Farm workers from south Asia describe exploitative conditions at the heart of Europe’s soft fruits industry
They are drawn to Portugal and the heart of Europe’s soft fruits industry by the dream of what many refer to as a “raspberry passport”.Photograph: Francesco Brembati/The Guardian
“Everyone is very scared,” says Sagar. “Your taxes are connected with your work, and your papers are connected with your taxes. And if you lose one, you lose the other.”Sagar is halfway there. In just under three years, he will be legally entitled to a Portuguese passport, enabling him to live and work freely across the EU.
One 25-year-old woman says she filed her residency application to Portugal’s foreigners and borders service in 2019 but was told in June that her application no longer existed. She has had to postpone her wedding in India twice. If she leaves the country, her application is nullified. “For three years [my fiance] has been waiting for me. We have dreams for our marriage, for everything … but everything is spoiled.”the service, but when this will happen remains uncertain.
Others sleep in converted shipping containers and pre-fabricated dormitories on the farms. One young woman from Nepal shares a room with up to 10 others, metres from her employer’s office on a farm. Sometimes, she doesn’t leave the property for weeks at a time, she says. “They have almost no access to the outside world while they’re there,” says Aashima Budal, a PhD candidate at the University of Stavanger. “They often compare themselves to animals.
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