Niger anti-immigration law: Smugglers back in business after law repealed
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Transcript
00:00 "Costing it as the result of foreign pressure, Niger's new authorities, who seized power
00:06 in a coup this summer, have revoked a law criminalizing migrant trafficking.
00:11 A number of convicted smugglers, who once faced more than a decade behind bars, could
00:16 be released.
00:17 For would-be migrants, what had become a near-impossible journey is now back on the table."
00:22 "If the military and the police don't harass us along the road anymore, that's already
00:28 good.
00:29 I wanted to leave with a friend, but he said he'll leave next week, God willing."
00:34 For smugglers, it's back to business.
00:37 Moving people across the country to Algeria or Libya became a risky business after the
00:42 law was passed in 2015.
00:46 "First, we thank the president for repealing this law.
00:51 You see, for us smugglers, this law often pushed us into bankruptcy.
00:57 It left us unemployed."
01:02 According to the UN, the law had forced migrants to seek increasingly dangerous routes.
01:08 Human rights workers say they will now have more leeway to assist migrants who run into
01:13 trouble along the way.
01:15 "It's good because they are no longer hiding.
01:19 They can move freely, go about their business.
01:21 They're accepted by the local population.
01:24 They're seeing a kind of solidarity that we hadn't seen since the 2015 law was passed."
01:32 The anti-migration law never succeeded in fully stopping the flow of migrants.
01:38 Between October 2022 and June 2023, at least 135 migrants died in the desert area between
01:44 Niger and Algeria.
01:46 And for those who made it to Libya, the hardships didn't end when they arrived.
01:50 These groups have documented cases of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and extortion by
01:56 armed groups and smugglers.