Dataharvest 2023 - the European Investgative Journalism Conference

Slavery has been abolished in Europe, but the race for food at low prices often leads to slavery-like working conditions in our food production sector. The tomatoes in our pasta and the olives in our cocktails hide the stories of hard work. Many other sectors of our food production rely on cheap or extremely cheap labour, leading to the exploitation that often goes hand in hand with human suffering. From pig farms to fields and greenhouses across Europe, people in search for job opportunities find themselves being exploited, treated like prisoners or even slaves, unprotected by European governments. Workers come from Europe and beyond and include particularly vulnerable groups like refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere. In this session, journalists will tell us how they investigated the modern slavery across Europe, and what they have found.