The National Police have arrested two women, responsible for a residence for the elderly in Salamanca, for an alleged crime of labor exploitation of the cleaning workers they had hired. The employees were recruited in Peru, where they were offered a work contract and residence in Spain, but by the time they arrived in the country they found a situation very different from what they had been promised.
According to sources from the Salamanca Provincial Police Station, in information collected by EuropaPress, the investigation began when the agents learned of the criminal activity carried out by a businesswoman, owner of a nursing home.
The company, which took advantage of existing agreements between Spain and Peru “under the guise of legality”, had a recruiter resident in Lima who took advantage of the arrival of women at religious congregations in the capital to offer them a job in Spain. The network paid them for the plane ticket and travel expenses to Spain, specifically to Salamanca, where it offered them “a legal and paid job in cleaning.”
Once the victims arrived in Salamanca, they were placed in a nursing home and forced to work cleaning “in conditions of semi-slavery” and to live in the residence “exercising control of their freedom of movement.”
In addition, “as a consequence of the transfer to Spain”, the victims generated “a debt”, which “was increasing as a result of the expenses generated by their accommodation and maintenance in the residence itself.”
Thus, they were forced to work “in exploitative conditions, without remuneration or with negligible remuneration” to “pay off the debt they contracted.” They worked “every day of the week and all hours of the day”, and were controlled during their rest time and subjected to “constant abuse” and “contempt”, according to the investigation.
The exploitation of the investigation took place on the morning of March 7 and the operation is still open with the intention of locating more victims, in addition the National Police does not rule out new arrests.
