Catania police have arrested ten alleged members of a criminal group suspected of trafficking and sexually exploiting young Nigerian women. The operation called 'Promise Land' led to the arrest of the suspected human traffickers, investigative sources said.
Italian authorities have arrested 52 people who allegedly belonged to an organisation that exploited hundreds of migrant farmworkers, who were called "monkeys" by their gangmaster bosses.
Qatar is one of the world's richest countries, but around 100 laborers from Southeast Asia and Africa working on a prestigious stadium project have not been paid in seven months, Amnesty International claims.
Lebanon is providing temporary shelter for a group of Ethiopian domestic workers abandoned by their employers. It will repatriate some of them, but COVID-19 quarantine measures mean the pressures of returning home are likely to be even greater.
At least 30 migrants were brutally murdered in Libya by the family of a slain human trafficker. Libya’s interior ministry said it has issued an arrest warrant for the suspected attackers.
Four people were arrested Sunday in the town of Foggia in southern Italy for exploiting migrant labor: three were entrepreneurs in the sector and one was a Gambian 'gangmaster'.
In a bid to address coronavirus-related labor shortages, Italy has introduced measures to allow for migrants to work in the agricultural sector for the time being. However, the Thomson Reuters Foundation fears that this might inadvertently lead to exploitation at the hands of the mafia.
As part of response measures to the coronavirus emergency, the Calabria regional government has put into place mobile teams on campers to provide assistance to migrants in the area around the towns of San Ferdinando, Rosarno, Taurianova, Cassano allo Ionio, Sibari, Corigliano-Rossano and the area around Crotona,
Four Pakistani nationals have been arrested on charges of exploiting asylum seekers in the Italian countryside, paying them only 50 euros per month. "I was a virtual prisoner," one of the victims of a group that was allegedly involved in illegal labor intermediation and exploitation said.
Migrants exploited by their fellow countrymen in northern Italy were paid three euros per hour for 11-hour days to prune vines and harvest grapes, according to an investigation by carabinieri in Venice, Padua, and Rovigo. The probe led to four being placed under house arrest on Wednesday.
Carabinieri police have arrested the owners of two agricultural companies in southern Italy. The arrests were carried out as part of a sweeping operation against the 'caporalato' gangmaster system, investigative sources said.
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.