The Embassy of Peru in Madrid has “urgently” asked the Peruvian authorities to investigate “the alleged exploitation and fraud” in the hiring of lifeguards in Spain.
The irregularities were denounced in a report in EL PAÍS last Sunday.
The testimonies and evidence collected reveal fraud, the issuance of false training certificates and labor exploitation.
A business with tentacles in Spain and Peru that profits from bringing young people who even know how to swim.
Much less pulling a drowned man out of the water.
"There is no type of control," reaffirmed a spokesman for the Spanish Federation of Lifeguards upon learning of the case.
The Embassy of Peru in Spain has announced in the statement, published on its social networks this Wednesday, that it has informed the Peruvian authorities of the facts denounced in the news and has "requested the urgent start of the investigations, giving an account of an alleged exploitation and fraud in the hiring of Peruvian lifeguards to work in swimming pools and beaches in Spain”.
In addition, it undertakes to undertake the pertinent legal actions in the Andean country.
Sources from the Consulate in Madrid indicate that they have also been informed of this letter.
labor exploitation
The B side of being a foreign lifeguard in Spain is discovered by themselves as the recruitment, training and hiring process progresses.
In the reported cases, the fraud involves losing savings, being exploited for work in swimming pools in neighboring communities, chaining up to a month without release -some have only rested seven days throughout the summer-, paying for documents that are false and even obtaining certificates of lifeguard courses that have never been done for 200 euros.
Some of these lifeguards don't even know how to swim or practice first aid.
In Madrid alone, lifeguard businessmen share out more than 10,000 community pools, not counting public ones.
If it is assumed that an average contract to monitor and maintain the pool is around 10,500 euros per year, the business amounts to more than 105 million euros for each season.
After this millionaire business, a group of lifeguards, between 20 and 35 years old, ―only this season more than 1,000 have arrived in Spain from the other side of the Atlantic―, have decided to tell their story after living the worst summer of their lives.
They speak on condition of anonymity.
They fear being expelled from Spain or that these companies will retaliate.
“We feel cheated and helpless.
We have lost a lot of money”, they have a transparent folder full of documents that prove the complaints.
Their testimonies, for what more victims and businessmen in the sector say, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Do you know cases of irregularities in lifeguards in Spain?
Contact the journalists
mviejo@elpais.es
or
mmartind@elpais.es
or send them a message on Twitter at
@LoloViejo
or
@MMartinD
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