World / Fri, 21 Jun 2024 Firstpost

How Indian farm worker's death in Italy exposes ruthless exploitation of migrants

And how many migrant workers are exploited in Italy? BBC quoted Italian media as saying that Singh’s boss, Antonello Lovato, left Singh and his wife by the roadside near their home. Enough now.”What do we know about exploitation of migrant workers? An agreement between India and Italy allows 10,000 Indian workers to go there in 2024. Under the agreement, around 30,000 Indian workers can enter Italy for seasonal or non-seasonal employment between 2023 and 2025.

Satnam Singh died two days after his arm was severed by heavy machinery. He was reportedly left for dead by his boss on the side of the road near his home in Italy’s Latina. Experts say thousands of Indian migrants work on farms in that region alone and that 400,000 agricultural workers in Italy are at risk of exploitation – most of them Indians read more

Most Sikh migrants work in Italy’s dairy sector, as fruit pickers or in olive gardens. Reuters

The death of an Indian migrant worker after a gruesome accident in Italy has caused a stir and shone a fresh spotlight on the horrific working conditions they face.

Satnam Singh was reportedly left on the side of the road near his home with his arm severed and his legs crushed.

He was injured while working in a melon greenhouse in the Agro Pontino, a rural area south of the capital.

He died at a hospital in Rome on Wednesday.

But what happened? And how many migrant workers are exploited in Italy?

Let’s take a closer look:

What happened?

As per BBC, Singh was seriously injured while working with heavy machinery on Monday.

News9 quoted the Italian Federation of Agro-Industry Workers as saying that Singh’s arm was severed by a machine while he was cutting hay.

BBC quoted Italian media as saying that Singh’s boss, Antonello Lovato, left Singh and his wife by the roadside near their home.

Singh’s severed arm was placed in a fruit box.

Singh did not get any medical attention for an hour and a half.

“We heard shouting outside, the guy’s wife threw herself at me saying, ‘call an ambulance, call an ambulance’,” a neighbour told RAI public television.

Singh was airlifted to a Rome hospital, but died two days later.

Satnam Singh was left on the side of the road near his home with his arm severed and his legs crushed. He died two days later at a hospital in Rome.

Singh, who was in his early 30s, was reportedly living and working as an undocumented immigrant in Italy for around two years.

Activists have called on the Meloni government to act.

“Adding to the horror of the accident is the fact that, instead of being rescued, the Indian farm worker was dumped near his home,” Laura Hardeep Kaur, general secretary of the Frosinone-Latina unit of the Flai Cgil union, told Il Giorno newspaper.

“He was left on the road like a bag of rags, like a sack of rubbish … despite his wife begging [the employer] to take him to hospital. Here we are not only faced with a serious workplace accident, which in itself is already alarming, we are faced with barbaric exploitation. Enough now.”

What do we know about exploitation of migrant workers?

Some politicians and trade unions said the tragedy highlighted the broader issue of “caporalato”, the illegal gangmaster system of hiring migrant workers common in the Agro Pontino and other parts of Italy.

As per BBC, the system continues to flourish despite being made illegal in 2016 after an Italian woman had a heart attack and died.

The woman would work 12-hour days picking and sorting grapes.

Under this system, workers, even the ones who are in Italy legally, are paid extremely meagre wages.

They even have to pay their bosses for transportation which takes them to the fields and then back home.

The workers live in shacks or hovels or shanty towns – where there are no schools or hospitals.

As per BBC, Latina, the area Singh worked has several big agricultural farms.

Italy’s labour minister, Marina Calderone, condemned the “true act of barbarity” and hoped that those responsible would be punished Image Courtesy AP

It is also home to many Punjabi and Sikh migrants who are employed as farmhands.

As per News9, Latina alone is home to thousands of Indian migrants who work on farms.

An agreement between India and Italy allows 10,000 Indian workers to go there in 2024.

Under the agreement, around 30,000 Indian workers can enter Italy for seasonal or non-seasonal employment between 2023 and 2025.

Most Sikh migrants work in Italy’s dairy sector, as fruit pickers or in olive gardens.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery in 2018 said over 400,000 agricultural workers in Italy are at risk of exploitation.

Nearly 100,000 likely face ‘inhumane conditions.’

Most are Indians – particularly Sikhs from Punjab.

These workers are promised high-paying jobs by middlemen and even citizenship in European nations – only for them to end up in virtual slavery, as per News9.

According to 2021 data from national statistics office Istat, around 11 per cent of Italian workers were employed illegally, rising to more than 23 per cent in agriculture.

In 2018, around 25 per cent of the country’s entire workforce was hired under caporalato, as per BBC.

In the Agro Pontino, a major hub for greenhouse farming, floriculture and buffalo mozzarella production, Indians have been a presence since the mid-1980s.

They work on land drained from marshes in the 1930s, one of the biggest public works projects enacted under dictator Benito Mussolini.

This practice is also prevalent out in the service sector and the construction industry.

‘Couldn’t call home’

Al Jazeera quoted a 36-year-old from The Gambia as saying he too would work 12-hour shifts in Italy’s Langhe vineyards.

Sajo, who was an illegal immigrant, would be paid a few euros per hour.

Meanwhile, the fruits of his labours would be sold from anywhere from $50 to $1000.

Since April, authorities have discovered at least 30 instances of “caporalato” in the area.

Al Jazeera quoted Confagricoltura Cuneo, or the General Confederation on Italian Agriculture, as saying that there are around 2,500 viticulture companies that hire workers.

Over half of these are migrant workers.

Labour groups say around 4,000 to 5,000 work at these vineyards.

Around 65 per cent are at risk of exploitation.

Sato told the outlet he was put up at a tiny makeshift camp – put up by other workers – on the bank of the Tanaro River

There were no toilets, no running water and no electricity.

They used the water from the river to wash and cook.

“That was the hardest time since I left Gambia,” Sajo said. “I couldn’t even recharge my phone. I couldn’t call home.”

When Balbir Singh refers to his ordeal, he uses the Italian word “macello”, which roughly translates as “mess” – but it is hardly enough to convey what the migrant Indian farm worker has endured.

For six years, he lived in what can only be described as slave-like conditions tending cattle in Latina.

“I was working 12-13 hours a day, including Sundays, with no holidays, no rest,” Balbir told AFP.

The farm owner paid him 100 to 150 euros ($120 to $175) a month, he said, which amounts to less than 50 cents an hour.

The legal minimum for farm workers is around 10 euros an hour.

Singh was rescued by a police raid in March 2017 after appealing for help via Facebook and WhatsApp to local Indian community leaders and an Italian rights activist.

Officers found him living in a caravan, with no gas, hot water or electricity, and eating the leftovers that his boss either threw in the bin or gave to chickens and pigs.

Singh had to wash in the stables, with the same hosepipe he used to clean cattle, and it was made clear to him he should not complain.

“When I found a lawyer ready to help me, (the owner) told me… ‘I’ll kill you, I’ll dig a hole, throw you in it, and fill it up’… he had a gun, I saw it,” he recalled.

Singh said he was beaten up a couple of times, and had his identity papers taken away.

Sociologist Marco Omizzolo, the rights activist who helped free Singh, says between 25,000 and 30,000 Indians live in the Agro Pontino, mostly Sikhs from the Punjab region.

“You may work 28 days, but they’ll mark only four on your pay slip, so at the end of the month you may get 200, 300 euros,” Omizzolo told AFP.

“Formally, it is all by the book,” he added.

‘Was carelessness unfortunately’

The owner of the farm, Renzo Lovato, expressed his sorrow over the accident, but said Singh had been warned not to get close to the machine that injured him.

“The worker did it his own way. It was carelessness, unfortunately,” Lovato told RAI.

An investigation into Lovato’s son Antonello, who allegedly left Singh outside his home, has been opened over potential charges of manslaughter and failure to assist a person in danger, the lead prosecutor in the case, Giuseppe De Falco, said in an email.

Lovato himself is under investigation for criminal negligence and manslaughter.

“He spontaneously went to the judicial police an hour after the events, as any decent person would do,” Lovato’s family lawyer told Reuters. He added that his client was waiting for the charges to be formalised to defend himself.

Responding to the allegation that Singh had been abandoned without calling an ambulance, the lawyer, Valerio Righi, said: “You will see during the proceedings that maybe help was called sooner than people think.”

Righi declined to comment on reports that Singh and his wife were employed illegally.

Maria Grazia Gabrielli, from Italy’s largest trade union Cgil, decried an “event of unprecedented brutality”, linking it to what she said were slave-like conditions endured by many farm hands.

“Exploitation in the fields very often results in starvation wages, unsafe and inhuman working rhythms and conditions, psychological and physical violence,” she said in a statement.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni deplored the tragedy as she chaired a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

“These are inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people, and I hope that this barbarity will be punished harshly,” she said, in comments relayed by her office.

The Lazio region, which includes the Agro Pontino, offered to cover Singh’s funeral costs.

Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, responding to the furore over Singh’s death, said the government was “first in line on all fronts to counter any form of exploitation at work.”

With inputs from agencies