via Slave labour at Grace’s farm, workers 12/01/2015
THERE is massive labour exploitation at Grace Mugabe’s Mazowe farm where women are being paid US$3 per day for picking and packing large quantities of potatoes, workers have said.
Investigations have revealed that women are being given a target to pick and grade the potatoes which are then loaded into trucks for the market.
“We are given a target in the morning which we should achieve failure of which one may not get the $3 day wage,” said a woman who stays in Glenadel, about 20km away from Mazowe.
“What is worrying is that we pay $2 bus fare to and from work every day.”
“Others who have homes close by are doing well because they do not have transport costs,” the woman said.
Grace has been harvesting large tracks of potatoes at her farm along the Bindura road in Mazowe since November.
She has been hiring only women to pick and pack the potatoes being dug out by a tractor.
“It appears an easy job when you hear from the words pick and pack but you can imagine what it means to end the day having picked and packed close to a tone of potatoes,” the woman said.
“First we just pick them from the field and put them in one place then when all potatoes are heaped on that place then we start grading them and packaging,” she said.
“By the end of the day you will be so tired with a painful back and you get a mere $3 after all that hard labour.”
When the NewZimbabwe.com crew visited the farm women were busy with sacks tied to their backs as they picked the potatoes.
Efforts to get a comment from the farm manager only identified as Mr Nhari were fruitless as his mobile phone was not being answered.
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