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Thirty three Indian farm labourers have been freed from “slave-like” working conditions in northern Italy amid a crackdown on immigrant worker exploitation following the brutal death of a worker from Punjab.
Italian tax police said they seized almost half a million euros from two alleged gangmasters, also Indians, who got their compatriots to work in the European country.
The men were made to pay €17,000 (£14,275) each and promised a seasonal work permit and better life. They were instead made to provide manual labour on farms for 10-12 hours a day seven days a week, for wages as low as four euros a day.
Even these paltry wages were withheld by employers, who promised to pay up after the workers had settled their debts.
The police said some of the migrants were forced to continue working for free to pay an additional €13,000 for a permanent work permit, which they would never have actually obtained.
The accused gangmasters are being investigated for enslavement and labour exploitation after the police described the conditions the immigrants were made to work in as “slavery”.
The victims will receive police protection, job opportunities and legal residency documents, the police said.
The crackdown comes amid outrage over what have been described as modern forms of slavery in Italy as the European nation struggles with labour shortages.
The outrage was fuelled by the death of Satnam Singh, a worker from India’s Punjab. Singh was left to bleed to death after his arm was severed and his legs crushed while working on a farm in rural Latina in June.
Human rights groups and farmers held a protest march to demand justice for Singh and call for better working conditions for labourers suffering exploitation, harassment, and injuries at the hands of gangmasters, known as “capos”.
A report published by Moody’s in March said that Italy consistently had the highest number of modern slavery incidents in Europe, with about 32,000 cases over the five-year period from 2018.
