VANCOUVER – A lawyer for a group of African tree planters discovered three years ago living in deplorable conditions in a Golden, B.C., camp says the workers endured slave-like conditions.

Sarah Khan told a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that the camp, operated by Khaira (CARE-ah) Enterprises Ltd., was divided along racial lines, where black workers endured racial slurs, violence and mockery, and had to work in harder terrain than non-black workers.

Khan says the workers were given undercooked or expired food to eat, and had to sleep on dirty mattresses in storage containers with no ventilation and inadequate shower facilities.

She told the tribunal the workers received little or no wages, so many of them became homeless for a while after the camp was shut down by B.C.’s Ministry of Forests.

The B.C. Employment Standards Branch ordered Khaira to pay $260,000 in wages in 2011, but Khan says not all of the money has been paid to the workers.

Khalid Bajwa and Hardilpreet Sidhu, the owners of Khaira, told the tribunal that they provided adequate living and working conditions, they had no previous complaints, and that it’s common in tree planting to endure some harsh conditions.