org. it is all happening coach of british african. nor link to news from africa and the world. your link to exception stories and discussions anyone will come to deduce african programming life from born in germany from the news of these eaves and while website deputed constantia africa to join us on facebook at d w africa. or. i'm a southern prefer e of europe men and women are the so-called mules of a lucrative trade the loads they haul across the border are regarded as hand luggage and exempt from duty providing a business opportunity for unscrupulous traders and smugglers. who sit at the head

of a whole of course it's tiring effort but you just have to keep going because you have your family to feed and it has and some of them a fourteen or fifteen years old but i would never let my children do that. for sixteen years now nor at a cuckoo who has been toiling away as a party a daughter or female porter. and if my name is nora and i'm forty three years old i live in rented accommodation in value. i have six children and i am a widow cuts of life as a smuggler. it's tough and things are getting increasingly difficult at the border

so the whole burden rests on my shoulders when my husband was alive he paid half the rent he took the children to school and looked after us now i have to see to everything housekeeping the cooking the kids' homework i'm responsible for everything last night i made a joke i told my children i was going to leave them they burst into tears what am i going to do it's a fight for survival. a spanish semi enclave on the mediterranean coast of north africa and has become famous in recent years through images of people scaling fences to enter but there are other reasons why this place is so singular economically malea lives from tax concessions and border traffic the proximity to morocco and that's to the african continent opens up a coveted market. after

cattle twenty is a trade unionist and malea and of moroccan descent. he documents the exploitation of the disadvantaged and underprivileged people on the border including the mule women. when the preserving the road in the ownership the water i saw these women for the first time when i was seven or eight because we lived quite near the border and it was perfectly normal to see them working between milly's and morocco and it's a form of survival because there are no jobs neither in malaya nor in morocco the only way to ensure a daily income is to join the smuggling business and carry the packages that are. there all the time the porters are the final link in the smuggling chain in malaya . to the smugglers earn millions of euros on the. border on the other side there is the government which profits from

the local it's sea level and other taxes a lot of profit is being made but it's not being distributed fairly the women on whose shoulders the heaviest burden rests on the least. middle. hollow mom it can we get together later and deliver food to some of the women i've arranged to meet. would four or five packets be ok. thanks a seal later. it's early morning at the body of chino border crossing a normal days it's open for three hours during which up to three thousand moroccans cross over to collect their loads for transport on this particular day the border is closed to goods traffic no reason has been given nor

a kook who is one of the few portier daughters to be let through abdul qadir a fundie is already expecting her. catherine i. got older i get up at three in the morning wash pray wake the children and prepare their school sandwiches and thermos flask so i lock the door and go and wait in the first queue if i know any of the police officers they let me through a year as a danish turns away a marathon the richness of our marriage when i arrive in militia i have to wait in a queue with the women normally we each carry one veil but if the guardians of view are nice i'm allowed to carry two one on my back and the other on a skateboard we are paid on delivery provided nothing was stolen and everything is intact then i get twenty euros. romani yen works for the guardia severe police and border patrol force and melia.

here at the interface between africa and europe the fences are getting higher and higher but they cannot stop the informal trade from manned un monitors the goods traffic on the border between spain and morocco. on his daily patrols he comes into contact with his moroccan colleagues everything ok saw that as the almost we're now at the end of the border. device lab idea the border is marked by various sections i'm by white signs with the designation a one goals for america all three automakers that border the fences eight meters high in all there are three fences all made of fine mesh special wire by tomorrow

not in lab order to me that there are no jobs in morocco or any chance of social advancement the health care and education systems are both very expensive so these women come here to try and build a life. that. is part of spain that doesn't belong to the european customs union the duty free transport of goods is actually illegal but it is tolerated as long as only hand luggage is involved irrespective of the weight really. doesn't belong to the european customs union there is no value added tax here just the local. i couldn't emotionally and autonomous municipal tax which is lower than the tax rate in spain. and the spaniard. for centuries malea was a spanish colony on african soil after morocco gained independence o'leary maine

spanish but even today the enclave is not recognized by the kingdom of morocco. so the question is how much longer will smuggling three million be tolerated experts estimate the duty free trade to be worth three hundred million years a year a large proportion of which flows straight into municipal coffers. on the sea front however there is little sign of the important trade being conducted on the border. not hunted up to their imports old clothes from europe and asia. he's a traitor who like his father and. and father before him runs one of the warehouses today its doors remain shut mohamed is furious he reckons he could lose a lot of money if program are removed. the problem is that they've closed the border it's an international border and nobody knows why it has been closed we want

the government to give us a reason. for giving me a year or. so i go. to good for not a moment of murder surely there are large profits to be made and the autonomous municipality of malea also earns from the trade we do well from the business of course that's normal but the government earns three times more from it than we do. he stores the goods of various traders in his warehouse financed with a loan from the municipality. actually a one for thirty or zero there are bales here full of secondhand clothes destined for the third world. but. this is all clothing shoes skirts trousers.

clothing more clothing socks trousers. well there are some bad balls shoes perhaps and more clothing service is bedding my blankets. even more clothing. what you see here is worth between one hundred fifty and two hundred thousand euros. there are no checks at the border to see if the bells contain any additional hidden items. who exactly makes money out of smuggled second hand goods nobody wants and how can this kind of exploitation with duty free hand luggage on european soil be justified abdel malique al back hani is spain's first muslim prefect he sees both sides to the mill women issue a practice which he tolerated but doesn't approve of. what you can to support the work of the porter goss has many effects. of his in one i find it inhuman but it's

always hard and sometimes the cause of many problems especially health related bodies probably most probably most dissolute i personally do not like that i mean it is not good for them or for us all for the rest of the world to me but i used. a little. but i am morocco is trying to lower the tax on imported goods to make them cheaper but if that happens one day goods will then be supplied straight to morocco at the victim and will not come in via. me but until that day arrives melia will continue to play an important role for the entire north african hinterland of north america. the bottleneck which separates spain from iraq is only a few hundred meters long the fact that the border is closed will have dire consequences especially for the mule women their hard work provides women like nora

with a fluctuating income of around three hundred euros a month. to me now we carry a lot across the border and when it's crowded and you are stuck you can't put your nose down they tell you you've just got to wait but then i get these pains which can last for up to three. weeks the corps digs into your skin and leaves skulls. if it's simply too late i pray that god will take care of my children i've been suffering for as long as i can remember i was already working at the age of ten i worked for my parents and my grandmother i'm used to suffering i've worked ever since i was little if only i had a small house then everything wouldn't be so hard to take death quite a shock. the rent is

killing me. org. the burial cino border crossing point it's seven am there's every indication that today the border will be opened and the transport of goods will continue people are flocking here from all over. the middle men are also gathering at the border. crossing over the government to do and i've been here since yesterday afternoon i slept here and now i'm waiting to deliver my goods if the goods alight i give them to the women and they tie them to their bunks and if

the white is more than sixty kilograms we give the goods to the men. in this city at least. not a l cook who has been waiting in line for two hours now she makes a dash for it if she can get a bill quickly. she'll be able to do several trips the packages the women carry off and do way more than sixty kilos today more and more men are also earning a living by transporting goods the competition is tough. both after car there are fun she and roman yen are watching events each from his own perspective. of course it is not my personal responsibility to safeguard the health of the people here but it is the responsibility of the guardia civil there it is about the people from the men and the women we have to ensure that they stay physically sound you know syria

africa. you know so many young the men have to form one line the women another the women are allowed through first and then the men from. the you where you from. the. market i thought it. up to canberra is looking for nora she's not easy to find amidst all the commotion. and. finally he spotter. it's like a war zone. you've just got to stick at it. we will know that women these women are at great risk getting in they never went to school so most are illiterate seen somebody going to some reaction and they don't

know how they should behave so they are the ones who need help most in the soup was from looking men to the necessity them. to. the carriers use special skate board so they can push their packages at him. you know what the idea came from a colleague in the guardia civil who wanted to help people in particular women to transport the heavy gales because this was handmade. you can see it's wood this wheel comes from a roller skate. the skate board helps to roll the bales uphill up or that it will be. the. distribution of the bells which can weigh as much as a washing machine gets underway nor is one of the first to collect a load. that we wait here for the bloodiest civilly who allocate has if we're lucky

the women go first and then the men of the trail because at that. nora is out of luck the men are the first to be let through the transport process is divided up into several stages time and again it's a case of rolling pushing waiting and then returning to the friends and family life . look the men always come first you. want to turn around how long have you been doing this. than you're the little you did in. your face in your face i knew also she worked for six years on the main board appointed by an e.s.r. and then hear. on the news about her mother to how long have you been working in body or chino plus another year and a half of the girl that just did yeah that really we have here are who goes oh yeah

she's been earning a living here with dignity for ten years been i mean behavior by you. now it's the women's turn they are driven like mules and have to wait repeatedly many hide their faces. they're ashamed to be seen doing this kind of work. and it was kind of this isn't work it's war it's killing us. and it can. be endless waiting delays transportation and heats up the general mood but the carriers seem remarkably patient. when the fire is. no such thing as a moment. mohammad's a trader is at the border to check that his goods really do make it across as duty free hand luggage with the port we have three who are crossing points this is an

international border that has been closed and the official explanation is that there is a technical problem of your program occur you. don't already know the person these women have to earn money to buy food so if they are prevented from doing this work they will suffer a lot of the they already are suffering the you know why they carry so much it wants them away because they're only allowed to cross the border once the sentiment if they could cross it several times they'd only carry small packages weighing five kilos but the spanish authorities won't allow that for the reader. today the human mules are in luck they are allowed to cross the border several times with goods. from the f.a.a. and another tricked out again and try to get to bear arms in. an effort to the fun of the knitting isn't it. that they're.

getting this round of trips will be the last of the day the atmosphere is getting heated nobody wants to be stuck with their goods so everybody. tries to dodge that you. hand. the problem of because the problem with informal trading is that there are too many diverging interests. a solution and not a law simple as the smugglers say the border isn't open long enough. that's when the government says the border isn't there just for smuggling in trade . and just because you know. i think morocco and spain

need to get together and talk about what they have to find a solution otherwise nothing will change but up on i don't know what was your message to them a newcomer. it's not all of us who got you. it's a question of assessors of course it is also a form of exploitation but nobody forces the men all the women to do the work i really thought i said that i was. nor i has no choice if she has to feed her children she has to haul and heave up to three hundred kilograms of goods over the border every day no matter how much her backers. care kyra if the work hasn't been too tough you get her meant eleven in a good mood but the thirty euros i have earned i go shopping pay off some of my

debts and make the children something to eat. so i'm glad just to be back at home again who say that as a fact they had. nora always carries a photograph of her deceased husband and their children with her i mean i was working for a woman just after i had given birth she wanted to find me a job in the strawberry fields it looks like he is still alive. frankly i do my best and i have to be strong otherwise my children will suffer even if i've had a hard day i'd tell them i'm fine i lied to them as their way to. save up be to god helps everyone provided you do everything right life for me is tough i

just have to make the best of it. and fundie is already on the move again he's come to this mosque to meet someone. who says on. the other local movie that little bit there is a fund financed by the countries of the european union the food industry donates pastor and milk the region is in desperate need as we have seen the crisis in spain has plunged many people into poverty we took a liking to see kirby going to. this food bank was created to help them.

develop a sauna. as often as he can he delivers the food to women at the meeting point emelia. is far more the gateway to africa than to europe. but then another here the working conditions alone are totally different from those in europe we have lots of problems to cope with migration street children poverty social. and the plight of young people we have the lowest standard of education in europe and at the same time the highest unemployment figures are either there where the politicians are doing nothing to improve the situation all they are interested in is obtaining more aid so they can fill their pockets and do that but out of our.

somewhat equal hello how are you right come with me then what about the toll woman where is she. there was it what is it. there they wouldn't let her across the border. that's fate you're right. there you are abduct her dad distributes packages of food to the mule women many of them are dependent on the donations. i feel bad because many have waited in vain i don't have enough food. how do you think i feel. let's hope we can work again on monday. if remains to be seen whether the border will be opened again on monday what is

certain is that at five o'clock tomorrow morning nor al kooper will again be standing by the fence and enter the inhuman working conditions on europe's outer borders nowhere in sight a brutal form of exploitation in europe but for nora it is her livelihood. duramax highlights of the. extraordinary russian artist conjures images of paper. extravagant a visit to milan and the world's most important furniture and design.

extra to discover madrid in twenty four hours. during. those long way to serve their needs just hide your identity in. bangladesh what the true face of the country looks like in a difficult get in the ocean love that should be. pretty. not. very good to the dawn of islam as a forty five minute. fake hair and real story. where i come from a lot of women like me have fake hair sometimes a hairstyle takes up to two days it's a lot of time that needs to be filled so people at the salon talk about what's

happening in their lives. i became a journalist to be a storyteller and i always want to find those real authentic stories from everyday people who have something to share. with all the time i spend at the salon i know i'm good quality care when i see ads and then good story when i hear it's my name is elizabeth show and i work at steve belin. hello and welcome to our high life edition with the best of pics of the week here is what we have got lined up for you today. first of all color time design.