In the Italian countryside 230,000 workers in the grip of 'caporalato' (forced labour)

The death of Satnam Singh, the young Indian labourer from the province of Latina, is a story that closely touches 230,000 workers in the Italian countryside. So many people are in fact exploited in our country today, without a contract and without rights: of these, 55,000 are women and 30% are not non-EU migrants, but Italian or EU citizens. The photograph comes from the Flai-Cgil's Placido Rizzotto Observatory, which has been monitoring farm labour and agro-fraud in our country for years. But the data coincide with those of Istat, and show that even today more than one in four farm labourers in Italy work illegally..

The pay? 'On average, 20 euros per day for a working day of 10 to 14 hours - says Jean-René Bilongo, president of the observatory - but there are also those who only get 10 euros or not even one, but water and a sandwich and that's it. Women then get paid 20-30% less than men'. How much it is worth, the black economy of exploitation, is difficult to say: 'Years ago we tried a calculation,' says Bilongo, 'but we had come to nothing. What we can calculate is the tax evasion in the agricultural sector, which should be between 700 and 900 million euro. This estimate, however, does not include all the links in the agri-food chain but only the first, which is why it seems so low'.

The Pontine Marshes and the province of Latina are among the areas where the exploitation of labourers is most deeply rooted. But they are not the only ones, as demonstrated by the seven arrests made yesterday between the provinces of Caserta and Naples for the illicit brokering of non-EU workers paid 2 euro per hour.The geography of 'caporalato' covers the whole of Italy: from the Capitanata foggiana to the Piedmontese countryside of Saluzzo, from Ragusano to Metapontino, from Fucino Abruzzo to Veneto. Of the 405 areas of widespread caporalato censused by the Placido Rizzotto Observatory, more than half are in the North.

The death of Satnam Singh has stirred consciences. The sector unions - Flai, Fai and Uila - urgently requested the convening of a round table and the Ministers of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, and Labour, Marina Calderone, immediately granted it for this morning. "We are asking to intervene in the mechanism of the flows decree,' explains the secretary of Flai-Cgil, Giovanni Mininni, whose union has also called a strike in the agricultural sector for tomorrow in Latina. 'Today, only 20% of those called to Italy see their fixed-term contracts transformed, all the others end up remaining in the meshes of the underground sector. The unions are also calling for the EUR 200 million from the NRP to be spent to overcome the ghettos, since some municipalities have already said they do not want these funds.