On 21 November, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) was presented with the 2007 Anti-Slavery Award. Anti-Slavery International's Communications Officer Gemma Wolfes recently visited them in Florida, to see them in action working to combat forced labour in United States' agriculture.

Julia Gabriel was only 18 years old when she borrowed money to travel to the US, leaving her family in Guatemala for the promise of a better life. "What they didn't tell me was that I had just unknowingly consented to being a prisoner and a slave." After crossing the border into Arizona she was picked up by two men and taken to South Carolina where she was told she had to pick cucumbers to repay the costs of bringing her there.

Her days began at 4.00am with gunshots fired into the air. She had to work 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week. After deductions from her pay cheque for food, accommodation and transport she was left with just US$20 a week.

For three months she lived in a climate of fear and intimidation. "I wasn't allowed to leave; guns were pointed at me and others constantly." In the beginning she thought her brutal treatment was a normal part of working in the US. "Here I was thinking that I was coming to America for a better life, but this was a real nightmare." After she saw a fellow worker publicly beaten and another pistol-whipped into unconsciousness her fear took over. She and others from the camp decided to escape in the middle of the night.

Julia's story is illustrative of the experiences many migrant workers from Mexico and Central America face. Desperate to find work and transportation they are preyed upon by traffickers, who offer to lend them money. In order to pay off the debts they incur, they are forced to work in agriculture mostly harvesting citrus fruits and tomatoes. Migration from these areas has significantly increased since the early 1990s as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has left Mexican farmers unable to compete with US subsidised corn imports.

Once in the hands of traffickers, workers are taken to labour camps where they face brutality and unacceptable conditions. Workers are kept 12-16 people per cramped trailer. They are held against their will and are kept under constant surveillance using a variety of methods including armed guards. Driving around the vast Florida countryside it is easy to see how hidden enslaved workers are as they are far from towns and are cut off from the outside world.

In 1993, a small group of workers formed the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to challenge their treatment and improve migrant farm workers' conditions. They have now grown into a mass movement with over 4,000 members from the largely Latino, Haitian and Mayan Indian migrant community. They seek to educate the community about their rights and the illegality of forced labour by holding regular meetings, broadcasting on local radio, holding awareness-raising campaigns and training workers how to recognise forced labour.

Over the past decade, CIW has played a vital role in securing the release of over 1,000 workers. It has uncovered numerous cases of abuse and helped in the prosecution of six slavery cases; many of the Coalition's members have gone undercover to gather vital information as part of this process. The organisation also provides legal advice and support to victims to help them to testify and bring their abusers to justice.

The scale of forced labour in US agribusiness is difficult to quantify because it is largely undetected. But CIW conservatively estimates at any one time some 5 per cent of farm workers are being subjected to this abuse. Excluded from the right to unionise these workers are among the poorest and most exploited in the country. CIW recognises that until labour standards are improved slavery will continue to exist. As CIW's Anti-Slavery Co-ordinator Laura Germino states, "if you talk about slavery in a vacuum then you are doing it a disservice as you're not going to eliminate it. If you can end sweatshop conditions, you can end slavery."

In recent years the Coalition has adopted a preventative approach to fighting forced labour by targeting some of the largest fast-food corporations in the world. Their Campaign for Fair Food demands a zero-tolerance policy on slavery, greater transparency and improved working conditions in supply chains and for farm workers to be involved in implementing fair labour practices.

The Campaign has achieved impressive successes. After a four-year national consumer boycott of Taco Bell protesting tomato workers' conditions, which included sub-poverty wages; no right to overtime pay or to organise; no health insurance, sick leave or paid holidays; and no pension, CIW achieved an historic agreement with parent company Yum! Brands in 2005. Yum! agreed to work with CIW to raise labour standards throughout the industry and strictly forbid the use of indentured servitude by suppliers under its Supplier Code of Conduct as well as require strict compliance with all existing laws. In April this year, CIW achieved a similar agreement with McDonalds.

CIW's work is not only about bringing cases to court and demanding fair labour practices. All their action aims to empower migrant farm workers to fight for their rights and improve their lives.

Since her escape, Julia joined CIW and helped bring her captors to justice by testifying against them and locating additional witnesses. She now helps others in similar situations and is active in the wider struggle to advance migrant farm workers' rights.

autumn 2007
Voice from the field

Romana Cacchioli, Anti-Slavery International's Africa Programme Co-ordinator, recently visited Niger to see the progress of our new project helping freed slaves and slave descendants.

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, with over 60 per cent of the population living on less than one dollar day. Former slaves and slave descendents have even less; they are among the most marginalised and socially excluded people in the country.

I was in Niger to see a new project that we launched with our local partner Timidria to help this disadvantaged group improve their lives. Thanks to support from Comic Relief, we are setting up eight schools over the next five years in remote settlements near the desert town of Tchintabaraden in northern Niger.

The first phase began in October with the opening of three schools. Each provides primary education for up to 60 children, many of whom have been in slavery. It is also the first opportunity many of these children have to go to school. The teachers have been recruited from the Ministry of Education and will teach the national curriculum and school welfare officers will provide basic primary health care and related education.

Each school will also have a social welfare officer to encourage parents to send their daughters to school. They will inform them of the importance and value of education for girls, monitor their attendance, work with teachers to ensure a safe and girl-friendly school environment and follow up if girls drop out.

Parents will play a vital role in the school's management, with each having a parents' association with a management committee comprised of five elected members to oversee the school's operation with Timidria. Not only will this link parents to their children's education, it will also empower them to make decisions about issues affecting them and their children for the first time.

The parents I met were overjoyed by the fact their children will be able to go to school. Sitting under the shade of a tree I met Almansour, the father of two girls and a boy, he told me "this school means we can now begin to build a community; it is the beginning of our emancipation."

In addition to delivering vital education, nutrition and health care, the schools will create a communal hub for families who have so long been victims of enslavement and whose lives have, until recently, focused entirely around the needs of their owners. There will also be literacy classes and micro-credit programmes for women. Micro-credit loans will be available through the school to some of the mothers, providing crucial support for a variety of basic trading activities, such as buying and selling rice or beans, firewood or other essentials, or small scale animal husbandry.

Apart from providing children and adults from Niger's slave class with the tools they need to build their lives, the schools will also help erode traditional barriers. "At least within school, children of slaves and those of the masters will interact on equal terms. This will, in time, help to break down barriers and help to build slave children's confidence and self esteem," Ilguilas Weila, President of Timidria, said.

After five years, the schools will be brought under the auspices of the Ministry for Education, with Timidria continuing to provide community development projects.

These are exciting times as this is the first project of its type for Anti-Slavery International. By addressing the educational, health and economic needs of former slaves we are helping to build a community where former slaves can become part of Niger's wider society.