Paris/Huelva, (EFE).- The Council of Europe criticizes the “inaction” of the Spanish authorities regarding the conditions in which immigrant workers in the strawberry sector live in Huelva and the allegations of labor exploitation there.
In an evaluation report on Spain published this Monday, the Council of Europe Group of Experts against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) complains in general that, although the Spanish Administration acts against the sexual exploitation of women and girls , “much less is done to detect and identify victims of other forms of exploitation, particularly labor exploitation.”
To prepare this third round of examination, launched in June 2021, a GRETA delegation paid a visit from July 4 to 8, 2022 to Spain and was, among other places, in the strawberry production areas in Huelva.
No access to electricity and water
At that time there were 25 temporary settlements in which 914 immigrants lived – much less than in the collection season – 99 of whom were women, most of them without papers and from Morocco, Mali and Ghana.
The Council of Europe points out that there was no access to drinking water or electricity in the settlements, and that they lacked sanitary conditions.
According to the NGOs with which the experts were in contact, some migrants were exploited at work and could even be considered victims of trafficking. Specifically, they worked more hours than the legal ones with wages below the minimum wage and in some cases they were not even paid.
The NGOs also alerted them to cases of women being sexually exploited in the settlements and could be victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
sexual exploitation
GRETA points out that labor inspectors do not have a mandate to go to the settlements. Who does go regularly is the Civil Guard, especially when there are incidents or to identify vulnerable people, such as pregnant women or with children.
In any case, it stresses that despite the situation it describes, no victims of trafficking have been officially identified in those settlements in Huelva, and recalls that there are other similar ones in different parts of Spanish territory.
For this reason, he says he is “deeply concerned by the inaction of the authorities with this humanitarian situation that has lasted for years and generates high risks of human trafficking.”
The experts from the Council of Europe point out that when they visited last year, the Labor and Social Security Inspectorate (ITSS) had a staff of 857 inspectors and 1,030 sub-inspectors, to which must be added 148 in Catalonia and 50 in the Basque Country.
Lack of labor inspectors
That equates to an average of one for every 19,000 workers, a rate that is “far from the reasonable reference” set by the World Labor Organization (UNWTO), which is one for every 10,000.
In addition, for the representatives of the NGOs with whom GRETA met, the inspectors are not sufficiently trained to detect human trafficking.
In their report, based on official Spanish figures, they confirm that the number of alleged cases of trafficking for labor exploitation has remained stable in recent years: 18 in 2018 (with 94 victims), 17 in 2019 (with 192), 20 in 2020 (with 99), 21 in 2021 (with 51) and 29 in 2022 (with 89).
And they denounce that the number of legal proceedings “remains low”: 2 in 2018 (with 5 accused and 34 victims), 4 in 2019 (with 12 accused and 15 victims), 6 in 2020 (with 14 accused and 26 victims) and 5 in 2021 (with 20 defendants and 67 victims).
329 inspections in Huelva in 2022
In its response, the Spanish government assures that the authorities “are extremely concerned with the situation in places with a potential risk of victims of human trafficking, such as the informal settlements in Huelva.”
That is why in the province of Huelva preventive labor inspections have increased in recent years. Specifically, it has gone from 57 in 2018 to 119 in 2019, 111 in 2020 (year affected by the covid crisis), 250 in 2021 and 329 in 2022.
Throughout Spain, inspections of state services have risen from 5,075 in 2018 to 5,793 in 2022.
Spain also insists that in recent years it has strengthened the training of agents and social partners, including those from Huelva, to share information and good practices. EFE