Palestinian workers in illegal Israeli settlements are calling for BDS – even though it may mean they lose their jobs
Yousef,* Samih,* and Hasan* are exhausted. Their eyes are heavy and Samih is slumped in his chair. It’s after 10 p.m. and the 14-, 15-, and 16-year-old need to get up for work in less than six hours.
“We have no choice,” explains Yousef. “If we don’t go to work they will kick us out. It’s peak season.”
The three Palestinian teenagers work together in the fields of a capsicum and chili pepper farm, in the illegal Israeli settlement of Tomer, West Bank. The West Bank, which is part of Palestine, has been militarily occupied since Israel invaded in 1967.
Every day the boys start work at 5:30 a.m., harvesting peppers to be packed and sold across Israel, the West Bank, and elsewhere in the world. Most of their fellow workers are teenagers like them, some child labourers as young as 13 years old.
Despite the hard, physical work – and their young age – they say they are not allowed any breaks during the day – not even to go to the toilet or get a drink. “We go to the toilet before we go to work. If they catch us going in the farm they will punish us,” says Yousef.
They are also exposed to the pesticides used in the fields. “They have a machine to spray the pesticides,” Hasan tells us. “The guys who spray it wear a mask, but they do it while the workers are harvesting the peppers, and we don’t have a mask or gloves.”
“We breathe in the chemicals. It’s toxic. They use plastic over the farm, so it’s enclosed. We feel it in our eyes,” says Yousef.
They are not provided with drinking water, so they have to drink the water from the same hose line that is used on the capsicum plants. They are worried that this may also be polluted with chemicals.
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Denne historien er fra November/December 2018-utgaven av Briarpatch.
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