The Quiet Struggle of Vietnamese Berry Pickers in Norway

The story of Nam, a Vietnamese seasonal berry picker in Norway, paints a bitter picture of a reality that unfortunately affects many foreign workers across Europe: contracts altered upon arrival, exhausting working hours without overtime pay, substandard accommodations, and costs from travel entirely borne by the workers themselves. 

Stories like Nam’s confirm the findings of recent investigations conducted by NGOs and international analysts. 

In 2025, Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, documented cases in which dozens of workers were living in unfit housing; the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority found violations of housing standards in one out of every five agricultural inspections. EU- and UN-affiliated bodies have also reported exorbitant recruitment systems that would push migrant workers into debt and illicit trafficking schemes that would trap workers in cycles of dependency. [1]

An analysis of Nam’s testimony reveals a systemic problem within seasonal work permit schemes: legal protections exist on paper, while effective worker protection remains inadequate in practice. 

Without targeted reforms—from greater worker autonomy and the ability to influence employer decisions to stricter housing oversight and criminal accountability for intermediaries—the model is unlikely to change, and exploitation will continue to remain largely detrimental yet invisible.

But let the workers speak for themselves.

From Promised Opportunity to Dependence

When Nam arrived in Åsgårdstrand, Norway, he remembered that “the sky was grey and depressing.” Selected from many migrants, he had left Việt Nam with a seasonal work visa and a contract already approved by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) to work for six months harvesting strawberries. 

Yet the Norway he encountered that spring bore little resemblance to the model of legality he had imagined. As soon as he stepped off the bus that had brought him from the capital to the farm, Nam immediately noticed the amount of other workers from Việt Nam, Africa, and Ukraine. “Ten of us were staying in one room. I was sharing it with other Vietnamese workers.” 

After only a few days, he was presented with a new contract: stricter conditions, a base wage of approximately 110 kroner ($11) per hour, and a poorly explained piece-rate payment system.

Nam quickly understood what that meant. During the peak harvesting season, he says his shifts lasted between ten and twelve hours a day, seven days a week, without any overtime compensation. “Every day we picked hundreds of kilograms of strawberries,” he recalls, “but even if we finished early, we were not sent home. The manager decided when we stopped.” 

In practice, his working time no longer belonged to him; it belonged to production. And the money was never enough. 

“They paid us 100 kroner for a five-kilogram crate,” Nam explains, “but at the end of the month, those few hundred kroner barely covered anything. I had to pay for the flight, the daily buses, and the rent. It was impossible to save.” 

Much of his salary, already reduced by taxes and debts incurred in Việt Nam to finance the journey, went toward repaying a substantial migration debt: thousands of euros paid upfront to alleged Vietnamese intermediaries.

His situation was far from unique. In 2025, Aftenposten published the investigative series “Landbrukets skyggeside” (“The Dark Side of Agriculture”), confirming and expanding upon many of these migrant experiences. 

One investigation described an abandoned nursery in Svelvik, southeastern Norway, where 17 Vietnamese berry pickers were sleeping in dilapidated caravans surrounded by filth and rubbish. The Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority deemed the accommodation “a serious threat to life and health.”

At another farm in Vestfold, 14 workers shared a windowless room with unsafe electrical wiring while paying approximately 2,500 kroner per month each for accommodations. According to Aftenposten, “poor housing conditions for seasonal workers remain common,” particularly in agriculture.

Further evidence comes from the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet). During inspections conducted in 2023–2024, serious violations of housing regulations were identified in one out of every five cases where seasonal workers’ accommodation was inspected. The agency noted that these violations primarily occurred in agriculture and fisheries, where foreign labor is heavily concentrated.

In other words, the system itself creates illegal conditions. While Norway maintains strict regulations on worker accommodations, requiring adequate sanitary facilities, sufficient living space, and proper housing standards, conditions on many farms remain overcrowded and unhealthy. At the same time, residence permits tie workers to the single employer who sponsored their visa.

A System Built on Employer Control

This gap between written legal protections and lived reality is also evident in the seasonal permit system itself. Officially, permits are granted only to workers holding contracts with a specific employer. In theory, the system is intended to prevent immigration abuse. In practice, however, it creates almost total dependence on the employer.

As a 2025 UN report concerning a Vietnamese worker in Norway observed, “the employer exercised near-total control, including over the worker’s documents and finances.” Workers arrive already vulnerable, burdened by debt and family obligations, and the visa system then binds them to the employer who facilitated their entry. Changing jobs, reporting abuse, or even returning home without permission can become nearly impossible.

Nam’s case does not involve allegations of international human trafficking, yet it follows a similar pattern. Invisible intermediaries act as brokers between employers and workers, collecting commissions and managing contracts, while authorities see only the formal visa documentation.

This dynamic is precisely what Landbrukets skyggeside has documented. The investigation describes how the Norwegian system has developed “mechanisms almost identical” to those previously identified among Thai berry pickers in Sweden and Finland: official permits that provide a veneer of legality, intermediaries who confiscate documents and wages, and quality certification systems that conceal exploitative realities.

Industry representatives also reportedly acknowledged that Vietnamese workers tend to protest more quickly because they recognize injustices sooner, whereas Thai workers often tolerate abuses longer due to deeper financial and social dependencies. In effect, the Nordic model leaves the most vulnerable workers outside meaningful legal protection, exploiting their indebtedness and isolation.

The result is that abuses are rarely made known to the criminal justice system. For the cases that are made known, Norwegian authorities have generally issued fines and administrative sanctions rather than pursuing criminal prosecutions; investigations into labor exploitation thus seldom progress beyond regulatory enforcement.

The UN highlighted an emblematic case. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, a Vietnamese worker who arrived in Norway in 2019 later became involved in a cannabis cultivation operation. 

Despite multiple indicators that the Vietnamese worker had been trafficked, including migration debt, breached contracts, and delayed wages, Norwegian authorities imprisoned him for drug-related offenses and initiated deportation proceedings before fully investigating the potential trafficking claims by Norwegian and also international authorities, such as Interpol and Europol.

In a report published on September 23, 2025, the Special Rapporteur emphasized that “the State has an obligation to uphold the principle of non-punishment for victims of trafficking.” According to the report, that principle was not adequately respected: “It is not for the victim to secure a review of their criminal conviction; rather, it is the State’s responsibility to ensure that victims are not punished.”

The report also criticized Norwegian authorities’ handling of the case. The worker had already been identified as a possible trafficking victim, yet “Norway may have failed to conduct effective investigations into the trafficking allegations, thereby allowing impunity.”

Without formal recognition of trafficking, the case remained classified as an ordinary criminal offense, effectively disappearing from international human rights monitoring frameworks.

Institutionally, the response appears insufficient. Arbeidstilsynet has documented several other violations, issuing more than 30 administrative orders and fines since 2019 against farms housing seasonal workers. Yet these sanctions generally result only in corrective measures or temporary closures rather than criminal investigations targeting labor brokers or employers.

Similarly, the UDI, responsible for issuing permits, appears not to have addressed warning signs, such as contracts being altered upon arrival or restrictions preventing workers from changing employers. These practices remain embedded in the visa system’s bureaucracy.

Local NGOs have long criticized this cycle. In February 2025, Caritas, an international humanitarian NGO, commented: “We knew it was serious, but not this serious,” referring to images of workers’ accommodation. Even left-wing opposition politicians expressed shock at the findings published by Aftenposten and called for the suspension of the seasonal labor program.

The Aftenposten investigation also places Norway within a broader Nordic context. Since 2014, Norway has issued more than 27,000 seasonal permits, involving hundreds of companies. Comparable investigations in Sweden and Finland have led authorities to recognize certain cases as human trafficking. In Norway, however, victims often disappear behind the facade of legal work permits.

Many migrants are recruited and then transferred into other EU countries through transnational networks, while others choose not to report abuses for fear of losing their legal status. Norwegian authorities have generally preferred administrative enforcement over trafficking prosecutions, leaving many cases trapped in a legal grey area.

Taken together, the available evidence points to a systemic problem. Employer-tied visas, intermediaries who control recruitment and employment, wages linked to production quotas, and poorly regulated housing are all interconnected elements of the same mechanism.

As long as the right to work and remain in the country depends on the goodwill of a single employer, these vulnerabilities will persist.

Breaking the Cycle of Exploitation

Meaningful reform therefore requires political action. Experts and NGOs have proposed allowing seasonal workers to change employers during their stay, thereby reducing dependence. Seasonal visa systems could also be redesigned so that residence permits are no longer tied exclusively to one employer, while mechanisms for reporting abuse without risking deportation should be strengthened.

Independent state oversight of agricultural housing is also essential. Inspections should be frequent, unannounced, and empowered to suspend non-compliant operations, much as Arbeidstilsynet already does in other sectors. 

Criminal liability should extend to intermediaries who charge illegal recruitment fees or operate as labor brokers. 

The authorities must also fully implement international standards by formally recognizing trafficking victims whenever relevant indicators exist and by suspending or overturning criminal proceedings against them where appropriate. 

The role of trade unions and NGOs should be enhanced, and through accessible information in workers’ native languages, legal assistance, and effective support mechanisms, migrant workers will be able to have the rights they can only dream of in both writing and reality.