It's true. The hundreds of Moroccan women behind him appear like a mirage in the early morning as they wait to strap massive packages of household goods to their backs. Bent over at the waist because of the weight, the women will carry the loads across the border that separates an autonomous Spanish enclave on the African continent from neighboring Morocco.

Women carrying goods across a border between Morocco and an autonomous enclave of Spain on the African continent

Image: Maggy Donaldson

The women delivers these massive packages to shopkeepers in the Moroccan souks. Known in Spain as 'porteadoras' or female porters, these impoverished women are the 'mules' of a lucrative trade.

For the two autonomous Spanish cities on the African continent, Ceuta and Melilla, this cross-border commerce brings in about $1.5 billion a year, representing nearly a third of those cities’ economies. In Morocco, as many as 45,000 people live off of this trade, with an additional 400,000 profiting indirectly.

The city of Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish enclave on the African Continent

Image: Maggy Donaldson

This irregular but legal trade comes with a serious human cost. The porteadoras take home next to nothing for the physically grueling work of carrying packages that may weigh more than 200 pounds the length of two football fields through the Spanish-Moroccan border checkpoint.

But few other employment opportunities exist for these marginalized women, many of them single, widowed or divorced.

A woman with the package she is going to take over the border between Morocco and an an autonomous Spanish enclave in Africa.

One woman, Kinza, lost her husband three years ago, and now supports her three children shuttling goods from Spain to Morocco. "I am a widow," she says. "In Morocco, no one helps me at all. Nothing. No NGO. No one at all."

At five or six dollars a day, it's a nearly unlivable wage. But competition among the women is fierce.

Lines of women waiting to cross the border between Morocco and an autonomous Spanish enclave in Africa

Image: Maggy Donaldson

Smooth-skinned Fatima looks like she should be in a high school classroom. But she tells us she spent the night at the border gate, hoping to get first dibs on a package. Fatima, who is just 20-years-old, tells us she’s the sole breadwinner for her parents and four siblings. But the meager pay she takes home does not cover medical costs for her disabled father, not to mention food for her younger siblings and her daughter.

As the clock strikes 8:00 a.m., the line still hasn’t moved. The guards don’t seem too concerned: when and whether these women work is entirely at their discretion.

Suddenly there's commotion. Fatima tells us a Spanish guard just hit a woman who attempted to jump the line. She shrugs, saying she’s witnessed it many times in the five years she’s come to the border for work. "People have died here — right here," she says. "We’re human beings," she adds. "They don’t have the right to beat us to begin with."

The old woman accused of stepping out of line emerges, blood dripping from a cloth she holds to her nose. Her thin frame hardly looks fit to support one of the massive bundles.

The warehouses near the Spanish-Moroccan border in North Africa

Image: Maggy Donaldson

The goods — ranging from clothing to Red Bull to dish liquid — arrive at the Spanish port in Ceuta from mainland Spain or as far away as China. Men working at huge warehouses on the Spanish side of the border wrap the packages of goods and stamp them with an identifying color. The merchant on the Moroccan side pays the woman and sells the goods at a large indoor market. A pair of jeans goes for $2 or less.

Because the women transport the goods on foot as personal luggage, the whole transaction is tax-free. It’s an exploitative-yet-profitable loophole to typical international tariff laws that neither Spain nor Morocco wants to close.

Down past the front of the line, the women who the guards let through bend over at the waist. They tie bundles easily larger than themselves onto their backs. Crouched over and often carrying or pushing more packages, they proceed slowly towards a gate designated for this trade. The normal civilian border crossing is just 100 yards away, but unreachable beyond a tall fence guarded by Spanish forces.

Women near the border point between Morocco and an autonomous Spanish enclave in Africa.

Image: Maggy Donaldson

Pushing intensifies near the front of the line. Rashida has been waiting for hours and is anxious not to lose her spot. She has worked here for 20 years at great cost. Now 35, she rarely take days off, working even throughout her three pregnancies. Between the strenuous work and regular beatings from guards, she miscarried her last child, whom she still calls her hija, or daughter.

It’s midday, and the many women still standing in line use the cardboard they slept on to shield their faces from the sun.

"It’s hell," Rashida says. "I want to die. Because I don’t have work. I don’t have a future. I don’t have anything."

This reporting was supported by NYU Global and Joint Studies program and the Global Beat course.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.