I had the misfortune — and the luck — of crossing Libya. Like many others, we were stripped of everything we owned. We knew imprisonment, forced labour, and even being sold like goods.
I witnessed scenes I will never be able to forget: two women raped in front of us, a woman about to give birth left to herself, without the slightest assistance. That barbarity overturned the way I see the world.
The crossing of the Mediterranean was no kinder. There were 159 of us packed into a makeshift boat. Three of us lost their lives before our eyes, and there was nothing we could do.
I think of them. I think too of all those who did not have the luck to arrive, whose names were lost somewhere between the desert and the sea. It is for them, as much as for us, that these words must be carried.
It is out of that experience — and out of that need to speak — that Le Prix des Promesses d'Exil was born.
Our association has set itself the mission of gathering, preserving and sharing the testimonies of exiled people, with respect for their safety and their dignity. We want to offer a space where survivors' words can at last be released, and where the memory of those who did not survive is not erased.
We also carry out awareness-raising and advocacy work with public authorities and with the communities concerned, in order to warn of the dangers of migration journeys and to fight every form of exploitation and human trafficking linked to exile.
To testify is to refuse forgetting.
It is for human dignity that we carry on.