Local legend says that hugging a pumpkin absorbs bad energy and replaces it with good, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Hassan and Shajan, Bangladeshi immigrants who share a room with 18 co-workers that’s already overflowing with hundreds of pumpkins of different shapes and sizes.
“We have gotten used to growing pumpkins, which we grow in abundance here, at our accommodation. We store them here and sell them during times of high demand such as Ramadan, when they are often used to make the local dish saloon, and also during Halloween, which is celebrated mainly by Western expatriates at the end of October,” said Hassan, 29.
But it’s not the pumpkins that catch our attention on the farm, but the living conditions of the 20 farm workers (4 Indian, 14 Bangladeshi and 2 Pakistani) crammed into three rooms. This is just one example of the many labour law violations they endure. Other abuses they face include irregular payment of wages, long and irregular working hours, and a lack of paid weekly and annual holidays.
At the entrance to the main room, five roped-off bunk beds line one wall for workers to hang their belongings on, other personal belongings are piled high in bags and tins, and a rolled pumpkin takes up about a quarter of the room, taking up most of the free space.
In the two smaller rooms, two large mattresses take up most of the space, the walls are barely visible under layers of clothes hanging on ropes, and the kitchen is cluttered and unsanitary.
Similar living and working conditions were found on five other farms around Bahrain that we visited.
Of the 9,120 workers in Bahrain’s agriculture sector, around 80% are migrant workers. They seem unaware that their rights are being violated or take it for granted. Most are “free visa” workers who entered the country illegally through a network of fraudulent intermediaries. The more intermediaries involved in the migration from their home country to Bahrain and through transit countries, the more illegal the method and the more expensive the journey. They often arrive in Bahrain heavily in debt, having borrowed money or sold what few assets they had.
For these workers, protesting against working conditions means deportation and the loss of what little livelihood they currently have. Agents and employers confidently exploit this vulnerability, knowing they will never be held accountable.
Their documents are also confiscated upon arrival. “We work all year round with no weekly or annual holidays. We only have two official days off – the first day of the Islamic holidays Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, when all government and private institutions are closed,” Hassan says.
“I am the only driver on this farm and have to wake up at 5am to distribute produce to big grocery stores and vegetable sellers at the central market. As I am the only driver, I have to work even when I am not feeling well and I can only sleep after the distribution is over,” he added.
In another vegetable farm, 30 farmers from Bangladesh work without a contract. The workers have been employed on the farm for between 2 and 20 years, and all of them came here after paying intermediaries (mostly relatives or friends) in Bahrain. These illegal recruitment fees range from 1,000 to 1,500 Bahraini dinars (US$2,660 to US$4,000).
One of the eldest, Abdul Kalam M, appears to be the leader of the group. “It is difficult to give up our crops, so the farmers only get one day off a month. We all work around 10 hours a day, with a three-hour break at midday,” he says.
These workers earn between BD120 and BD180, and their employers provide them with accommodation on the farm and a small share of the harvest. Farm workers pay for their own food, such as rice, and other necessities.
Farmers do not comply with many provisions of the labor law, such as paid annual leave and rest periods. Some employers provide paid annual leave, but others only cover transportation costs and do not pay wages. Some workers, especially those on free visas, consider annual leave to be their own responsibility. As a result, some farmers do not return home for years until they can pay off their debts, meet their financial obligations, and cover transportation costs. The majority of farmers interviewed do not have regular weekly holidays and can only leave the farm (with permission) to send money to their families or to go to the hospital.
At yet another farm, 30 workers share two rooms at the edge of the farm, packed with bunk beds and foam mattresses filling the remaining floor space.
The workers’ accommodation is in clear violation of a 2015 Council of Ministers decision that states that rooms cannot accommodate more than eight people, that each person must be at least 40 square feet in size and have ceilings at least 10 feet high. The rooms MR visited had about 20 square feet per person.
According to data from the Ministry of Public Works, Local Government and Urban Planning, agriculture is practiced on relatively small holdings, with 84 percent of fields being less than five hectares in size. Approximately 60 percent of these fields are operated under a land lease system, whereby the landowner is paid a fixed annual rent and the tenant (often a migrant worker) hires workers to cultivate the land and earns a profit from the marketing and sale of the harvest.
The agriculture sector contributes only marginally to GDP, amounting to just 0.2% of total GDP or Bahraini Dinars 26.3 million (US$70 million). The agriculture sector has experienced a significant decline over the past few years, with the number of farmers (farm owners) in Bahrain falling from 15,000 in 2002 to 650 in 2016.
Unlike agricultural workers in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, farmers and shepherds on the tiny island of Bahrain generally do not live in isolation: Their farms are not far from major cities, mosques or temples, and workers often spend the night there.
Their proximity to social life may be one of the reasons why these workers appear to be relatively more satisfied than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Despite the abuses that workers in the agricultural sector face that amount to human trafficking, the farmers interviewed did not express strong dissatisfaction with their working and living conditions. “Free visa” workers often have little choice but to accept their working conditions, as they are considered illegal and would be deported if they complained to the authorities, but even agricultural workers with legitimate legal status rarely complain. Many are unaware of their rights and most have no other options in their home countries. Like many migrant workers, they are motivated to overcome poverty by the economic need for a salary.
Shajan, who has worked on the same pumpkin farm for 15 years and whose salary has never exceeded 180 Bahraini dinars (US$480), said with satisfaction that he travels to visit his family once every four or five years, when he can afford the plane fare. He doesn’t think it’s a violation of his rights when his employer doesn’t pay him during the summer, when the heat reduces farm income. “The farm owner cuts our salary to 30 Bahraini dinars (US$80) until the weather calms and farm work resumes. We have nothing to do, it will be hard to find another job and the situation elsewhere will not be better than what we are used to.”
