“‘Life is not rosy here’: Migrant workers in Spain’s greenhouses tell of poor pay and hardships”

On a hot sunny summer afternoon, Amoateng Foster leans against a table in a makeshift open-air classroom in southern Spain, facing outward toward the improvised student seats…

He now lives in an informal settlement for migrants in Almería province, where he and thousands of other workers toil in seemingly countless greenhouses across the sun-baked region to produce the fruit and vegetables that sustain Europe during the winter. The conditions are harsh and the pay, for those in a more precarious situation, is terrible…

… reality has not lived up to his expectations, proving immeasurably hard and degrading in many ways…

Hundreds of people live alongside Foster in squalor, in a makeshift neighborhood built with whatever brick, mortar, tire or piece of plastic they could find. It’s a surreal scenario, with no official electricity supply or running water…

There has also been growing backlash by populist politicians against charities and other organizations operating on the front line of this torrent of human suffering…

But with demanding intermediaries and powerful supermarket chains vying to sell at the cheapest possible price, business owners in Almería say they’re forced to rely on cheap labor…