A group of strawberry pickers from Bangladesh has won a case against Greece at Europe’s highest human rights court, after being shot at by employers for demanding unpaid wages.
The Council of Europe’s Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday in favour of 42 Bangladeshi nationals, and ordered the Greek state to pay them damages (16,000 euros per person) for having “failed in its obligations to prevent the situation of human trafficking, to protect the victims.”
The 2013 incident occurred near the southern Greek town of Manolada, 260-km west of Athens, when more than 20 migrant strawberry pickers were shot and wounded by foremen wielding shotguns after demanding delayed pay. The ruling made reference to “forced labour” on the part of the plantation owner.
The European case was launched after a Greek court convicted two of the shooting suspects but they were released pending their appeal.