The Board defends the strawberry sector before a report from the Council of Europe and makes "politicians create the breeding ground" ugly

It makes ugly "politicians create the breeding ground"

SEVILLA, 12 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Andalusian Government has come out this Monday in defense of the strawberry sector before the conclusions of a working group of the Council of Europe on the working conditions of the immigrant population that works in this sector.

For this reason, it has demanded an "enough" after arguing that "it is a responsible sector, which does things well" and has considered that the situation is due to the fact that "certain political leaders have created the perfect breeding ground for orchestrating a systematic campaign to speak ill of the sector".

The Minister for Sustainability, the Environment and the Blue Economy and spokesman for the Andalusian Government, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, has given voice to this pronouncement by the Junta de Andalucía, which took place at the Governing Council's press conference.

Fernández-Pacheco, who first argued that the Labor Inspectorate is a state competence, argued the economic contribution of the sector, which he recalled represents 98% of national production and 30% of the European Union, while he has defended that "we are not going to allow the strawberry sector to be attacked", point where he has evoked the letter sent to him by the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, to the Government, Pedro Sánchez, last week in that regard.

This Monday the Group of Experts against Human Trafficking of the Council of Europe (GRETA) of the Council of Europe has denounced in its latest report on this matter the working conditions experienced by migrants in the strawberry fields of Huelva.

The document includes a trip made by a delegation of this group of experts to Spain, between July 4 and 8, 2022, in which, among other destinations, they chose the Andalusian province for being, as indicated, "one of the the main producing regions" of this fruit.

In their account, they point out that at the time of their visit to these camps there were 25 "informal" settlements where 914 migrants (including 99 women) lived, mostly undocumented workers from Morocco, Mali and Ghana, although, according to GRETA, upon their arrival they were informed that during the harvest season, "there are many more workers" established there.

The Council of Europe expert group determines that these people "live in shacks made of plastic sheets used to cover strawberry fields" that "there is no access to drinking water, electricity or sanitation" and that they are NGOs like ' Women in Conflict Zones', the Red Cross, Cáritas or ACCEM who provide humanitarian aid in the place.

It also explains that a day center has been set up near the fields to provide basic goods and services to migrants, but that its continuity is in danger, as the NGOs explained to GRETA, due to "lack of public funding."

GRETA experts have expressed concern that "labor inspectors do not have a mandate to go to the settlements" and that the Civil Guard only goes in case of incidents or to identify vulnerable people such as pregnant women or women with children.

"However, no victims of trafficking have been identified among the people living in the informal settlements," the report states.

GRETA warns that there are other similar settlements in other parts of Spanish territory and, in this sense, the experts have shown themselves "deeply concerned by the inaction of the authorities in the face of this humanitarian situation that has been going on for several years and generates greater risks of human trafficking."