Opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S)
leader Giuseppe Conte on Thursday urged Premier Giorgia Meloni
to act to stamp out brutal gangmastering after a 31-year-old
Indian man was left to die with his arm severed by machinery
placed in a strawberry picking box beside him at Latina south of
Rome this week.
The death of Satnam Singh, one of the thousands of Indian
immigrants who work the fields around Latina for slave wages and
in dire conditions, beset by gang masters, has caused outrage in
Italy.
Conte, a former two-time premier with contrasting
administrations, said he expected "words and strong stances from
Meloni".
He wrote on X: "You lose your arm while you're working in the
fields for four euros an hour. You're not immediately treated.
They put you in a van and they dump you like rubbish outside
your home. Beside you, a strawberry basket in which your severed
arm is left. You bleed out and die.
"It sounds like the story of a slave centuries ago. We can't
close our eyes, we can't think about making profits while
cancelling the dignity of work and the last shreds of humanity.
"If we ignore these atrocities, we will stop defending Italy and
its values.
"We are ready to do out bit in parliament against these
barbarities, which must be rooted out of the fields all over
Italy".
Gangmastering and the often violent exploitation of migrant farm
labourers is a chronic problem in Italy, especially in the
south.
Latina hosts thousands of immigrant labourers, many of them
Sikhs, working picking fruit and vegetables for the local
'agro-mafia'.
Singh died in a Rome hospital Wednesday after being coptered
there when he was eventually found.
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