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Police search for the truck driver who was filmed whipping migrants near Italian-French border

Italian authorities seek truck driver who was filmed striking migrants near French border

https://apnews.com/article/italy-migration-truck-driver-9982cbb87d298ddfbc401168109275b0

Italian border police are looking for a truck driver who is shown on a widely circulated video striking female migrants after he found them in the back of his truck near the French border.

Italian authorities seek truck driver who was filmed striking migrants near French border

Italian border police are looking for a truck driver who is shown on a widely circulated video whipping female migrants after he found them in the back of his truck near the French border, officials said Wednesday.

Smugglers loaded the 12 Eritrean women on the truck at a rest stop near the French border on Monday while the trucker was having lunch, according to authorities. The women allegedly paid 100-150 euros ($110-1$65) to be transported across the border, but authorities believe the truck driver was unaware of their presence.

Once closed inside the truck, the women apparently started agitating due to the heat, with outdoor temperatures over 30 degrees C (86 F), drawing the driver’s attention, city officials said.

The video made by a witness — who asked not to be identified — shows the man striking at the woman with the hardware end of a cargo strap as they descended one by one. At one point, one of the women stood firm, shielding others so they could pass without being struck. The last woman to exit tried to grab the strap from him.

10 comments

bstix

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I read that several times and tried to grasp it from all perspectives, but it just gets worse every time..

Respect for the woman who shielded the others, but there is really no good outcome even if they had succeeded in being trafficked.

I fear that this is only the beginning of what is to come.

GiveMemes

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"Trafficking" in this case is being used to refer to aiding an undocumented migrant, not like sex trafficking, as far as I can tell.

bstix

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They're African women being transported into Europe in the back of a trailer.. They won't land a job anywhere without their paperwork in order. Sorry, but you know damn well what trafficking means.

This just shows how it's done.

At best they can provide for themselves as sex slaves. At worst, they get beaten up on their way there as in this instance.

GiveMemes

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That's absolutely what the governments want you to believe and is definitely happening as a direct result of European and US migration/refugee restrictions. Freedom of movement should be a basic human right.

They have literally used trafficking charges against humanitarian aid workers and academics that were attempting to help refugees at and around the southern border of the US.

The reason human trafficking is possible for the most part is that there's no legal route for the vast majority of refugees to get to the countries of migration, causing a huge illegal network and the opportunity for increased levels of human trafficking especially against the most vulnerable.

If legal pathways were more accessible this wouldn't be a problem. I try to find the root cause rather than the bandaid solution. As we've seen from the war on drugs, the bandaid solutions don't work.

Besides, if you had ever read migrant journals or any other type of primary document concerning this type of situation, you'd know that a bunch of people getting ushered into the back of a truck isn't exactly uncommon. Further, no undocumented migrant has their papers in order. That doesn't really change much.

Aceticon

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You're using the traditional gaslighting technique of mixing refugees with economic immigrants.

The former need help and we have a moral obligation to help if we can, the latter are just people driven by personal upside maximization, and we have zero moral obligation of helping people who are simply greedy types who were unlucky with the country they were born in.

Personally I think Europe should activelly be going to the places were those who need the most help are (such as refugee camps) to help them and bring them over if they want, whilst cracking down hard on anybody who is trying to illegally enter Europe - as we can only help some people, not all (many if not most of the 8 billion people in the World are poorer than the average European), we should maximize the pain-reduction of giving the help we can give by focusing on helping the worse off first, not the ones with the strength and the money to illegally cross into Europe.

claudiop

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Freedom of movement never was and never will be a thing outside of countries with similar standings in economy and policy.

There's the obvious problem #1) People rushing to whoever maximizes their welfare. There's this fine reason why plenty of illegal economic migrants do not settle for some first-world country that accepts them and keep going until they hit something like Germany.

Then you have #2) Societies do not exist without a place and no society should be forced to accept people that undermines it. France is secular and yet it allowed in plenty of people that are not. I'm not saying you must be secular to exist; I'm saying that you should not be going to a society you fundamentally disagree with and much less start imposing. And yet we both know what would happen if borders were open.

You also have #3) rich people can just buy out the nicest places and chop chop people the fuck out. A state putting up some barriers severely slows this process (which is happening anyway)

A bunch more reasons like paperwork, criminal record, ecology, yadda yadda.

With this said, if you fulfil stuff, you should definitely be able to get wherever you want. Ethnicity, social status ou whatever made up stuff should not be roadblocks. Even if it takes a year or two of screening and some sort of integration procedure.

bstix

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You make a good point. I don't think governments have a secret plan to avoid freedom of movement, but it is happening.

The Nordic countries have free movement. It began in the 60s or so. Any citizen from a Nordic country is allowed to settle, work, get married, get universal healthcare, get social benefits, etc. in any of the other Nordic countries. That's beautiful, but it's not as easy as it used to be..

Legally we still have the right, but technology has made it much more difficult, because every country has their own individual system used for online identification, and with every official form being required to be signed electronically it has become difficult. The thing is that you can't (easily) get the online signature without registering as a citizen in the specific country.

I remember doing my accounting job just ten years ago. I used to sign off on VAT and tax returns worldwide on paper. Didn't matter if it was UK, Norway, Germany or Australia. A signature on paper was enough. These days I can't even file my own personal income report if it occurred in Sweden, because I'm not a Swedish citizen.

It's getting better though. More services in different countries accept the digital signatures from other countries, but it's still a shit show of random chances.

Now this isn't about African immigrants, but the solution is. I wish that EU and the Schengen Area would get the shit together and sort out an electronic worldwide identification system. This would solve a lot, because many of the African countries are still connected to their former colonies in this official way, just as the Commonwealth is. Having the Schengen Area work together on this would basically solve a lot of the obstacles in the way of freedom of movement.

GBU_28

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You are applying systemic and abstract goal based concepts to an in progress situation. So the use of a label, with associated follow on consequences is not unexpected

Ab_intra

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Trafficing is mostly used as a term for SEX TRAFFICKING.

GiveMemes

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Agreed.