Kusum Arora 
Jalandhar: A week ago, when two Indian origin ‘caporalato’ or ‘gang masters’ were detained by the Italian Police in Verona city for enslaving 33 Indian farm workers, it blew the lid off an organised crime, often termed as ‘modern slavery’ led by Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Italian agents in Italy’s million-euro rich agricultural farms.
The Italian Police’s action came in the wake of the brutal death of Satnam Singh (31), an illegal Indian farm worker who died after his arm was severed by a plastic wrapping machine at a vegetable farm in Latina, Italy on June 19.
The Italian Police has been conducting raids across Italy to crack down on the mafia controlling agricultural farms.
Satnam’s tragic death hit the international headlines after his farm owner kept his severed arm in a fruit tray, drove him in excruciating pain in a tractor and left him to die like trash outside his house near garbage bins.
Satnam was a resident of Chand Nawa village of Moga district of Punjab and had reached Italy via donkey route like many youths from Punjab two years ago.
The police also seized 4,75,000 euros or Rs 4.33 crore from the two Indian agents, who were running two agricultural farms but with no employees on record.
It was learnt that the rescued Indian workers were kept as slaves and were hardly paid 4 euro per hour as wages. The rescued workers have now been given three months resident permit during which they will have to find work.
Similar police raids have also been conducted in cities such as Napoli, Milan, Apulia, Reggio Calabria, rescuing many farm workers. It was learnt that the Italian police had intensified action against gang masters and were randomly checking the documents of farm workers, who were mostly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Romania and Italy.
‘Indian youths are duped by agents’
Talking to The Wire from Italy, Frosinone-Latina branch CGIL-FLAI (Confederation Generale Italiana Del Lavaro Union) – a trade union that works for the rights of workers in the food processing industry – general secretary Laura Hardeep Kaur who has been working 24×7 to address workers’ rights programmes and complaints of exploitation in farms said, “Police are conducting raids across Italy. There is a lot of strictness everywhere, especially against the Indian agents. They are checking everything.”
Kaur, who has been leading workers’ rallies seeking justice for Satnam Singh along with other trade unions, blamed the ‘gang masters’ of pushing the farm workers in a loop of never-ending mess.
“The agents who are usually of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Italian or Romanian descent start fleecing gullible youth from India itself. They dupe the youths by claiming that they will get their ‘resident documents’ once they reach Italy. They rob them of huge money. We have been raising voice against this system for a long time but it took Satnam Singh’s tragic death to shake up the system”, she said.
On the extent of exploitation of farm workers, who get trapped in the cycle of ‘modern slavery’, Hardeep Kaur said that in most of the cases, when the youth finally reach Italy, there is nobody to even receive them at the airport.
“In such a scenario, the youths have nowhere to go. This is how they get trapped in slavery. Like in the recent case of Verona, the two agents were of Indian origin. We are also tracking another case of a farm workers group who were currently lodged in a safety house. My office is flooded with workers calls”, said Kaur.
A business system that exploits and kills
Notably, in one of the rallies for Satnam Singh in Latina on July 4th, CGIL general secretary Maurizio Landini had shared: “There are 3 million workers- the CGIL underlines- in irregular conditions in our country in all sectors and in all activities, out of 100 regular workers, almost 13 are in black or grey. And 230 thousand (2,30,000 or 2.30 lakh) are employed irregularly in the agricultural sector.”
The CGIL press statement of July 4 also mentioned that “Furthermore “3,208 victims of exploitation or gang mastering, 2,123 in agriculture and 897 in the tertiary sectors, are only the tip of the iceberg.”
“Let us stop a business system that exploits and kills. Against labour exploitation, no more gang mastering, no more irregular contracts and subcontracts, no more deaths at work,” Landini had emphasised.
In another case, the Italian police had unearthed a ‘farm racket’ from Anzio in Rome and detained two Indians, a Pakistani and Italian national for giving fake resident permits and work contracts to around 500 farm workers. The police have initiated strict action against both the farm owners and the workers in this case.
Talking about one of the rescue operations in Napoli, Jagmeet Singh (name changed) also a vegetable farm worker said that it was notorious for mafia control over everything.
“In Napoli’s rescue operation, the number of farm workers rescued were far more than what has been reported in the international media so far. Napoli is under the grip of mafia of all sorts. After Satnam Singh’s death, the Italian police were randomly checking documents of not just the farm workers but that of farm owners too. Whether we are heading for work or working at the farms, the police were inspecting the workers throughout the day”, he said.
Workers trapped by ‘gang masters’
Jagmeet also shared that Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s statement in the parliament expressing deep concern over Satnam’s death and the registration of an FIR pushed workers’ rights cases globally.
“At present, Italy’s police action was under international spotlight. The workers with the active support of trade unions and the backing of the Italian government were hopeful that the investigations would lead to some major policy change in the coming days”, he said.
On Satnam Singh’s cremation, whose body was still lying in the mortuary in Italy, Jagmeet said that it was his family’s call to decide if they wanted to conduct cremation in India or they would come to Italy. “The farm workers, trade unions and other political leaders would perform funeral prayers at a gurdwara in Latina later”, he added.
Another farm worker, Harpreet Singh, who too came via donkey route to Italy shared how getting residency permits in Italy was a herculean task and one of the biggest reasons for exploitation of workers.
“Even those workers who come to Italy on a nine month visa scheme fail to get residency permits. As the Italian government sets yearly quotas for non-Europeans under ‘decreto flussi’ an Italian law to work in Italy, it has become the biggest factor behind worker exploitation”, he said.
On life of a farm worker in Italy, he said that people know very well that they were going illegally and what might lie ahead for them but in most of the cases, they get trapped by the gang masters.
Harpreet added that earlier many workers used to go to Portugal after staying in Italy for years to get permanent residency but recently even the Portugal government banned the permanent residency option, leaving lakhs of illegal workers stuck.
“There were many youths who were still stuck in Serbia and Romania and waiting to reach Italy. It is a precarious condition”, he added.