Jalisco state police have rescued 275 people from five Mexican states who were living and working in slave-like conditions on a tomato farm in the municipality of Toliman.
The 191 men, 45 women and 39 minors had arrived in this state from Hidalgo, Veracruz, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi and Oaxaca in search of a steady job. Many had been drawn here by a radio commercial promising a wage of 120 pesos a day for planting picking and packing tomatoes, along with living accommodation, meals and medical services.
The reality the jornaleros (migrant workers) encountered when they arrived at the farm, located midway between Ciudad Guzman and El Grullo in southern Jalisco, was somewhat different.
The 120-peso wage offered by the company, Bioparques de Occidente, was a pure myth. To earn anywhere near that amount workers would have to pick between 35 and 40 crates of tomatoes a day. Most said they worked around nine hours for a wage of 40 pesos.
The farm compound’s living accommodation was sparse. Ten people were obliged to share a ramshackle room measuring eight square meters.
Instead of the bunks beds promised, they were handed plastic bags to sleep on the floor.
Most of the workers had signed contracts for three months but some were not paid during that entire period. In addition, part of their salaries were paid with vouchers that they could only use to buy overpriced food and personal items from a store on the compound – a practice commonly used by Mexico’s hacienda owners centuries ago.The three meals each day they were promised usually consisted of rice and tortillas, which the workers had to heat on small gas stoves. Cockroaches were everywhere, they said.
The six showers available were clearly insufficient for the number of people living there and bad odors emitted from the unhygienic bathrooms and poor drainage system.
The company also prohibited workers from leaving the compound at any time.
Authorities were alerted to the appalling conditions after one worker escaped, hitched a ride to Guadalajara and filed a complaint with the mobile Citizens’ Attention Office situated in the plaza outside the Government Palace.
When state police arrived at the compound this week, they officially “freed” the workers from their contracts. Five Bioparques de Occidente employees who administered the farm were detained pending further investigation of the company.
Health officials called into check the condition of the workers said two-thirds of the children were malnourished.
Most of the workers remained at the site this week waiting to be paid their remaining salaries before returning to their home states. The state promised to provide buses to transport them home.
Bioparques de Occidente is registered in the state of Sinaloa.