How Indian workers get trapped in modern slavery on Italian farms

A large number of Indians, mostly from Punjab, find their way illegally to farms of Italy where they are forced into slave labour by employers, quite often with help of Indian contractors. The issue of modern forms of slavery in Italy recently came to the fore after the death of 31-year-old farm labourer Satnam Singh, who bled to death after being abandoned by his employer after a strawberry-wrapping machine severed his arm in Lazio, near Rome, last month. The employer was charged with negligent manslaughter.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni paid homage to the Indian labourer in the Italian parliament, denouncing the incident as "inhumane acts" that do not reflect Italian values. Last week, Italian authorities rescued 33 Indian agricultural workers from conditions akin to slavery in the Verona province, while also arresting two Indian nationals who were enslaving them.

Thousands of Indian farm labourers took out a march in June, urging an end to "slavery". Rampant illegal immigration in Italy in past decades or so has aggravated the problem of farm slavery.

How farm slavery works in Italy

Indians have worked in the Agro Pontino -- the Pontine Marshes -- since the mid-1980s, harvesting pumpkins, leeks, beans and tomatoes, and working on flower farms or in buffalo mozzarella production. They work on land drained from marshes in the 1930s, one of the biggest public works projects enacted under dictator Benito Mussolini.

Police reported that the alleged perpetrators, also of Indian origin, brought their compatriots to Italy on seasonal work permits, demanding 17,000 euros from each individual and promising a better life. The migrants were employed on farms, working seven days a week for 10-12 hours daily, earning a mere 4 euros per hour. Their wages were entirely withheld until they had settled their debts, a practice the police described as "slavery". In some cases, the workers were asked to continue working without pay to cover an additional 13,000 euros for a permanent work permit, "which, in reality, would have never been given to them," according to the police statement.

The UN's special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery estimated in 2018 that more than 400,000 agricultural workers in Italy risk being exploited and almost 100,000 likely face "inhumane conditions".

Three years ago, sociologist Marco Omizzolo, a rights activist who helped free a Punjabi labourer out of six-year-long slavery, had told AFP that between 25,000 and 30,000 Indians live in the Agro Pontino, mostly Sikhs from the Punjab region. Under an illegal but well-established system, they live under the thumb of "caporali", the gangmasters who recruit farm labourers on behalf of land owners. Typically, they are offered contracts but then are paid for only a fraction of their work. "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.

AFP reported that police investigation earlier had offered evidence of widespread opioid abuse among the Indian community. That operation led to the arrest of a doctor in the beach town of Sabaudia. He was accused of illegally prescribing more than 1,500 boxes of Depalgos, a powerful painkiller containing Oxycodone and given to cancer patients, to 222 Indian farm workers. "The drug presumably allowed them to work longer in the fields by relieving pain and fatigue," an official had told AFP.

The problem of exploitation of farm workers did not go unnoticed in Italian parliament. It was under an anti-caporali law passed in 2016 that employer of the Indian farm slave rescued by Omizzolo, was prosecuted. But unions had told AFP that there were still too few checks and labour inspectors to enforce the law properly.

Meloni's challenge

Far-right Prime Minister Meloni has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy, while increasing pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labour shortages.

But according to the Confagricoltura agribusiness association, only around 30 percent of workers given a visa actually travel to Italy, meaning there are never enough labourers to meet farmers' needs. Last month, Meloni said Italy's visa system was being exploited by organised crime groups to smuggle in illegal migrants. She condemned the circumstances of Singh's death, saying they were "inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people". "I hope that this barbarism will be harshly punished," she told her cabinet ministers last week.

Italy's financial police identified nearly 60,000 undocumented workers from January 2023 to June 2024. But Italy's largest trade union CGIL estimates that as many as 230,000 people -- over a quarter of the country's seasonal agricultural workers -- do not have a contract. While some are Italian, most are undocumented foreigners.

(With inputs from agencies and TOI)