‘Why are you doing this to me?’: how one woman survived two years of slavery on a Spanish farm

Fatima was housed in a shack without heating, with night-time temperatures that fell below freezing. Photograph: Hanna Jarzabek/The Guardian

At the farm in the northwestern Spanish region of Castile and León, a typical day for Fatima* would start at 2am and then stretch late into the night as she carried out tasks that ranged from planting vegetables to herding sheep and cleaning the chicken coop.

After she arrived at the farm, her to-do list gradually lengthened until she was working up to 19 hours a day, seven days a week.