Caporalato and the deaths of 16 farmworkers in Puglia
Rights — di Simone Santi
In the first days of August, 16 farmworkers died in two road accidents in Puglia while returning from work in the fields aboard vans: a massacre born of caporalato.
Caporalato and the deaths of 16 farmworkers in Puglia
In the first days of August, 16 farmworkers died in two road accidents in Puglia while returning from work in the fields aboard vans: a massacre born of caporalato.
They were on their way back from the fields, at the end of a hard and gruelling day spent picking tomatoes for 2.50 euros an hour, but they lost their lives in two separate road accidents: sixteen migrants, the majority African, died on the roads of the Foggia countryside — four in an accident on Saturday and twelve in a serious collision between vans on Monday. The prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the two accidents, and is also considering whether the workers were subject to forms of caporalato. They were travelling crammed into small vans and had no documents on them — something that also makes identifying the bodies extremely difficult.
Raccoglievano pomodori nei campi per 2,50 euro all'ora e sono morti in un incidente contro un tir che trasportava quegli stessi pomodori...si potrebbe dire "destino beffardo"...io lo chiamerei #caporalato
Two tragedies within 48 hours
The first accident occurred on Saturday 4 August, at around 3:30 pm on a provincial road between the towns of Ascoli Satriano and Castelluccio dei Sauri: eight immigrant farmworkers were travelling in the rear compartment of an enclosed van that crashed into a lorry. Four of them died; another four are hospitalised in very serious conditions, along with the lorry driver.
Monday 6 August brought the second tragedy: this time twelve migrants lost their lives — they were inside a van with Bulgarian plates that collided with another lorry on the SS16 state road, in the countryside near Lesina. They too were returning from a morning in the fields and were headed for the Rignano ghetto, a kind of unauthorised encampment where hundreds of non-EU migrants live, which had already been the scene of protest demonstrations in 2010.
Leggi anche: Agricoltura, finalmente una legge contro il caporalato
Given the conditions in which the victims were travelling, the shadow of the caporalato phenomenon immediately fell over both incidents. The phenomenon was also mentioned by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who travelled to Foggia the day after the accident to commemorate the victims. "Work and dignity are two inseparable words," said the President of the Council. "There can be no work without respect for the dignity of the person. And this must hold for everyone, always, without distinction. Here in Foggia, twelve people died yesterday, on top of the four who died last Saturday. Sixteen workers exploited and humiliated by the working and living conditions they were forced to endure. This is not dignity. As regards the caporalato phenomenon, we must strengthen the tools of monitoring and prevention and introduce support measures for quality agricultural work."
In 2017, the victims of exploitation numbered 387
Tools that already exist: the law to combat caporalato was passed in 2016, and provides for prison sentences of up to eight years for employers found guilty of exploiting farmworkers and for intermediaries, the confiscation of vehicles, assets and agricultural land, and protection for victims through an anti-trafficking fund and a kind of register certifying virtuous companies.
A law that works. According to the national labour inspectorate, in 2017, 387 victims of exploitation in agriculture were confirmed, with 360 orders suspending business activities. Evidently it is not enough, because according to the latest Agromafie e caporalato report from May 2016, produced by the Placido Rizzotto observatory of Flai-Cgil, in 2016 there were 100,000 irregular workers employed in Italy's agricultural sector in conditions of exploitation and serious vulnerability.
Anche noi domani saremo a #Foggia, perché non c’è pomodoro buono e pulito in agricoltura se non è stato prodotto in maniera etica, giusta, onesta, se non è stato coltivato senza schiavi e caporali. È ora di fermare questa mattanza ► legambiente.it/contenuti/comu…
On 8 August, many people took to the streets in Foggia for a solidarity and protest demonstration organised by Flai Cgil, Arci, Libera, Terra!, Consulta sull'immigrazione di Foggia e Cerignola, Casa Sankara, Intersos, Amici dei Migranti. "There is no good, clean tomato in agriculture if it has not been produced in an ethical, fair and honest way, if it has not been grown without slaves and caporali," said Stefano Ciafani, president of Legambiente. "Those who continue to enslave the farmworkers — mostly foreigners — employed in harvesting campaigns must be punished, and to do so it is essential that all the institutions involved finally take responsibility for applying the law against caporalato."