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They treated them like slaves, called them "monkeys" and gave them water to drink from the irrigation canals. These are some of the details of the life of the migrants who work as day laborers in the regions of Basilicata and Calabria , in southern Italy, facts arising from a police intervention that resulted in 52 arrests.

The "Demetra" operation carried out by the Italian Finance Guard ended with those 52 arrests and 14 agricultural companies seized between the towns of Matera and Cosenza for exploiting about 200 migrants , they said in a statement.

Investigations began with one of the many roadblocks officers carry out every day, when a pickup truck carrying seven workers was stopped.

From there and for a year, they investigated until they discovered a wide network of exploitation of migrants, especially Pakistani, Maghrebian and Eastern European citizens, who were paid about 80 cents per box of citrus collected or 10 euros per day, while that women from Eastern Europe picked strawberries for 28 euros a day. Figures with which they had to pay the costs of transport and food and who gave inhumane homes, explained in the investigation.

Likewise, those arrested are accused of favoring illegal migration since they allowed workers to enter, even organizing marriages of convenience, and then divorce, to obtain a residence permit.

TELEPHONE LISTENING TO CAPATACES

Exploitation in the fields, especially in the south of the country, is not a new thing, but this time the wiretapping of the foremen is chilling.

" The blacks are missing a couple of bottles of water. Well, they fill them in the canal . There are some bottles thrown among the bushes; they are collected from there and filled in the canal," one of those responsible for is heard. agricultural companies.

"Where are the monkeys?" asks one of the foremen, protesting that the employees have not yet arrived, a racist language that is repeated in all eavesdropping.

"The workers were housed in dirty, unheated, sub-human premises, and many of them slept on the ground, exploited and treated as objects , without any rights. And even to live there, they were forced to pay suspects a sum of money "explained Colonel Danilo Nastasi, provincial commander of the Guardia di Finanza de Cosenza.

TWO CRIMINAL ASSOCIATIONS

The detainees belonged to two criminal associations, 47 of them were in charge of the control of the illegal agricultural activity and established the methods of recruitment and the conditions of employment.

The rest belonged to a second organization, linked to the first, which are those who were responsible, after paying large sums of money, to organize marriages of convenience, aimed at guaranteeing permanence on Italian territory.

The Executive passed on May 12 a law for the regularization of migrant day laborers and domestic caregivers that would allow them access to a temporary residence permit and thus alleviate the lack of labor caused by the coronavirus crisis and avoid cases of exploitation. .

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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