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Date Published: 13/06/2023

Europe criticises Huelva strawberry farms for appalling conditions of migrant workers

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A damning report from the Council of Europe found the Andalucia workings living without electricity or water

Europe criticises Huelva strawberry farms for appalling conditions of migrant workers

Strawberry farms in Huelva, Andalucia have come under the spotlight once more, this time attracting the unwanted attention of the Group of Experts Against Trafficking (GRETA) of the Council of Europe, whose latest report has deplored the conditions endured by fruit workers in the region.

The findings came from a routine trip made by the delegation between July 4 and 8 last year, and Huelva was specifically chosen since it’s “one of the main producing regions” of strawberries. The area also made headlines recently when Germany threatened to boycott the fruit, claiming the farms are exploiting the Donana wetlands.

What they discovered upon their arrival was shocking. When they visited the strawberry farms, the experts found 25 “informal” settlements where 914 migrant workers lived, mostly undocumented labourers from Morocco, Mali and Ghana. Incredibly, the GRETA representatives visited off-peak and were informed that during harvest season, “there are many more workers” living in the camps.

The Council of Europe expert group explained that the migrants “live in shacks made of plastic sheets used to cover strawberry fields” and that “there is no access to drinking water, electricity or sanitation”.

A day centre, managed by local charities, had been set up near the fields to provide basic goods and services to the workers, but on the whole the delegates found the entire set-up woefully inadequate and under constant threat due to “lack of public funding”.

“According to NGOs, several migrant workers from the settlement could be considered victims of labour exploitation and even human trafficking. They often work above the legal limit of working hours in Spain and are paid below the minimum wage, or sometimes not at all,” the report read.

The Spanish Government assured that the State Security Forces carry out around 5,000 inspections of these temporary labour settlements each year and that the authorities visited the Huelva farms no fewer than 329 times in 2022 alone.

Nevertheless, the GRETA experts concluded that they were “deeply concerned by the inaction of the authorities in the face of this humanitarian situation that has been going on for several years and generates greater risks of human trafficking.”

In other news: Andalucia will fly record number of Blue Flags this summer

Image: Pixabay

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