One of the things I have noticed since my childhood here is the increased movement towards open ’employment’ (the term used losely) of exploited migrant workers in the harvest. It has always existed here, of course – hop-picking back in the day certainly wasn’t all jolly Darling-Buds-of-May happy holidays for city workers, and a lot of work (as in many rural areas) has always been done by migrant workers such as Romani and other travellers and walking people (witness, for example, the Hartlake Disaster, whose familiar worn monument has been renewed while I’ve been away).
I’ve been seeking work, and of course I’ve run across the great many ads for harvesters at this time of year. I’m not able to do the work myself due to physical impairments, but I know a lot of people who’ve done it in the past, mostly students on their holidays, usually for shitty wages in bad conditions. And of course a lot of the workers are now from central and eastern Europe, a population who make up a lot of the trafficked and exploited portion of the UK workforce. The agricultural sector’s always been an area rife with exploitation throughout the country, and sadly Kent is no exception. People have been generally a bit more aware of the issue since the awful Morecombe Bay tragedy of a few years ago, but it’s still a massive problem.
Even as little as 10 years ago, when you stopped at one of the side-of-the-road stalls to buy cherries or plums or apples, it would be local people (usually, as I say, students) manning them; now the accents give away that there’s very possibly even shittier employment practises going on. This article is three years old, but I would be very surprised to find that things have changed much.
And some workers are actively enslaved, despite beliefs that this doesn’t happen in the present day, and “certainly not in England” – this government give ways to spot the signs of enslaved workers and give a helpline number for reporting if you’re suspicious that trafficked labour is being used in your area. And as shown by the article linked, not all exploited workers are trafficked or enslaved (for example, working in awful conditions and being illegally dismissed for union activity). There’s a big focus on trafficking in the sex industry, but please be aware that the agricultural industry is also a major nexus of trafficking, and keep your eyes open if you’re rural! (The construction industry is another area.) Please help make other people aware of these inhuman, inhumane practises, and if you are able, actively work against it!
[1] At the very least, please join this online campaign calling on the UK government to provide victim protection for *all* victims of modern-day slavery, regardless of immigration status.
And still he counts, with stooping head,
The spirits of the living dead–
A soul or two in every field,
And in the furrowed, crimson weald
(The Watcher, Mary Webb)
[1] In doing so, please do research to make sure that you are not supporting organisations who work to stigmatise and criminalise consenting sex workers and other marginalised people, as some campaigns do.
weald and wold 
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