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.
On June 12, a 37-year-old Senegalese migrant died in a fire in a migrant shanty town near Foggia, in the Puglia region of Italy. The fire broke out inside a shack in the migrant encampment of Borgo Mezzanone, a makeshift settlement near Foggia.
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.
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.
About 200 migrant farmworkers protested Thursday in the Foggia area of southern Italy against temporary legalization measures brought in by the government. The migrants claimed there is ''a lack of rights and not manpower'' in Italian fields.
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.
While EU countries negotiate with Ukraine about special flights for seasonal workers, some people are coming to the bloc on their own, despite coronavirus restrictions. But they face many obstacles on the way.
The coronavirus crisis has provided refugees and winegrowers in southwest France with an unusual opportunity: potential jobs for unemployed migrants and a brand new workforce for farmers facing a shortage of seasonal workers. The association Ovale Citoyen is behind the initiative.
The minister for agriculture, Teresa Bellanova, is trying to include the regularization of undocumented foreign workers in the government's 'May decree' which should be approved by the council of ministers in Italy this week. The theme is currently being debated by the Italian cabinet.
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'.
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,