Report reveals squalid living conditions of migrant fruit pickers in north

An exposé released on Monday revealed that migrant fruit pickers in the north are living in squalid conditions in a camp near Morphou.

The report, released in newspaper Ozgur Gazete, alleged that the people living at the camp are Bangladeshi nationals who were brought to Cyprus by the north’s citrus export company Cypfruvex.

The newspaper reported that a number of the workers imported by Cypfruvex were brought between two and five months ago, despite the citrus harvesting season having been over by the time they arrived.

As a result, they were left without work and thus without income, living in squalid conditions in shacks near Morphou.

Journalist Pinar Barut said of the workers’ living conditions that “the scene we encountered in Morphou horrified us. The workers we spoke to said they have been living in these conditions for months.”

“They are all trying to survive in a slave camp, filthy, unemployed, penniless, with no water, electricity, hygiene, toilets, or bathrooms. No one has visited them for months,” she added.

One of the workers told the newspaper, “I came two months and 10 days ago, and I only worked for a month. We buy rice and chicken with our own money and eat here.”

Another said, “we have been here for five months, we came to pick oranges for Cypfruvex. We worked for three months, were paid for two, were not paid for our third month of work, and have not worked for the last two months.”

The worker also estimated that a total of 60 people live at the site.

Another told the newspaper, “we have all had water, toilet, environmental, and other problems since the day we arrived. There is no hygiene, no food, no one has come here for months.”

One worker said the consultants were two men who identified themselves as “Mustafa” and “Cihangir”. He said he had paid the pair €8,000 for the opportunity to come to Cyprus to work, and that in total the pair may have made as much as €13 million by importing workers from Bangladesh.

He said he had been paid 24,000TL (€632) for his first month’s work, before being paid just 7,000TL (€184) for his second month, and not being paid since. The north’s minimum wage is 33,926TL (€893) per month.

The newspaper explained that workers are often brought to the north after locally based companies in need of employees contact “consultants” on the island, who in turn contact agencies in Bangladesh and other countries.

The company specifies how many workers are needed and what qualifications they need, and the agencies in those countries hire the workers, in exchange for a fee paid by the workers themselves, before sending them to the north.

The newspaper said the “consultant” then applies to the north’s ‘labour ministry’ for work permits for the new arrivals, with very little oversight.

The ‘labour ministry’ reportedly only looks at the company’s documents and not those of the workers and takes into account the total number Turkish Cypriot and Turkish workers employed at the company, as any given company is only allowed to have non-Turkish Cypriot and Turkish workers account for a third of their workforce.

Aside from those two checks, the ‘ministry’ reportedly only “looks at” the reason for which the workers were brought in and ensures that the company does not owe money in social security fund before granting the permits.

However, in the case of the workers reached by Ozgur Gazete, this relative lack of oversight leads to other issues.

Responding to the news, Turkish Cypriot opposition party TDP leader and former ‘labour minister’ Zeki Celer said he was “ashamed to see the state the ministry where I worked is in today.”