Moroccan Women Face Abuse and Exploitation in Spanish Strawberry Fields

Armed with a seasonal visa and a contract paying 40€ per day, Samira Ahmed (pseudonym) went to the strawberry fields in southern Spain, leaving behind her husband and a baby, writes The Guardian in its April 14 edition. The separation from her loved ones for three months would be compensated by the small fortune she was going to send them, she thought.

A year later, Samira’s life is in ruins. Divorced, without any resources, and sometimes begging, she has spent the last few months in a clandestine situation, accompanied by nine other women, who all claim to have been subjected to enslavement, rape and assault within the farm where they worked.

"Before, I was considered a heroine. No one in my village had had the chance to work in a country as rich as Spain," she confided, "but it was the worst decision of my life."

Every year, more than 20,000 Moroccan women workers go to work in the Spanish strawberry fields, thanks to the seasonal worker visa system set up by the Moroccan and Spanish authorities in 2001.

Several cases of sexual abuse and exploitation of Moroccan workers in Spain have been reported by local and international media; but the governments of the two countries have minimized the importance of these allegations.