Eritrean human rights activists have accused the EU of funding a scheme in Eritrea that uses "forced labour".
The EU is backing a road-building project as part of its programme to stem migration from Africa into Europe.
National
service recruits will be used and the Foundation Human Rights for
Eritreans (FHRE) says conscripts are "trapped for an indefinite period
within the service".
FHRE has threatened to sue the EU over violating its human rights charter.
FHRE
director Mulueberhan Temelso has called Eritrea an "open-air prison
[where] every person in national service is trapped in extremely harsh
conditions".
What's the issue?
Officially,
Eritrea requires people to undertake 18 months of national service, but
this period was extended indefinitely in the wake of the
Ethiopia-Eritrea war that ended in 2000.
A 2016 UN human rights investigation said conscripts were used as "forced labour".
The
"widely-criticised practice... has robbed the country's youth of their
dreams creating a generation of Eritrean refugees", rights group Amnesty
International said in 2018.
Eritrea has said that this
is a distorted picture of what is going on and has denied that there is
indefinite national service. The government has not commented on what
the FHRE is saying.
There was hope that it would return
to its original 18-month period following the signing of a peace deal
with Ethiopia last year, but this has not yet happened.
What is the EU doing?
The
EU has pledged to spend €20m ($22million) in Eritrea as part of its
Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, which is aimed at tackling what the EU
calls "irregular migration" by funding job creation schemes in various
African countries.
The money will be spent on improving the road network in Eritrea.
In
its explanation of the project, the EU acknowledges that people on
national service will be used but it says they will be paid and the pay
rates have recently been increased.
It adds that the issue is the subject of "heightened dialogue" with Eritrea.
Sources
in Eritrea have told the BBC that since 2016 soldiers have nominally
received $120 a month, but after deductions, including paying for
rations, they personally get paid just $17 a month and their family gets
$40.
There has been no recent pay increase, the BBC understands.
The EU has not responded to a request for comment.
What will the rights activists do?
FHRE
has sent a letter to the EU warning that it will take the organisation
to court for violating its own Charter of Fundamental Rights if it does
not withdraw from the road-building project.
The charter states that "no-one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour".
"I'm
very interested to hear what the EU has to say for itself because
whatever you say it will amount to a defence of using forced labour,"
the lawyer acting on behalf of the FHRE told the BBC's Focus on Africa
programme.
"I find it hard to understand, and I'm hoping a lot of people within the EU will find it hard to understand," he added.
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