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Four Moroccan women, working in a Huelva’s strawberry farm, told the Spanish authorities that they have been sexually abused by their manager, says El Mundo quoting a statement issued Thursday by the prosecutor’s office in Andalucía.
Reporting the alleged abuses to the National police and the Guardia civil, the four women have accused the same person, who works as a manager in a farm located in Moguer, a small city located in the province of Huelva.
According to the same statement, two of the four women have spoken to the National police while others sought the Guardia civil.
The new revelations are part of an investigation opened last Thursday by the Prosecutor’s office in Huelva under the request of the General Directorate of Migration Policy in Andalucía. The accused is a 47-year-old man (Spanish nationality) who has been arrested Friday, 25th of May, over alleged sexual abuses and released later, awaiting his trial.
Allegations dating back to 2015
Speaking to Huelva Informacion on Thursday, Huelva’s prosecutor Luis Fernandez Arevalo stressed that the Spanish authorities are tracking abuse allegations dating back to 2015 and which might be linked to the current case.
He indicated that what they «have for the moment are the complaints lodged by the four women», urging other women to open up and report alleged abuses to help the authorities proceed in their investigation.
The same statement was advanced Wednesday by Moroccan Minister of Employment and Vocational Training Minister Mohamed Yatim who called Moroccan women working in strawberry farms in Huelva (Spain) to not keep quiet about alleged sexual abuses.
Yatim's statement, however, comes as his department denied in two previous communiqués the outcome of an investigation published by Buzzfeed News in April. The latter featured the accounts of several Moroccan women working in Huelva's strawberry farms who claimed having been sexually assaulted, abused, raped and blackmailed by their managers.
In previous articles published by Yabiladi on the matter, the ministry, in the person of its secretary general, confirmed that none of the Moroccan women had ever lodged a complaint to the authorities, reporting abuse. The ministry stuck to its guns even after sending a delegation to Spain to inquire on the conditions under which these women work.
On Wednesday, an authorized source at Morocco's consulate in Seville told Yabiladi that Moroccan temporary workers in Huelva phoned the consulate to report their managers' abuse, after informing the Spanish authorities.
According to the same source, these women notified the consulate after several articles emerged in the last weeks revealing their struggles.
To have more information on the matter, Yabiladi called Wednesday Mohamed Yatim but received no answer.
