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a seemingly endless series of scandals across a network of detention centers ostensibly run by the Libyan Department for Combating Illegal Migration, which is associated with the U.N.-backed, Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA). In reality, many of the detention centers are controlled by militias.

Tens of thousands of refugees and migrants have been locked up indefinitely in Libyan detention centers over the past two and a half years, after they were intercepted by the Libyan coast guard trying to reach Italy across the Mediterranean Sea. Since 2017, the Libyan coast guard has been supported with equipment and training worth tens of millions of dollars by the European Union. This money comes from the Trust Fund for Africa—a multibillion-dollar fund created at the height of the so-called migration crisis, with the aim of preventing migration to Europe by increasing border controls and funding projects in 26 African countries

EU’s deal with Libya—a country without a stable government where conflict is raging—has been repeatedly condemned by human rights organizations. They say the EU is supporting the coast guard with the aim of circumventing the international law principle of non-refoulement, which would prohibit European ships from returning asylum-seekers and refugees to a country where they could face persecution

Violent language has become the norm even for the youngest citizens. Residents fear that this could be devastating for the future of the country.Mustafa Mohamed, a father of five who remained in Tripoli throughout the conflict, is concerned that this normalisation of violence and weaponry among young children will have devastating effects on future society.“If the new generation is already thinking in terms of guns and militias by the age of seven or eight years old, then how will they be able to focus on the positive aspects of society?” he said.Residents say that children in Libya have been deprived of healthy and normal childhoods by the ongoing war.

On 10 August, the United Nations children agency UNICEF warned that more than half a million children in Libya need help.  More than 80,000 children have been internally displaced and migrant children in Libya are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Public health facilities have been dramatically impacted by the civil war in Libya. Forty-three out of 98 hospitals assessed are either partially functional or not functional at all due to a shortage of medicines, medical supplies and human resources.In 2013, the WHO found that there were only 12 psychiatrists in the country, with most services concentrated in the two psychiatric hospitals, situated in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya’s two largest cities.  Resources in this field remain extremely scarce in the country, with only one percent or less of total health expenditure targeted on this sector. 

“So many parents bring their children in, suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, or sometimes undiagnosed mental health problems,” she told me.“The problem is we don’t have the provisions to deal with these issues. Most children end up seeing children’s doctors with no specialist training in psychiatry, which is a big problem,”

the Arab people who were for years stuck between an authoritarian regime and a possible Islamist totalitarianism, proved, with the elections undertaken in the aftermath of the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia that “a third option” was possible

only a system in which a constitutions prepared by publicly elected representatives and approved by the public with a referendum, could be valid.

the norms of international human rights were superior to the constitutions’ and in the Turkish case, a constitution could not be drafted without being subjected to restrictions. He further emphasized that the Treaty of Lausanne, European Council membership and EU membership processes offered guidelines for constitution drafting that needed to be considered.