Exploitation, or jail - Haaretz

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Sat., October 27, 2007 Cheshvan 15, 5768

Israel Time: 01:56 (EST+7)

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Exploitation, or jail

By Nurit Wurgaft

It's evening, and four Eritrean refugees have finished their work day at the greenhouses. They're back in their dwelling at Moshav Sharsheret, in the northern Negev: two tiny rooms in a shack. They work at Tiv Shtil Nursery. To wash up after the grueling day, they have to go to the showers of the Thai workers, in the shack next door. Their shack has no shower or toilet. Or refrigerator. They can cook, in the dark: Their rooms have no electricity. The table bears the remains of a pita and a soft drink from the moshav grocery. "On weekends we cook rice," they say.

One room has a plastic table, a few chairs and a gas burner. The other has a double mattress shared by two, and two narrow, thin mattresses for the other two. But neither the living conditions nor the hothouse work deter them. They fear that if they refuse to work they'll be returned to Ketziot Prison, or worse, be deported to Eritrea. So they're willing to work for NIS 12 per hour, well under the minimum wage of NIS 19.95, and well below the sum they were promised at the prison - NIS 18 per hour, though it isn't clear who promised that or on what basis. They have friends who complained and were sent back to jail.

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"I've been in jail in Eritrea and in Israel, and would do anything not to go back," one tells Haaretz a week ago. But the thought of repatriation frightens him much more than Israeli prison does. B., 30, deserted from the Eritrean army and would be executed if he were to return. He was forced to enlist at age 21 for an unlimited period of time and served eight years, during which he barely saw his family. "The army is a form of slavery," he says.

B. was a technician. He aspired to study and advance, but the army requires complete loyalty. Every month or two it held propaganda meetings glorifying itself and the Eritrean government. At one B. dared to express an opinion deviating from the party line. He was demoted and sent to military prison for half a year. There, torture was commonplace. Sometimes he'd be left in the yard without food or water for a day, or be shut up in a small tin shed that would bake in the sun. "When they'd take me out of the shed they'd tell me to run. If I stopped I'd be beaten. I ran until I fell and would be returned to the shed."

Sometimes they tied his hands to his feet and left him like that for hours. His limbs would go numb. Other times he'd be forced to stand on his hands with his feet against a wall. When he'd fall, he'd be beaten.

He was released in 2005 and understood that if he stayed in the army, he'd die. He decided to flee. More than a year passed before he and a friend could escape the base. They marched by night and hid by day until reaching Sudan, and from there they trekked through Egypt to Israel. Why Israel? "Because I heard that Israel doesn't expel refugees in mortal danger," he said.

In early September the interior, agriculture and industry ministries arranged for the Eritreans to leave prison to work at the moshavim. "I received a call from the Vegetable Growers Association, asking if I need workers beyond the Thais I employ," says Moshe Amar, who owns Tiv Shtil. He was told that the Eritreans would not count toward his foreign workers quota, and agreed to take them. "They sent me to Ketziot Prison, and I received four Eritreans there," Amar says. He was given no directives other than to keep them separate from the Thais, for cultural reasons, he says.

Complaints to the African Refugees Development Center show that the refugees believe the moshavim were their only alternative to prison and expulsion.

The center's manager, Johannes Bayo Lama, says that one moshav in Beit She'an valley houses Eritreans in a plastic shack. They and the Thais use a communal toilet and cook on a gas burner outside. Since they were told that they'd go back to prison if they lose their jobs, most don't even question what rights they have or complain, he says. "Sometimes I'm asked about pay or terms, but they beg me not to tell that they complained," he says.

A small minority of Eritreans were fired or fled their employers and reached Tel Aviv. These were told that the only way to avoid arrest and deportation was working at another moshav. The state even offered to arrange the placement, but when they discovered that the transportation left from Maasiyahu Prison, they were afraid they'd be jailed. Attorney Tally Kritzman of Tel Aviv University's Refugee Rights Clinic says the move shows "insensitivity to the fact that these are people, some of whom were traumatized before their arrival."

Kritzman and Ora Bloom, another lawyer at the clinic, collated reports from refugees who had fled or been fired. They heard how they lived in a storage room "not fit for human habitation, unventilated, crowded, filthy and rat-infested," without toilets or a shower. Some received nothing to eat or drink on their first day, other than a piece of cake. Others had the cost of food deducted from their pay of NIS 13 per hour. Workers who complained, even about health problems, were told, "If you don't like it, you can go back to jail."

Kritzman and Bloom listed the complaints in a letter to the Tribunal for the Review of Custody of Undocumented Migrants, which operates in the prisons that house refugees, seeking to change the terms for their release. More than a month has passed since the letter was sent, but the lawyers have received no answer. They believe that the arrangement gives employers complete power over the workers, and claim that the arrangement violates a High Court ruling against the arrangement and is therefore unlawful.

The refugee organizations argue that the fate of the Sudanese refugees shows that the alternatives to incarceration invite abuse, so it isn't clear why a similar arrangement is being made for the Eritreans. Sigal Rosen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers says that before the Sudanese could be released, the Hotline and other organizations had to ensure that the detainees would be employed under proper conditions. "No such inspection was done before the Eritreans were released," she says.

Employers that the HMW disqualified from receiving Sudanese refugees because they wouldn't pay them minimum wage received Eritreans, Rosen says. Also, unlike the Sudanese, the arrangement for the Eritreans is open-ended. It is not meant to reduce the number of foreign workers in Israel, she adds: The Eritreans aren't included in the quotas. They seem to serve as a pool of workers that's even more cowed, cheap and convenient to exploit than the foreign workers, she says.

Last week, at their shack at the Tiv Shtil nursery, B. and his friends said they were satisfied. "The employer is perfectly fine with us," they said. The employer, Amar, is satisfied too. "They're good, quiet guys and I have no problem employing them," he said. About their living conditions, Amar said, "I was told to house them separately from the Thais for cultural reasons. That's why there was no electricity at the beginning."

There are eight showers and eight toilets in the Thai quarters, for 16 men. "It's like the army; there you also walk a few meters to shower. What's the problem?"

Regarding pay, Amar says the Eritreans aren't formally employed as foreign workers, but insists, "They get no less than the Thais." Attorney Yuval Livnat of Kav L'Oved says that by law, pay deductions, for example for food, must not exceed 25 percent. Clearly the Eritreans are being paid less than the law requires.

The Interior Ministry stated that it is responsible only for enabling the Eritreans to be released from jail, not for their employment terms.

The Foreign Workers Authority at the Industry and Trade Ministry stated that the arrangement came into force less than a month ago and that it is too soon to reach conclusions. It also said the farmers agreed to pay the refugees minimum wage and to provide them with housing, and that the Eritreans are employed outside the quota of foreign workers for agriculture, but were allocated only to employers with permits. The employers were not inspected before receiving Eritreans, the ministry confirmed.

"But since they employ Thai workers, they know all the rules regarding employment and wage terms," the ministry stated, adding: "The authority districts received lists of all the farmers who received Eritreans as custody alternatives, and are required to inspect their housing and employment conditions."

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