Advocacy group Human Rights Watch has released a report documenting the shocking living and working conditions of farm workers in South Africa’s Western Cape Province, who help produce the country’s renowned wines and fruit. The workers are denied adequate housing, proper safety equipment, and basic labour rights, Human Rights Watch revealed in the report released yesterday.

The report, Ripe with Abuse: Human Rights Conditions in South Africa’s Fruit and Wine Industries, documents conditions that include on-site housing that is unfit for living, exposure to pesticides without proper safety equipment, lack of access to toilets or drinking water while working, and efforts to block workers from forming unions. image expired

While the Western Cape’s fruit and wine industries contribute billions of rand to the country’s economy, support tourism, and are enjoyed by consumers around the world, their farmworkers earn among the lowest wages in South Africa and face insecure tenure rights and threats of eviction for longtime residents on farms.

Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, commented on the report’s findings, "The wealth and well-being these workers produce shouldn’t be rooted in human misery. The government, and the industries and farmers themselves, need to do a lot more to protect people who live and work on farms."

South Africa has laws guaranteeing wages, benefits, and safe working and housing conditions for workers and other farm dwellers, but the government has largely has failed to monitor conditions and enforce the laws, so they are often disregarded.

Furthermore, as well as ignoring rules over living arrangements, the occupational health and safety conditions on many farms endanger workers. The majority of the current and former farmworkers interviewed about working conditions said they had been exposed to pesticides without adequate safety equipment. Many employers also jeopardize workers’ health by not providing them with access to drinking water, hand washing facilities, or toilets, even though these are required by labour regulations.

Mr Beleke commented on the findings, "Given what we know about the effects of pesticide use, it is unconscionable that some of these workers are not provided appropriate safety equipment, even after they ask for it."

Human rights abuse produce exported to UK and Germany

The report revealed that conditions on farms do vary. In a small number of cases, farmworkers and farm owners described full compliance with the law as well as a variety of positive practices by employers that went beyond the legal requirements. Some farmers give workers land to grow their own crops, pay the full cost of medical visits, provide free food to workers in the winter, or have set up trusts that benefit farmworkers. Farmers who provided these benefits to farmworkers noted that these efforts can be profitable.

South African fruit and wine is sold domestically and exported overseas. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands are the top destinations for Western Cape fruit, and the UK and Germany are the biggest importers of South African wine. Canada, the United States, and other European nations are also important markets for South African wine. On about one-half of the farms whose conditions Human Rights Watch studied, either farmers or workers said that the products were produced for the export market.

Human Rights Watch said that based on its findings the South African government, along with the industries that employ these laborers, should take immediate steps to improve their working and housing conditions. Mr Beleke concluded, "The answer is not to boycott South African products, because that could be disastrous for farmworkers, but we are asking retailers to press their suppliers to ensure that there are decent conditions on the farms that produce the products they buy and sell to their customers."

Ripe with Abuse can be downloaded as a pdf here.