A Libyan court has issued verdicts in a human trafficking case, leading to the imprisonment of 37 individuals after the tragic drowning of 11 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

The defendants were found guilty of their involvement in organizing a perilous journey on a dilapidated boat intended to transport migrants to Italy.

Among the convicted, five members of the criminal gang received life sentences, while others were sentenced to terms ranging from one to 15 years.

Human trafficking is a process of people being recruited in their community and country of origin and transported to the destination where they are being exploited for purposes of forced labor, prostitution, domestic servitude, and other forms of exploitation.

Human rights organizations have long highlighted the appalling treatment endured by migrants in Libya, both at the hands of smuggling networks and within state-operated detention centers.

This situation has persisted due to the ongoing conflict and instability that have plagued Libya since the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The International Labour Organisation's (ILO)Global Report, A Global Alliance AgainstForced Labor (2005), estimated the global annual profits generated by human trafficking to be around US$31.6 billion.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which is a global leader in the fight against illicit drugs and international crime, finds that there is significant intraregional trafficking in West, Central and South Africa.

Victims of the West and Central Africa region are trafficked to other neighboring countries such as Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia and Togo but also internally trafficked within the border. In Southern Africa, the victims identified by the state authorizes are from Mozambique, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zambia and Zimbabwe as well as from East, South-East and South Asia.

Most of the trafficking victims reported are children in West and Central Africa and adult women and children in Southern Africa. In West and Central Africa, children are trafficked for forced labor, such as slavery, domestic servitude, street begging and as camel jockeys.

In Southern Africa, human trafficking forms include sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery and domestic servitude.