Geesje van Haren

ROME – Europe’s asylum centres are intended as safe havens for vulnerable, unaccompanied minors susceptible to trafficking and abuse. However, evidence suggests that these centres may instead become sites of exploitation, with people profiting from the very children they are supposed to be protecting.

MURANGO - Kenya, the largest exporter of avocados in Africa and the sixth largest in the world, has seen extensive deforestation as vast tracts of land are converted to avocado farms, and this is just one of the environmental and social costs of Europe's avocado obsession.

NAIVASHA - Many of the beautiful bouquets sold across European markets have a devastating environmental and human cost. In Kenya, a supplier of 40% of the European cut flower market, the floriculture industry faces accusations of having a calamitous effect on water sources, of chemical use leading to disease, and of widespread abuses of farm workers, 70% of whom are women. 

CAMPOBELLO DI MAZARA –  Bearing the brunt of deadly heat waves and extreme weather, migrant farm workers in Italy and Spain are on the frontline of Europe’s climate emergency. While the media has focused on the impact of rising temperatures on European citizens, hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers in Italy and Spain toil away in 45°C temperatures picking olives, harvesting tomatoes, planting seeds, and irrigating crops. 

KOSOVO – A well-organised trafficking network in Kosovo has prompted a large number of minors to leave for Italy. Thanks to the Zampa law, introduced in 2017, they can obtain licences to study or work if they register with the Italian immigration services. The law was intended to reduce the number of missing unaccompanied migrant children, but it is facilitating human smuggling. "It's a business worth 100,000 euros a month, but no one seems to care," says the prosecutor in Trieste.