Southern Spain, for the collection of fruit and vegetables, the owners of the companies ask for sex in exchange for work

Southern Spain, for the collection of fruit and vegetables, the owners of the companies ask for sex in exchange for work

ROME - Fruit and vegetable farms in Spain regularly violate eight of nine basic workers' rights. The report "Produce of Exploitation" published by Ethical Consumer tells of abuses that can now be considered endemic: company owners ask for sex in exchange for work, confiscate passports to prevent people from fleeing, fire anyone who tries to join a union, penalize workers who join strikes and even those who during working hours they go to the bathroom. Female workers are often victims of sexual assault and harassment.

Almería and Huelva. Since the 1970s, greenhouses have spread throughout southern Spain. Nowadays, the area of ​​Almeria where salads are grown is also known as the "sea of ​​plastic" because its greenhouses are so extensive that they can be seen from space. In particular, the region exports products worth around €650 million to the UK each year, most of which goes to fill the shelves of larger supermarkets. The Huelva region has also become a center for agricultural berry production. In Huelva, 100% of Spanish raspberries, 96% of blueberries and 97% of strawberries are grown. Both Almeria and Huelva rely on migrant workers mainly from Morocco, sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, although the number of the latter has decreased in recent years.

Employment contracts. People are hired on temporary contracts for the harvest seasons. While it is difficult to find precise data on the number of workers in each region, it is estimated that around 80-100 thousand workers arrive in Huelva and 80 thousand in Almeria each year, although the actual number is likely to be higher due to the prevalence of illegal workers. In Huelva every 20,000 Moroccan women are employed for the strawberry season.

circular migration. Most migrant workers in Huelva are hired under "country of origin contracts": an agreement between the Spanish and Moroccan governments that allows for the recruitment of workers directly from Morocco. This is a form of so-called "circular migration", in which workers are required to return to their country of origin when the working season ends. The Spanish Interior Ministry sets the total number of contracts required each year and each region of Morocco is allocated a quota. While the majority of migrant workers in Huelva are recruited from the North African country, 500 workers from Ecuador and Honduras were recruited in the 2021-22 season under a pilot agreement with these states.

Supermarkets could foster change. Although the report Produce of Exploitation focuses above all on British supermarkets, which are among the largest buyers of products processed and harvested in Almeria and Huelva, the indications on ethical consumption actually concern the global food supply chains, because it is at a global level that the fruit picking sector and vegetables is a minefield of abuses and violations. Supermarkets - reads the dossier - have a legal and moral obligation to ensure that the rights of the workers they rely on are respected. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights provide international standards for states and businesses. In other words, they bind companies to respect the rights, also through the due diligence of high-risk supply chains. And while they are not legally binding, they still provide the basis for countries to legislate in the right direction. The European Commission is moving in this direction, presenting a proposal for a regulation which intends to ban products resulting from forced labor on the EU market. The proposal concerns all goods: both those manufactured in Europe and intended for internal consumption, and those intended for export, as well as imported products.



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