A South African woman has described working as a fruit picker on farms in the south of England as “slave labour”.
“We weren’t viewed as humans,” Sybil Msezane told a House of Lords committee.
She said workers were addressed by numbers, rather than names, as if they were in prison, forced to work 18 hour days and live in overcrowded caravans.
If they complained to bosses they were threatened with deportation, the Lords horticultural committee was told.
The committee is investigating the treatment of migrant workers on British farms.
Andrey Okhrimenko, from Kazakhstan, speaking via video link, said: “If you don’t work fast enough, if you don’t comply with quality… they will say ‘we will cancel your visa, we can send you back home to your country’.
“We had extremely bad living conditions, we had problems with working conditions. We were disrespected and manipulated.”
Like Ms Msezane, he was recruited last year by an agent in his home country via an advertisement on social media, and had to pay for his own airfare and visa before being put to work on fruit farms in the south of England.
‘People need work’
Ms Msezane, who is from Johannesburg, is now a care worker for an English local authority.
She told the BBC she was treated with respect in her new role, in sharp contrast to her experience last year as a seasonal agricultural worker, picking and packing strawberries for British supermarkets.
“I could not have thought that the conditions I found in 2022, in the United Kingdom, were what I found. It was beyond shocking.
“I’d spent close to, almost, £2,500 equivalent. There is no way I am going home at that point. I am here to make money. That’s essentially it. So you get to work.”
She had to pay rent to live in a caravan with six people of different nationalities, both men and women, who had a single shower and fridge between them.
“My country is going through a lot e
