Yasmine Tellal, farm worker fighting against exploitation

As soon as she stepped through her front door, three cats slipped between Yasmine Tellal's legs and the crutch she uses to walk. "They're changing my life: after everything I've been through, they understand me and give me so much affection."

Arriving from Morocco to Spain at the age of 14, this petite, trim woman with blond bobbed hair first worked in the ready-to-wear sector in Barcelona, ​​then in the Canary Islands, where she managed a store. Business was booming until the economic crisis hit the country hard in 2008.

In 2011, a friend told him about Laboral Terra, a temporary employment agency based in Murcia that recruits women to work in the fields of southern France . The company relies on a 1996 European directive on posted workers, which allows EU workers or workers with a residence permit in an EU country to go and work in another member state.

Via WhatsApp, Yasmine is promised transportation, room and board, and a higher salary than in Spain. It's decided: a friend and I decide to move to France "for a year, no more, just to make some extra money."

Arriving on the evening of December 31, 2011 at the Avignon bus station, they quickly became disillusioned: contrary to what they had been told, no one was there to greet them and they had to wait more than a week before Laboral Terra's managers gave them any sign of life.

Nothing goes as planned: they begin working on French farms without employment contracts, the salary is below the minimum wage, and not all hours are counted... Thus begins seven years of ordeal in the fields around Avignon. The working conditions are terrible , and sexual harassment and blackmail are systematic. Rejecting offers becomes increasingly complicated and risky.

“One day, Ahmed, one of the managers at Laboral Terra, drove me back, and then he suddenly stopped at the side of the road and started kissing me forcefully, touching my breasts, and putting my hand on his penis. I screamed at him to stop, to take me home. He said, ‘If you sleep with me when I ask, I’ll give you 300 euros a month.’ I refused point blank, and he ended up taking me home. I was in shock.”

In response to her refusal, she was suspended and the physical violence increased until the straw that broke the camel's back: one day, in the company toilets, one of the workers violently hit her head against the wall and she lost consciousness. "She had been sent by the managers to put pressure on me. At that point, I told myself that this couldn't go on any longer and with four other people, two women and two men, we went to knock on the door of the CGT union, whose number we had found on the Internet."

All five filed complaints in 2017, first with the Arles industrial tribunal, then with the Avignon criminal court, specifically regarding sexual harassment. Since the start of the proceedings, she has been the only one to testify with her face uncovered, despite the numerous physical and psychological assaults, death threats, and pressure she suffered after her denunciations.

The five plaintiffs crossed paths with Codetras, the Collective for the Defense of Foreign Agricultural Workers in Bouches-du-Rhône, which supported them in their lawsuits. From the outset of the proceedings, Laboral Terra declared bankruptcy to avoid prosecution.

Their criminal appeal trial will be held this Thursday, May 22, at the Avignon court. On this occasion, Yasmine Tellal intends to remind the judge that none of the plaintiffs have been heard, especially not on the issues of sexual harassment. After seven years of endless and exhausting legal proceedings, Yasmine Tellal is in very fragile health.

But despite her physical condition, she still has the same determination in her eyes. With her cat Xena – "like the warrior" – on her lap, she intends to see her through to the end. "Anyway, I've already lost my health and my life: now I want to use my last strength to win this battle."