The European media's coverage of migration has focused largely on sub-Saharan Africans taking the perilous journey by boat across the Mediterranean to Italy. However, the plight of Bangladeshis, the second-largest group arriving in the country's shores after Tunisians, has largely gone unreported.
These young people often leave Bangladesh on tourist visas, traveling by air from Dhaka via Dubai or to other airports in Turkey and Egypt. Many, like Africans, end up in Libya at the hands of trafficking gangs and militias who hold them in slave-like conditions, before they embark on treacherous dinghy journeys across the Mediterranean to Italy.
Seen as unworthy of asylum, those that make it are often sent back to Libya or are trapped in underground networks of exploitation in Italy. The authorities are also failing these migrants, especially the many minors among them. Bangladeshis entering the country by boat often get sent back to Libya, and minors go unprotected, leaving the criminal gangs free reign to exploit them.
Photo image: Kate Stanworth
