State cops ‘free’ slave laborers from Jalisco tomato farm
- Details
- Published on Friday, 14 June 2013 16:07
- Written by Michael Forbes
Jalisco state police have rescued 275 people from five Mexican states who were living and working in slave-like conditions on a tomato farm in the municipality of Toliman.
The 191 men, 45 women and 39 minors had arrived in this state from Hidalgo, Veracruz, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi and Oaxaca in search of a steady job. Many had been drawn here by a radio commercial promising a wage of 120 pesos a day for planting picking and packing tomatoes, along with living accommodation, meals and medical services.
The reality the jornaleros (migrant workers) encountered when they arrived at the farm, located midway between Ciudad Guzman and El Grullo in southern Jalisco, was somewhat different.
The 120-peso wage offered by the company, Bioparques de Occidente, was a pure myth. To earn anywhere near that amount workers would have to pick between 35 and 40 crates of tomatoes a day. Most said they worked around nine hours for a wage of 40 pesos.
The farm compound’s living accommodation was sparse. Ten people were obliged to share a ramshackle room measuring eight square meters.
Instead of the bunks beds promised, they were handed plastic bags to sleep on the floor.
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