Spain: Moroccan women strawberry pickers left without medical care & income despite terminal illness & pregnancy in alleged "blatant violations of labour laws"
BHRRC
"Vulnerable Moroccan Women Exploited in Spain, Then Expelled"
Two Moroccan women employed in Spain’s lucrative strawberry harvest were reportedly recently sent back to Morocco under troubling circumstances—one while five months pregnant, and another after being diagnosed with cervical cancer...
...hired through Spain’s Collective Management of Hiring in the Country of Origin (GECCO) program, which facilitates seasonal labor contracts for agricultural work...
...the women were left without formal contracts, pay slips, or social security registration…
“They had no money, no legal protection, and were pressured to leave the country ‘by their own means’—a clear violation of GECCO’s commitments.”...
Among the group was a woman five months pregnant...
… Zahra, a 47-year-old Moroccan woman who has worked in Huelva’s berry fields for seven years, was sent back to Morocco after being diagnosed with cervical cancer…
… Zahra’s former employer, Berrys La Fontanilla, and the cooperative Fresón de Palos, have reportedly declined to comment publicly…
These incidents are part of a longer pattern of abuse in Spain’s berry industry. Moroccan seasonal workers have repeatedly raised alarm over exploitative labor practices in Huelva’s farms — from unpaid wages and excessive hours to degrading treatment and, in some cases, sexual violence…
… The persistence of such testimonies underscores the systemic nature of the abuses faced by migrant women working in Spain’s lucrative red fruit sector.