Fatima left her family in Morocco to work seasonally in Spain. But dreams of a better life quickly turned into exploitation, miserable conditions and violence. However, in late 2023, police received information that a woman was being held and exploited on a sheep farm and rescued her.
On a farm in the northwestern Spanish region of Castile and Leon, a typical day for Fatima (name changed to protect her identity) started at 2 a.m. and lasted until late at night, as she carried out tasks ranging from planting vegetables to herding sheep and cleaning the chicken coop. Once she arrived at the farm, her to-do list gradually expanded, until she was working up to 19 hours a day, seven days a week. “If I were still there, I would probably have killed myself,” says the 50-year-old Moroccan national. “When I start thinking about what I’ve been through, I get anxious. Why did I put up with all that?” she adds.
Fatima left Morocco for the third time and went to work as a seasonal worker in Spain, encouraged by her husband, who expected the money she would send home. In 2020, she was one of thousands of women who went to pick strawberries, prepared for months of hard work and being away from their families. However, these plans were shattered by the coronavirus pandemic. When her work visa was cancelled, Fatima decided to stay in Spain rather than return home empty-handed to her husband and four children, who were then aged between seven and 26. She worked at any informal job she could find: caring for children and the elderly, baking bread or sewing shoes. “Some paid me, others didn’t,” she explains.
Fatima knew she was in a very vulnerable position. Few people in Spain spoke Berber, her native North African language, and she spoke very little Spanish or Arabic. Her father had taken her out of school at the age of six to force her to work on the family farm, leaving her illiterate.
SHOCKING FACTS
Initially, she was helped by her brother who lived in a village in another province of Spain. But when his wife began to worry about the risks of sheltering an undocumented person, he heard about a farm in Castile and León that was looking for a worker. “And that’s where the nightmare began,” says Fatima. At first, the family that owned the farm treated her and another Moroccan woman who worked there well. They even helped her in the fields sometimes. The other woman translated for her and helped her with anything Fatima couldn’t read.
However, there were signs that things were not as they seemed. She never received a job contract and was shocked to learn that the other woman had an intimate relationship with one of the family’s sons. For the first three months, she received only three payments of 300 euros each – far below the minimum wage in Spain, which is around 1,425 euros per month. After that, she says, she received no more payments. The family told her they could not pay her because the costs of securing her residence permit were too high. About 18 months after she started working, the other woman took her papers and left.
“Then everything changed,” says Fatima. She was left alone to do everything: transport the feed for the animals, milk the sheep, and plant and harvest the land. Fatima says the boy who had been in a relationship with the other woman began to pressure her to have sex with him and became angry when she refused. He and his father, she says, also became physically abusive, beating her and threatening to escalate the violence. “One time the boy ran over my leg with a tractor. I asked him, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ He said, ‘You deserve this,’ and that ‘I will run over you with this tractor and crush you.’” She lived in an unheated hut, freezing during nights when temperatures dropped to -6 degrees Celsius. A small heater, given to her by a Moroccan man who occasionally came to the farm to buy milk, was taken away from her family, she says.
WORSENING SITUATION
Conditions worsened one night after she asked about unpaid wages and residence permits. She remembers the father and son breaking into the hut and breaking the windows and doors. “After that, I felt like I was sleeping on a mountain of ice,” she says. She lived without drinking water, using a hosepipe as a makeshift shower and a hole in the ground as a toilet. “It never occurred to me to ask for help. I just thought, ‘If I hold on a little longer, maybe I’ll get my residence permit,’” she says. She was only allowed to leave the farm once every two weeks, when they took her to a small supermarket in a nearby town. The farm owners warned her not to approach the police, telling her that any contact with the authorities would result in her being deported to Morocco. “All I could think about was my family and the fact that I didn’t want to go home empty-handed,” she says.
It was often difficult to find food, and the only thing that resembled a kitchen was a wood stove. She kept a mobile phone hidden from the farm owners and used it to occasionally contact her family. “Sometimes I would bang my head against the wall,” she recalls. “I thought I would either leave there with documents or be dead,” adds Fatima. In late 2023, police received information that a woman was being held and exploited on a sheep farm. About two months later, anti-human trafficking units from Burgos and Valladolid had gathered enough evidence to intervene, along with labor inspectors.
Police said they found Fatima in terrible conditions, living without electricity and in unsanitary accommodation. For Fatima, the sight of police at the farm brought an overwhelming sense of joy. “I thought: ‘Whatever happens, I want this to end,’” she says, estimating that she had been abused for about two years after the other woman left. Since her rescue, Fatima has gradually rebuilt her life with the help of the Adoratrices, a Catholic religious order that helps women victims of human trafficking. The organization paid for her stay in a hostel after the police raided the farm and supported her in rebuilding her life in Spain, helping her find work, housing and reuniting with her children. “When we met her, she was devastated, silent and with a look full of sadness. She didn’t want to leave the room, sometimes out of fear. Now she’s completely different. She enters a room and lights it up,” says Consuelo, the director of “Adoratrices” in Burgos, who asked that her last name not be published, about Fatima.
Fatima describes the support she received from the organization as life-changing. “Meeting them was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says. “Everything else was a nightmare.” Since her case was discovered, police have arrested three men suspected of human trafficking for the purpose of exploitation for labor. The trial is expected to begin in the coming months. Fatima now has the legal right to work in Spain. “After everything I’ve been through, I have a lot of trust in the authorities. I hope justice is served,” she says. “I’m incredibly proud that I managed to get through all this. Now I’m happy and I can’t wait to start a new life and bring my family here with me,” she adds. (The Guardian)