by Audrey Deverson
The agricultural sector is often characterised by the temporality and seasonality of its production, its significant need for labour during production peaks and the high degree of precariousness of working conditions. It employs an increasing number of temporary migrant workers, and temporary labour migration is constantly expanding (also) within the European Union. In Spain, the sector often uses seasonal workers recruited directly in their country of origin (outside the EU) through circular migration programmes. This form of migration is favoured by the European Union, which highlights the circular nature of migration in the Seasonal Workers Directive (Directive 2014/36/EU).
The agricultural sector and seasonal migration are often seen as characterised by male labour. This is also reflected in the content of the European Directive, which is gender-neutral despite the recommendations of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights. For example, one article of the Directive considered a step forward in terms of worker protection is the one on equal treatment (article 23) between foreign and national workers, particularly as regards working conditions. However, there is no reference to the principle of equality between women and men. Gender studies have demonstrated that the invisibilisation of women within standards can have consequences for their experience, particularly in terms of reproductive justice.
Reproductive justice concerns the right to have or not to have a child and the right to bring up a child in an appropriate environment. It is therefore linked to the protection of women’s human rights and protection against reproductive oppression. In the context of seasonal migration, several forms of reproductive oppression can be identified: regulation and exploitation of women’s bodies; poverty (low wages, exploited labour force), double work (migration and domestic work), hazardous working conditions (e.g. exposure to pesticides, sexual harassment), poor regulation of health and safety at work; barriers to reproductive health such as ignorance, cost, language difficulties, taboos, unsympathetic migration regime; and lack of resources to make a choice.
This reproductive (in)justice can be reinforced by the law, as illustrated by the case of seasonal workers in Huelva in southern Spain. The Spanish case is special in that almost all seasonal migrants (within the meaning of the EU Directive) are women.
Spain mainly uses seasonal labour for the strawberry harvest in Huelva (southern Spain). The circular migration programme has been in place since the beginning of the 21st century and provides for the recruitment of workers from countries with which Spain has signed bilateral migration agreements. In practice, a recruitment profile can be identified: Moroccan women from rural areas (and therefore often poor and illiterate) who are mothers of minors. This profile, based on a stereotype of women’s role as mothers, was designed to ensure that these women were obliged to return at the end of each season. Although this is not enshrined in law, the legal framework encourages this type of recruitment by emphasising the need for temporary and circular migration, which tends to avoid permanent migration, as stated by the preamble to the EU Directive. In addition, the Directive and the national programme aim to establish a system of co-development and the idea of a ‘triple win’. From this perspective, the exclusive recruitment of women in situations of possible social exclusion with few job opportunities can be seen as positive discrimination, or at the very least, as a mechanism to encourage these women to enter the labour market.
The working and living conditions of seasonal workers in Huelva have an impact on their reproductive lives. Migrant workers work long hours in hot greenhouses, adopt a bent or squatting posture, are paid low wages, and are exposed to pesticides. These women live directly on the farms, which are often a long way from the urban centres where the medical centres are located, and are therefore totally dependent on their employers to get them around. They are not only geographically isolated, they are also socially isolated: they are far from their families, and particularly their children, but also from the local population. This can create dangerous situations for these women, and numerous cases of sexual assault have come to light, sometimes with an increase in the number of abortions during agricultural campaigns. This isolation can be reinforced by the law, which responds to ‘migratory utilitarianism’.
Seasonal migration law meets employers’ needs for an available and flexible workforce. The decision to offer accommodation directly on farms therefore allows employers this availability and flexibility. European law only provides for the need to provide decent housing conditions (article 20 of the Directive). However, Spanish law stipulates that accommodation must be close to an urban centre or that transport must be provided by the employer (Annex IX of the GECCO Order). However, there is no provision for countering social isolation through socio-cultural mediators, for example, and therefore nothing to prevent the dependence of female workers on their employer, or the promiscuity created by the presence of housing on farms. What is more, this isolation is reinforced by the forced temporariness created by the law: the proportion of housing provided by the employer encourages the migration of women, who then don’t have to look for housing themselves for such a short time, but it is because of this migratory temporariness that it is impossible for them to obtain better living conditions.