Silent crimes of Spanish imperialism (I): being Colombian in Spain
We publish this unofficial translation of an article found in the Colombian website Nueva Democracia.
We share this article found in the Spanish newspaper Servir al Pueblo
Recently, the Bank of Spain published a report on the economy in Latin America: investments and potential risks, socio-political stability in the region, how the presence of Spanish banks in Latin American countries is progressing, etc. The report is called Latin American Economy Focus and it has been published every semester since 2004 (it can be consulted here ). Therefore, the interest of Spanish imperialism in the area is public and notorious.
Of the latest reports -those of 2022 and the last, of the first semester of 2023- how Spanish imperialism is reinforcing itself in some specific countries is highlighted: “The Bank of Spain identified in 2022 five Latin American economies among the economies with material relevance for the Spanish banking system: Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Colombia ”. This corresponds with some articles that we have previously published about the interest and profits of the Spanish financial oligarchy in Mexico or Brazil.
However, we have not yet discussed how Spanish imperialism operates in Colombia. Fundamentally, it is not different from other Latin American countries: Yankee imperialism, as the sole hegemonic superpower, is who mainly plunders and oppresses Colombia, with the help of the old Colombian State, the landlords and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie who serves the imperialists. Spanish imperialism, although several steps behind, also plunders and oppresses the Colombian people, just as the colonialism of the old empire did centuries ago. And in collusion and struggle with the Yankee superpower, it is always prepared, waiting for its opportunity to advance positions.
The author of this article considers that one of the most unknown aspects of Spanish imperialism -or at least, an aspect that is less public- is how imperialism affects the masses of the oppressed nations that are forced to migrate to the metropolis. The Melilla genocide is a horrible and barbaric crime, but there are many invisible, “small” crimes, invisible in the media. In this way, the Communist International digital magazine already said: “For us, the particularity of what happened on June 24 [note: when the genocide took place] , lies in the situation due to the knowledge of the audio-visual material that shows how this genocide was carried out”. For this reason, we will point out how imperialism preys more on some of the nationalities that travel to our country looking for a better life, and only find racism and savage exploitation.
Many of these invisible crimes are committed against the Colombian masses. We are not going to develop the issue deeply, but we will present some notes.
A good part of Colombians are “without papers” (in an irregular situation) and are very exploited
According to official figures from the INE (National Institute of Statistics) the number of people with Colombian nationality and with regulated residence, with “papers”, is 136,000. Actually, more than half a million Colombians reside in the entire territory of the Spanish State, a figure that we obtain by adding people with papers, dual nationality and those without papers. After these numbers, we know that the Colombian (560,000 people approx.) is the second largest immigrant community after the Moroccan community (close to one million, 980,000 people approx.)
The bourgeoisie uses those “without papers” not only to do some of the hardest physically jobs, but also to exploit them even more: get the most out of cutting back on the most basic issues that a person with legal residence could not. This is achieved through blackmail or extortion.
We want to show this with some real cases.
In Barcelona, we read a case from 2 years ago: “The Spanish Police arrested seven people in Barcelona who were part of a network dedicated to human trafficking. This is how official police sources report this Thursday (27.5.2021): The victims were recruited in Colombia and exploited for work in the domestic service sector. The network operated in the Catalan capital and used fake companies to launder their profits, which they deposited in Panama and Switzerland”
In 2023, an exploitation network was taken down in Ávila : “The Spanish Civil Guard released six Colombian workers who were suffering from labor exploitation on a farm in the province of Ávila (north), another person of Spanish nationality was in a similar situation. Next, the agents investigated an individual who allegedly took advantage of the victims, as they were all in a situation of need and vulnerability, the Civil Guard reported on Wednesday. The victims had “very deficient” equipment. In addition, the Colombian workers did not have a work contract, they were not affiliated with Social Security. Which allows them, among other things, to have a doctor, or a work and/or residence permit.”
Just a month ago, we read this short press release in the city of Elche (Alicante): “The man, 48 years old and of Colombian nationality, said that, together with the injured person, they were trying to unload a sack of about 1,000 kg of grain from a van when the sack flipped during the maneuver, also causing the pallet truck they were using to flip, which fell down on the leg of the injured person (… ) the injured person was not registered in social security and was also in a state of irregularity in Spain ”
RTVE (Radio-Televisión Española), the national channel, broadcast a short documentary interviewing a Colombian woman who talked about how the Immigration Law affected migrants:
“Constanza, a 36-year-old Colombian, is one of the many victims who has suffered it. She arrived in Spain 4 years ago without any kind of documentation. She started cleaning in a private house with the promise that the employers would help her regularize her stay through a work contract. When she had been residing in Spain for 3 years, the time required by the Foreigner Law to obtain social roots, they would help her to get her papers. ‘There I realized that they were exploiting me’. After 3 years, the owners of the house did not want to formalize her situation.
Instead, they did require her to go clean at home in full confinement. They came to make her a work receipt so that she could move around the city. «That’s when I realized that they didn’t care if I caught covid, or if anything happened to me… they just wanted me to clean. There I realized that they were exploiting me,” says Constanza. Constanza ended up denouncing her employers. The labor inspection fined them 10,000 euros and she managed to regularize her situation. Now, Constanza hopes that her experience will serve as an example ”
The story ends with a message of hope in the system and the welfare state, the message of “speak out, and trust the system, that’s how it will be fixed.” It is logical that, as it is the national channel of the Spanish State, it broadcasts this demobilizing message. But the underlying basis proves the situation of exploitation that thousands of masses experience daily.
Labor exploitation and racism go hand in hand in the vast majority of cases. In 2019, they reported a forced labor network in Galicia of some 60 Latin American workers , mainly from Colombia, Honduras and Nicaragua. The work consisted of housework caring for elderly people. We read the testimony in the short press note:
“In the case there are located, until now, about 60 victims of labor exploitation, although only about 40 have made declarations. Some of them were working in terrible conditions for three years, others only a few months, but all of them were being payed in irregular situation and lying to their families about their situation in Spain, by order of the owner of the company, Montserrat L. G (…) If they wanted to have one day off, Montserrat LG deducted 100 euros. It was easy for her to get these migrant women to agree to do this work, since most of them did not have a home or the resources to pay rent (…) The manager and owner of Asistencia Castroverde SL used to hire the migrants by phone. She even gave them instructions on WhatsApp: ‘Do not say that you have just arrived’, it is stated in a message contributed to the summary. ‘If at home they ask you for the documentation, tell them that you have given it to me’, it appears in another (… ) She referred to the female workers as ‘blacks.’ In the summary it appears that Montserrat LG referred to the irregular workers as ‘blacks’. In several conversations with her mother, the suspect uses that expression”. [Note: If there is a Servir al Pueblo reader who does not reside in the Spanish State and is not used to Spanish phrases or sayings, the word “black” in this context is neither descriptive nor innocent. It is used as a direct and offensive insult]
We think that these examples are enough.
Prostitution: the most common profile of a sex slave is a Colombian woman between the ages of 23 and 27
Prostitution is a crime against the proletarian woman, a savage and patriarchal practice. It is common in imperialist countries that most of the prostituted women come from oppressed nations.
The Spanish State admitted in a report with the title “Trafficking and exploitation of humans in Spain. Statistical balance 2018-2022 ” that Colombian women between 23 and 27 years old was the most common profile of freed sex slaves. We can read more in detail:
“They have released a total of 1,180 victims of sex or labor trafficking in the country in 2022, of which almost half (564) are victims of sexual exploitation. The profile of the latter, as reported by the Ministry of the Interior, is that of a Colombian woman between the ages of 23 and 27 (…) last year, 129 victims of human trafficking networks were released for sexual exploitation, four of them minors, to which must be added another 435 people (among them, there are ten minors) who have been released without the concurrence of human trafficking networks. In both cases, the majority profile is a Colombian woman between the ages of 23 and 27 ”
Sadly there are many cases where we see this. The most common is forcing women into prostitution to achieve the payment of a supposed debt that they contract to emigrate to Spain. The case of Seville is a good example:
“According to the information from the authorities, the criminal network operated in apartments in the capital Seville, Utrera and Alcalá de Guadaira where, allegedly, they offered to the clients the sexual services of women recruited in their country of origin and transferred to Spain as tourists to exercise prostitution (…) The investigation began on May of this year, when the agents learned of an organization dedicated to recruiting women in their country of origin, picking them up at their destination and bringing them to safe places where they were prostituted, so that they would pay the organization the debt they had with them. The trip was approximately 8,000 euros each. In addition, drug use was encouraged to the victims themselves to increase the time of exposure to sexual services and keep women more active (…) At the same time, the victims, as found by the authorities, lived under very poor sanitation conditions, with up to 12 people living in the same room, since the organization made sure to charge the victims for their accommodation and maintenance.”
Also in Alicante :
“The Spanish Police released 21 women of Colombian nationality and arrested nine people, after dismantling a gang dedicated to human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, which recruited its victims in the Latin American country promising work, but forced them to prostitution at the arrival in Spain (…) The woman stated that she was recruited in her country of origin under the false promise that she was going to work in Spain as a kitchen helper and, due to her precarious economic situation, she accepted the offer, but at her arrival she was forced to work as a prostitute, pay off the debt she had acquired for the trip, which had increased based on alleged interest and other expenses. She also told the agents the conditions in which she had to practice prostitution, “in a regime of semi-slavery”, according to the sources, since she had to be available to clients in 24-hour shifts, 7 days a week and she was not free to go out on the street”
Another story from Barcelona :
“Every night, before going to bed, Lara rubbed her skin furiously under the shower crying a lot. During the day she lived locked up in an apartment in Barcelona forced to prostitute herself for more than 15 hours straight. ‘I wanted to rip my skin off, as if I had been wearing sweaty and stinky clothes all day,’ this Peruvian explains that she arrived in Spain deceived and in debt. Like her, in Spain more than 45,000 women and girls are sex slaves. Those that manage to get out of ordeal find incapable administrations and end up in the most extreme poverty. ‘Everything goes through your head, you consider going back, you consider hurting yourself, hurting yourself a lot, killing yourself…’, Veruska, another survivor, is honest. Today, the two women participate in a project of the Well-being and Development Association (ABD) that tries to find a job opportunity for them. ‘We arrive to late, not enough are detected, and the women are not accompanied’, denounces Mireia Munter, coordinator of international projects of the entity.
Veruska and Lara are not called Veruska or Lara. They use these pseudonyms to tell their stories in El Periódico, for fear that their exploiters will find them again or that their closest relatives might recognize them in experiences that no human being would bear. ‘I would define it as horror,’ says Veruska. ‘You don’t recognize yourself, you stop knowing who you are… and you think that it’s all your fault,’ Lara assumes. She blames herself for wanting to migrate to Europe to find a life where you can make ends meet and not fear that they will point a gun at you. Veruska was born in Colombia. Her teenage son and her parents still reside there. She worked as a waitress and was harassed daily by her partner, who came to kidnap her, lock her up and break the windows of her parents’ house on several occasions and he was untouchable by the police. ‘I always dreamed of going to Spain or the United States, but the trigger was when I experienced this mistreatment: I knew that if I stayed in Colombia he would look for me and kill me,’ she says. Lara worked as a shop assistant in Peru and decided to migrate when she was unable to pay for medication for her father’s chronic illnesses. ‘I needed money and they told me that in Spain you earned much more,’ she recalls.
Expel imperialism to the trash bin of history
We have only recounted the most bloody cases and those that go against the own laws of the Spanish imperialist State. But outside of them, there are tens of thousands of stories, “common” and everyday stories of exploitation under the wage labor regime. Construction, agriculture or care and domestic service are some of the sectors where the majority of the Colombian masses work. Their working and living conditions will not substantially improve with any reform or measure carried out by the State, as it would go against their own interests. In Colombia, the situation is not favorable at all:
“As the poorest spend almost all their income on these basic products (for example, they spend 24%), the cost of the daily living for the vast majority by more than 13%. The outlook is serious, and it is corroborated by contrasting these increases with the minimum wage, that despite the propaganda of the previous shift government, the reactionary Iván Duque, who announced a ‘historic increase’ last year, this has been decreasing its real capacity of purchasing power: according to DANE figures, from July 2019 to July 2022 (3 years) food inflation was 43%, while the minimum wage in the same period raised by 25%. In other words, workers increasingly have to leave a greater part of their salary for food, directly denying the possibilities of access to other rights such as recreation and culture, and putting the possibility of subsistence itself at risk by taking into account basic costs such as rent, services or transport. Added to this is the circumstance that 30% of workers earn less than the minimum wage, completing the outlook of poverty and misery in the nation, with 39.3% of monetary poverty (according to official State figures). ‘The poor are getting poorer’ is not a simple saying, it is a fact that hits working people, it is a reality that is felt in all corners of the country and that makes hunger knock on the door of more homes.” ( Inflation and hunger in Colombia , from the newspaper “Nueva Democracia”)
The Spanish proletariat must unite with the Colombian masses (and logically with all migrant communities, but due to the content of this article, we emphasize the Colombian community). We, revolutionaries must fight against all kinds of chauvinism and racism that revisionism and the State want to introduce in the proletariat to separate us. Masses are masses, and people are people. The proletariat is a sole international class, beyond all kinds of borders, and as a sole class it must fight side by side under the message of struggle of the Manifesto of the Communist Party: Proletarians of all countries, unite!
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