Carabinieri military police in 2019 carried out a total of 263 investigations against the gangmaster system in Italy, Labor Minister Nunzia Catalfo said this week. The Italian government is expected to approve a three-year plan to fight the phenomenon by the end of January.
The Italian minister for agriculture Teresa Bellanova said an inter-ministerial plan will be presented in January to fight labor exploitation in the agriculture sector. She said it would include a platform allowing business owners to find the workers with the desired qualifications.
Italian authorities say they have dismantled a criminal ring exploiting migrant farm workers in the area of Gioia Tauro, in the southern region of Calabria. The migrants were forced to work for up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and were paid between two and three euros per hour, investigators said.
With the help of migrant and disabled workers, the Italian association 'Agricoltura Capodarco' produces the wine Xenia, which means ''hospitality'' in ancient Greek. The goal is to fight a ''climate of hatred'' that is gaining ground in Italy, producers said during the presentation of the beverage.
Italian authorities have discovered dozens of cases of irregular employment and exploitation of Italians and foreign workers in Italy's northern region of Trentino-Alto Adige. The cases took place in the agricultural sector over a period of just three months.
Migrant workers, mostly from Africa, were being exploited by a shoe company in Empoli, according to police. They reportedly had to work up to 10 hours a day and were paid as little as 1.28 euros per hour.
Italy's agriculture minister has said that the government is committed to increasing the effectiveness of sector monitoring to prevent abusive labor practices.
A medical charity found that only 44% of foreign farmworkers it treated in the southern Italian area of Foggia had a regular job contract.
An Italian farmer has been reported to the police on charges of exploiting a young man from Mali. The migrant reportedly had to live in a cement cube measuring only a few square meters, without a proper bathroom.
An Italian farmer has been arrested for shooting at migrant farmworkers to get them to work faster and more. The workers had been threatened repeatedly, an investigation found.
A study by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre shows the number of migrants in the EU working in agriculture increased from 2011 to 2017, with a particularly significant upward trend in Denmark, Spain, and Italy.
The United Nations want Italy to do more to prevent the exploitation of migrant farmworkers and to dismantle the illegal labor system known as "caporalato."