Workers in Spain’s Strawberry Fields Speak Out on Abuse
ALMONTE, Spain — A
little over a year ago, a young mother left her children in the care of
her husband in Morocco and went to work on a strawberry farm near the
city of Almonte, on Spain’s southwestern coast.
Pregnant
with her third child and needing money, she was led to believe she
could make a few thousand euros for several months’ work — about a
year’s earnings in Morocco. Instead, she is now stranded in Spain,
awaiting trial after joining nine other women from the same farm, Doñaña
1998 d’Almonte, who have filed lawsuits stemming from events there,
including accusations of sexual harassment and assault, rape, human
trafficking and several labor violations.
Like
other women interviewed for this article, the young mother asked that
she be identified only by her initials, L.H., for fear of how spouses,
family members and others would react when the article is republished in
Arabic, as happens with most Times articles on Morocco. The husbands of
some of the women, including L.H., have already filed for divorce.
The women said they often had little choice but to endure abuse, and experts agree.
“They
are put in a situation where they are deprived of resources, and their
sexuality becomes one way for them to survive,” said Emmanuelle Hellio, a
sociologist who has chronicled conditions on the farms. “Sexism and
racism fabricate situations in which they cannot complain and power
relations make things particularly difficult to denounce.”
L.H.
said her boss started sexually harassing her soon after her arrival. He
pressured her to have sex, promising her a better life and working
conditions.
When she resisted “he
started forcing me to work harder,” she said, trying to soothe her baby
girl, who was born in Spain. “The other girls would help me when it
would get too hard for me on the field.”
Now, she lives with the other women in a location she asked to keep confidential, awaiting trial.
“I feel depressed and I am scared to look for work,” she says.
Strawberries are called red gold in Spain, the largest exporter of the fruit in Europe,
where they are the basis of a $650 million industry. Andalusia, where
the women worked, produces 80 percent of Spain’s strawberries.
Under
a bilateral agreement signed in 2001, thousands of Moroccan women labor
from April to June under sprawling plastic greenhouses to cultivate and
harvest the fruit. The agreement specifies that the seasonal workers
must come from the countryside, where poverty and unemployment are
rampant, and must be mothers, so they want to return home, which most
do.
It was seen as a
win-win deal: an earning opportunity for the poor Moroccans, which gave
Spanish farmers much-needed low-cost labor.
For
years, academic researchers and activists have complained about the
working conditions at the isolated farms, but the authorities in Spain
and Morocco have taken little or no action, officials with local labor
unions said.
But over a year ago, the
10 women decided to speak up, knowing they risked losing everything,
including the respect and support of their conservative families. They
are now paying that price, and would have been crushed long ago if not
for the support of unions, activists and online fund-raising.
You can read the rest of the story here.