eritreans live in refugee camps and cities in neighboring Ethiopia and Sudan, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. In the first eight months of 2015, the top three recipients of asylum applications from Eritreans were Switzerland (7,475), Germany (5,500), and Sweden (4,645). The U.K. and U.S. have well-established diaspora communities.

Another well-traveled route for Eritrean immigrants goes through Egypt to Israel. In the Sinai Peninsula, Eritreans face torture, extortion, and rape at the hands of traffickers—at times with police and military cooperation, Human Rights Watch reported. From Sinai, they cross into Israel, where 33,000 Eritreans live, the country’s interior ministry said in August 2015.

After Syrians and Afghans, Eritreans are the third largest nationality to cross the Mediterranean Sea, Al Jazeera reported.

 

Why are Eritreans in Israel accused of being ‘impolite’?

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and former interior minister Silvan Shalom have both issued press releases in support of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki’s regime 

Currently, 42,147 asylum seekers live in Israel. Most entered through the Egyptian-Israeli border between 2006 and 2013. The majority are from Eritrea. During interviews I’ve held with workers in municipal institutions some of them complained about Eritreans being “impolite” and “not as quiet as other migrants.” Possibly this is a result of the government’s explicit intention to make the lives of asylum seekers unbearable, as former interior minister Eli Yishai explained Israeli policy as early as 2012.

Possibly it’s also because the story of Eritreans is not understood. Frustrating as it may be for Eritreans, their story is untypical for refugees, as we normally think of them. Eritrea does not have the sort of war currently taking place in Syria or which led many Sudanese to escape the Darfur genocide in 2003. This leads some to dismiss it.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and former interior minister Silvan Shalom have both issued press releases in support of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki’s regime. They have embarrassingly based their statements on meetings with Eritrea’s ambassador to Israel. The reality in Eritrea, however, is uniquely abhorrent.

On May 9 the UN Human Rights Council published a report on Eritrea. It concluded that crimes against humanity – namely, “enslavement, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture, other inhumane acts, persecution, rape and murder” – have apparently been being committed in Eritrea since the country broke away from Ethiopia and became independent in 1991.

They take place away from the capital, Asmara, behind the walls of detention facilities and military training camps.

Torture and rape are regularly employed against political dissenters, but also as arbitrary measurements as a means of deterrence. The report further maintains that “the façade of calm and normality that is apparent to the occasional visitor to the country, and others confined to sections of the capital, belies the consistent patterns of serious human rights violations.” Adding to the environment of persecution in the country, only four religious denominations are recognized, while members of other faiths are subject to systematic repression, along with discrimination against other minorities on ethnic grounds.

All of this is done in a country with an infamous law of indefinite conscription to the army, including for purposes of forced labor. A shoot-to-kill policy is enacted on the borders toward anyone attempting to flee military service, which frequently lasts for over a decade, including reserve duty for citizens as old as their seventies. Others apprehended are arrested and are subjected to torture and rape (both females and males) as part of investigation techniques or simply as a way of fostering fear among inmates.

The report concludes that the government of Eritrea is “not in a position to provide accountability for these crimes and violations.” It is an authoritarian state, with all power concentrated in the hands of the president and of a small circle of loyalists. The UN commission therefore recommends the Security Council refer the situation to the International Criminal Court and enforce sanctions on assets and movement of individuals complicit in international crimes.

Israel is not a member of the Security Council and so long as it doesn’t act, Israel too is greatly affected by the situation.

Last year fewer Eritreans applied for asylum in the whole of Europe than crossed into Israel via the Sinai Peninsula in the past decade. A recent report by the Knesset Information and Research Center speaks of almost half the residents of four south Tel Aviv neighborhoods coming from Eritrea.

Those “super diverse” areas, in the terms of Steven Vertovec, have a strained infrastructure: 75% of fires in the city occur in a couple of neighborhoods that are particularly overburdened; sidewalks are broken, sewage pipes flood over, roads are blocked, trash is piling up and parks require extra maintenance. These neighborhoods are not turned into complete slums thanks only to municipal efforts and resources, and despite government policy to make the lives of “infiltrators” (as it calls asylum seekers) ever harder.

In light of the horror of the Eritrean regime, the deportation and detention policies of the Israeli government to encourage a “voluntary” departure of Eritreans are particularly sinister. These policies punish those whom fate has punished already, but also end up removing the leadership of the migrant population, making it less independent and increasingly reliant upon social services that the city must provide at the local level to minimize the phenomenon of ghettos being formed and provide basic rights to individuals who reside its borders.

Actually, the government policies aimed at making the Eritrean population leave the country are not only immoral, but also counterproductive. For example, many Eritreans rightly seek to avoid detention and deportation by having children, even in their abject conditions in Israel: already now 12% of Tel Aviv’s children are of “foreign” background (born either to asylum seekers or labor migrants), and some clinics for pregnant women and young mothers cater to asylum seekers 90% of the time or more.

Given the grave situation in their country of origin and the permanent sense of temporariness that the Israeli government seeks to create, is it any wonder that some Eritreans end up being impatient and somewhat overwrought when standing in line to receive basic services from municipal institutions? A couple of weeks ago more than 2,000 Eritreans took to the streets – quite politely, actually. They demonstrated before the European Union embassy near Tel Aviv, calling for the adoption of the UN report, as well as for Israel to revise its relations with Eritrea accordingly.

For example, Israel can flag the issues of human rights violations in Eritrea in international institutions. Independently of what the Security Council or the International Criminal Court end up doing, Israel – having full diplomatic relations with Eritrea – could assist it in reforming its legislative, judicial and security sector, as suggested in the UN report. Netanyahu could even capitalize on strengthened ties with African states following his historical trip to the continent last week to do that.

Finally, Israel could follow the report’s recommendation and “provide Eritrean nationals seeking protection with refugee status.” Since Israel’s border with Egypt has been sealed since 2013, there is only a limited Eritrean population in the country. Settling their status would help municipalities, schools, hospitals and clinics work better, and help disperse the high concentration of asylum seekers in Tel Aviv to other areas in the country. Most importantly, ending the perpetual uncertainty and unending ordeal of Eritreans in Israel is a moral imperative. Once the world starts treating them fairly, who knows? They may even say thank you.

The author is a PhD candidate at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Fear in Eritrea

A man recalled the day he was sent, along with his friend, to Wi’a military training camp in Eritrea. The day after he arrived, the guards sent them on a training exercise that entailed a 15 kilometre hike to collect firewood.

Eritrean refugees wait for protection and assistance, May 2014. © EPA/YAHYA ARHABOn the way back his friend became terribly ill. He continued to struggle. The guards became enraged and started to beat him until he fell to the ground. A guard said he would suffer when he reached the camp. Four people would end up carrying him back to the camp. A guard later tied him up and beat him.

“He left my friend tied up on the burning ground,” he recalled. “Soon after my friend vomited blood through his mouth and nostrils and died on the spot.”

This tragic testimony is one of 833 interviews conducted by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea in order to investigate gross violations of human rights in the country.

The Commission issued a new report on their findings, which stated that over the past 25 years crimes against humanity have been committed in a widespread and systematic manner in Eritrea – not on the streets of Asmara, but rather behind the walls of detention facilities and in military training camps and other places throughout the country.

Since 1991, Eritrean civilians have also been subjected to various human rights violations including enslavement, imprisonment, reprisals for the conduct of family members, discrimination on religious grounds, enforced disappearance, torture, persecution, rape and murder.

Indefinite military service

Eritreans are forced into indefinite military service subjected to horrific abuses, often being used as forced labour. This is a main driver for so many people trying to leave the country. In 2015, 47,025 Eritreans have applied for asylum in Europe.

According to a former military trainer at a military training camp at Sawa, trainers are given strict instructions to abuse their trainees. He reported a trainer who once tied up two people and left them in a tent. “He tied them up so tightly that we heard them screaming,” he said. “Later, one was dead and the other’s hands were crippled.” But, he said that if trainers don’t treat the trainees this way, they could end up in prison.

Without a trace

The Commission interviewed several Eritreans who have family members that have been arbitrarily detained or disappeared and have never been heard from again. A woman interviewed said her husband was arrested outside their home in 2009 and she has never found out what happened to him. “I searched for him, but the authorities finally told me just don’t bother coming back; there’s no point.”

A man also reported that he hasn’t seen his father since 1999 when he disappeared. “There is no law,” he said. “We couldn’t do anything. You can’t ask about someone who has disappeared. You risk being arrested yourself.”

Raped and tortured

Life in Eritrea continues to be a struggle for many women and young girls. Girls are being forced into early marriage and removed from school. Women and girls who try to flee the country are also at a bigger risk of being raped and tortured. Rape and domestic servitude in military training centres and detention centres are being ignored. A woman imprisoned for six months at a police station said she was raped every day by the officers. “After he finished, he threatened me not to say anything,” she said. “He told me that if I would report the rape he would find me wherever I go and kill me.”

No rule of law

These abuses continue without any consequences because rule of law in the country is virtually non-existent. Eritrea has no real constitution, an independent judiciary or any democratic institutions.

“There is no genuine prospect of the Eritrean judicial system holding perpetrators to account in a fair and transparent manner,” said Mike Smith, Chair of the Commission. “The perpetrators of these crimes must face justice and the victims’ voices must be heard. The international community should now take steps, including using the International Criminal Court, national courts and other available mechanisms to ensure there is accountability for the atrocities being committed in Eritrea.”

See more: 

 

2016 Trafficking in Persons Report – Eritrea

ERITREA: Tier 3

Eritrea is a source country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor. To a lesser extent, Eritrean adults and children are subjected to sex and labor trafficking abroad. The government continues to be complicit in trafficking through the implementation of national policies and mandatory programs amounting to forced labor within the country, which cause many citizens to flee the country and subsequently increases their vulnerability to trafficking abroad. Proclamation 82 of 1995 requires persons aged 18 to 40 years to perform compulsory active national service for a period of 18 months – six months of military training followed by 12 months of active military and development tasks in military forces in a government-run work unit, including the Eritrean Defense Forces. However, the 18-month timeframe is arbitrary and unenforced; many individuals are not demobilized from government work units after their mandatory period of service but rather forced to serve indefinitely under threats of detention, torture, or familial reprisal. In 2012, the government instituted a compulsory citizen militia, requiring medically fit adults up to age 70 not currently in the military to carry firearms and attend military training or participate in national development programs, such as soil and water conservation projects. Working conditions are often harsh and sometimes involve physical abuse.

All 12th-grade students, including some younger than age 18, are required to complete their final year of secondary education at the Sawa military and educational camp; those who refuse to attend cannot receive high school graduation certificates, attain higher education, or be offered some types of jobs. Government policy bans persons younger than 18 from military conscription; however, following some round-ups, the government detains children younger than age 18 and sends them to Sawa. Reports indicate male and female recruits at Sawa were beaten, and female recruits sexually abused and raped in previous years. The government continued Maetot, a national service program in which secondary-school children are assigned to work in public works projects, usually within the agricultural sector, during their summer holidays. Some Eritrean children are subjected to forced labor, including forced begging, and some women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking within the country.

Perennially, thousands of Eritreans flee the country overland to Sudan, Ethiopia, and – to a lesser extent – Djibouti, to escape forced labor or government persecution, as well as to seek better economic opportunities; for many, their ultimate goal is to attain asylum in Europe – predominantly Italy, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Germany – or North America, or at minimum, achieve refugee status in Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Israel, or Uganda. Unaccompanied minors are increasingly at risk of being subjected to violence and exploitation. The government’s strict exit control procedures and limited issuance of passports and departure visas prevent most Eritreans who wish to travel abroad from doing so legally, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. Children who attempt to leave Eritrea are sometimes detained or forced to undergo military training despite being younger than the minimum service age of 18. Some Eritrean women and girls travel to Gulf States for domestic work but are subjected to sex trafficking upon arrival. Smaller numbers of Eritrean women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking in South Sudan, Sudan, and Israel; reportedly, some Eritrean men are vulnerable to sex trafficking in Israel. International criminal groups kidnap vulnerable Eritreans living inside or in proximity to refugee camps, particularly in Sudan, and transport them primarily to Libya, where they are subjected to human trafficking and other abuses, including extortion for ransom. Some migrants and refugees report being forced to work as cleaners or on construction sites during their captivity. Reports allege Eritrean diplomats, particularly those posted in Sudan, provide travel documents and legal services to Eritrean nationals in exchange for bribes or inflated fees, potentially facilitating their subjection to trafficking. Some Eritrean military and police officers are complicit in trafficking crimes along the border with Sudan.

The Government of Eritrea does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. It continued to subject its nationals to forced labor in its citizen militia and compulsory national service, often for periods of indefinite duration. The government failed to investigate or prosecute any trafficking offenses or identify or protect any victims. Although the government continued to warn its citizens of the dangers of trafficking, authorities lacked understanding of the crime, conflating it with transnational migration or smuggling.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ERITREA:

Develop, enact, and enforce an anti-trafficking statute that criminalizes all forms of trafficking, including sex trafficking and forced labor, differentiating between emigration, smuggling, and human trafficking; enforce existing limits on the length of active national service to 18 months and cease the use of threats and physical punishment for non-compliance; investigate allegations of conscripts being forced to perform duties beyond the scope of the national service program and prosecute and punish, as appropriate, those responsible; ensure children younger than 18 at Sawa school do not participate in activities that amount to military service and are not exploited in forced labor; ensure victims and their families are not punished for crimes committed as a result of being subjected to trafficking or for fleeing government-sponsored forced labor; extend existing labor protections to persons performing national service and other mandatory citizen duties; with assistance from international organizations, provide training to all levels of government, including law enforcement officials and diplomats, on identifying and responding to trafficking crimes; and in partnership with NGOs, ensure the provision of short-term protective services to trafficking victims.

PROSECUTION

The government did not investigate, prosecute, or convict trafficking offenders during the reporting year. Article 605 of the Eritrean Transitional Criminal Code prohibits trafficking in women and young persons for sexual exploitation, which is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment; these penalties are sufficiently stringent, but not commensurate with punishments prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Article 565 prohibits enslavement and prescribes penalties of five to 20 years’ imprisonment, which are sufficiently stringent. Labor Proclamation 118 of 2001 prohibits forced labor, though article 3, sub-paragraph 17 of the 2001 labor proclamation, specifically excludes national and military service or other civic obligations from the definition of forced labor. Existing labor protections were not applicable to persons engaged in compulsory national service. Government-sponsored organizations incorporated anti-trafficking information into regular programming, but they failed to strategically target law enforcement and military personnel. Officials continued to conflate transnational migration and human trafficking crimes. The government did not investigate, prosecute, or convict anyone, including complicit officials, for trafficking offenses.

PROTECTION

The government demonstrated negligible efforts to identify and protect trafficking victims. During the year, officials reportedly provided limited assistance to female victims subjected to sex trafficking in Gulf States, but the specifics of these provisions were unknown; the government did not assist any other potential trafficking victims. It did not develop procedures to identify or refer trafficking victims among vulnerable groups, including Eritreans deported from countries abroad or persons forcibly removed by Eritrean security forces from neighboring countries. Eritreans fleeing the country and those deported from abroad – including some who may be trafficking victims – were vulnerable to being arrested, detained, harassed, or recalled into national service upon return. The government did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they faced retribution or hardship.

PREVENTION

The government maintained minimal efforts to prevent trafficking. The government continued its engagement of citizens on the dangers of trafficking through awareness-raising events and poster campaigns through the Women’s Association, Youth Association, and Workers’ Federation; however, such efforts conflated transnational migration and human trafficking. While the Proclamation of National Service 11/199 prohibits the recruitment of children younger than 18 years of age into the armed forces and applies sufficiently stringent penalties for this crime, children younger than age 18 continued to be sent to Sawa for completion of their final year of education. Officials remained without procedures to verify ages of new recruits into governmental armed forces and lacked transparency on efforts to ensure children did not participate in compulsory activities amounting to military service or other forms of forced labor. The government did not report information on its efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts or forced labor. Officials did not provide anti-trafficking training for its diplomatic personnel.

 

By: Refworld