The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated inequalities, highlighting the importance of often invisible frontline workers in Italy. Trade unionist Aboubakar Soumahoro, an Ivorian native who arrived in the country 20 years ago, is now calling for stronger measures in support of agricultural workers.
A UN special rapporteur has called out the "shocking abuse" of migrants picking strawberries in Spain. The migrants are mainly Moroccan women, who come in on seasonal visas to carry out the work. Their treatment has long been criticized by human rights groups working in the field of migrant rights.
A union for farmworkers FLAI-CGIL has opened an office in the southern Italian city of Taranto to support foreign workers and help them report cases of exploitation, in order to fight the gangmaster system.
The Italian union Flai-Cgil has reported that several volunteers at informal migrant settlements around Puglia "were heavily threatened" and were denied the right to help.
Nearly 32,000 applications for the regularization of migrant workers have been presented to the Italian interior ministry in the first two weeks of this month after legislation approved in May came into force on June 1, according to official data released on June 15. A reported 91% of applications concerned migrant home helps and carers. The government said applications are rising steadily.
The Italian research center CREA said that about 5 million foreigners now live in Italy, with 60% (3.1 million) calling rural parts of the country home. This marks an increase in rural foreign population of over 70% in the past decade.
Italian agriculture minister Teresa Bellanova has expressed concern for the security of foreign seasonal workers who travel from "red areas" affected by the coronavirus pandemic to Italy via so-called green corridors allowing them to fly in to help pick the country's ripening crops.
Italian authorities and healthcare providers have distributed 1,200 kits with facemasks, disinfectant gels and detergents to migrants living near the Italian city of Foggia.
To fill the gap of trained seasonal foreign workers to harvest its crops, Italy has opened corridors for non-EU farmworkers who have had a work contract with Italian firms for years. Carrying over 100 farmworkers from Morocco, the first charter flight arrived in Italy on Thursday.
The Greek Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development relaxed its coroanvirus restrictions to allow more foreign workers to come and help with the Greek harvest, amid fears that produce would rot in the fields. But could migrants and refugees help fill the gap?
Undocumented farmworkers employed in Italy's agricultural sector have organized a strike on May 21 against a new decree that will give migrants the chance to apply for a permit, saying the measure was approved only for the market's benefit rather than to promote workers' rights.
Migrant farmworkers employed in Italy's agricultural sector have thanked the Italian government for passing an amnesty that will give them the chance to apply for a short-term stay permit. Some, however, note that a six-month temporary permit makes it impossible for them to plan for the future.