Spain to Cover Cancer Treatment for Moroccan Seasonal Worker in Landmark Decision

The Moroccan seasonal worker had spent seven of the fifteen years continuing to work while she was already suffering from cancer. She needed the money earned each season in Huelva to pay for her chemotherapy sessions in Morocco. The farm she worked for refused to assist her and pay her rights. After several years of struggle led by her family, the activists of Jornaleras de Huelva en Lucha and some officials from the National Institute of Social Security in Seville, the woman, suffering from terminal cancer, can finally breathe a sigh of relief, reports Publico.

"She is very tired, weaker and weaker. We can barely talk to her, we usually call her children," explains Ana Pinto, spokesperson for the association Jornaleras de Huelva en Lucha who announced the good news to her. Smahia will receive her social benefit retroactively, will continue to receive it for the next six months and the social security will cover all her medical care in Morocco, which she was paying with great difficulty until now.

The social security had refused to pay Smahia’s rights, arguing that she had already left Spanish territory and did not have a bank account in Spain into which they could pay her the money. The association denounced the case in the media, evoking a "lack of protection" of a person who has worked in Spain for 15 years. "We ha