12 January 2011 | News | Human rights
Enslaved
Peasants treated as animals in Argentina
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Several fields in Buenos Aires province with hundreds of workers in slavery conditions and where human rights were disregarded were found in the last days of 2010 and the first days of 2011. The cases involve important companies, among them grain transnational corporation Nidera, from the Netherlands.
The National Peasant Indigenous Movement of Argentina (MNCI) warned that these are not isolated cases in the countryside, and that they take place as part of industrial agriculture. The movement stated that “there is an urgent need to change the national agricultural model”, even if it is not something easy to do.
On December 30th, the Labour Ministry of Buenos Aires Province inspected El Algarrobo field, in San Pedro Municipality. 200 hectares of the field are rented by Nidera.
The inspection discovered workers in slavery conditions. Nidera, corporation accused in Argentina of tax evasion, had 130 workers, children, teenagers and adults, locked up. The workers had to work the land 10 hours a day under the sun, without knowing where they were. They couldn’t leave the place, they didn’t have access to electricity or water, and the company took from their salaries the supplies it sold them at extremely high prices, according to Argentinian newspaper Pagina 12. The workers were from Santiago del Estero province.
On January 4th, the authorities inspected La Luisa field, and found 60 workers in similar conditions, also from Santiago del Estero. There were also underage children who were taken away before the inspection. In this case, the company is Southern Seeds Production, from Argentina, also from the agribusiness sector.
Pagina 12 also reported that the people worked maize fields 12 hours a day, every day, and they didn’t have bathrooms or electricity. Perishable food was kept outdoors and the water they used was kept in agrotoxic containers. The peasants couldn’t leave the farm, because if one of them left, all of them would lose their jobs.
The authorities also inspected another field in Buenos Aires Province, and found 150 workers in slavery conditions, among them several children. The field belonged to Argentinian grain company Status Ager.
The workers lived in overcrowded trailers or warehouses, without drinking water, bathrooms, electricity or a place to store perishable food. They weren’t allowed to leave the field.
The three cases are under legal investigation. The MNCI highlighted in a press release that these are not isolated events, but they are inherent to the industrial agricultural model promoted by big landowners and transnational agribusiness corporations.
The peasant movement, member of the Coordination of Latin American Rural Organizations (CLOC) and Via Campesina, also pointed out other features of this agricultural model: usurpation of the territories of native peoples, land and water concentration, and repression and murder of peasants and indigenous peoples, among other things.
