Argentina

Committee: Organization of American States
Topic: Migrant Workers
Country: Argentina
Delegate: Chelsea Pottle, BRHS

Argentina for most of their history has been characterized as a country of immigration. After gaining independence from Spain in the early 19th century, Argentina adopted an open immigration policy and encouraged immigrants to accept the country as their own. At the end of the 1880’s, government subsidized boat passages and the country received over 7 million immigrants mostly from Spain and Italy. In the early developing years of the government, the government passed laws encouraging immigration of foreigners who would be willing to come and work the land and develop an agricultural industry in the country. In 1824 the Commission of Immigration began to function, advertising abroad in order to attract European immigrants to create new agriculture communities in the vast open lands outside the great Buenos Aires.
Argentina has an estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants, and the debate over what to do about the illegal immigrants is very similar to Americans. With a 2,500-mile western border which has 795 crossing points, Argentina cannot stop illegal immigrants, and that Argentineans do not want to do certain types of jobs. Bolivians have long been Argentina’s migrant workers, cutting sugar cane and picking oranges in northern provinces, and working their way to vineyards in the wine country and potato farms near Buenos Aires. This disrupts Argentina’s economy and standard of living.
Most immigrants in Argentina work in sweatshops or textile shops. A normal day in the shops are from 7 a.m to midnight. After women work these long hours in horrible conditions, they sometimes do not get paid. It sometimes adds up so that they owe women for 2 or 3 years of work. It is not only the working conditions, but the food is also awful. Immigrants would receive two meals a day. For breakfast a cup of tea with a piece of bread and lunch consisting of a portion of rice, potato, and an egg. They also had to share their two meals with their kids, because kids did not have right to food because they are not workers. Because they did not have any legal documents or know their rights, the migrant workers had to remain silent and deal with the working conditions.