Eight Years After the Revolt, Living and Working Conditions in Rosarno Remain Outrageously Inhumane. | Medici per i Diritti Umani

Eight Years After the Revolt, Living and Working Conditions in Rosarno Remain Outrageously Inhumane.

Eight years after the revolt of Rosarno, little or nothing has changed for almost 3,000 migrant workers who have travelled to the Piana di Gioia Tauro this year for the citrus harvesting season. According to the data collected by the mobile clinic of Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU), which is operating for the sixth year in the area, the percentage of undeclared workers has risen to 80%. Although nine out of ten migrants have a regular residence permit, most of them work at a fixed rate per day or per box of fruit collected without a contract or paycheck and at a much lower salary than required by the Collective Labor Agreements. In addition to this, the living conditions in the area have remained dramatically inhumane, despite the recent opening of a new tent city that can accommodate 500 people. In light of this situation, MEDU calls for the adoption of immediate measures to respect the commitments made by the institutions since the signing of the Operational Protocol in February 2016, starting with the plan for social-housing inclusion.rosarno 2018

When I came here, I did not know how people lived. But I had no other choice. I had never worked harvesting oranges before. Slowly I realized this is not a good job, but it’s still better than staying at home doing nothing.  We are paid 50 cents for each box of oranges collected and 1 euro for the tangerines. I work 10-11 hours a day, without a day off. Our employer should give us a contract, but it is not so… it’s a very difficult situation …” (O., Mali)

Rosarno, 9 January 2018-  In its sixth consecutive year of activity, the doctors and operators of MEDU’s (Medici per i Diritti Umani) mobile clinic have been present in the territory of Piana di Gioia Tauro since December to provide migrant workers health care and guidance on socio-legal issues and labor rights. As in previous years, degradation and social exclusion force the workers to live in dramatic conditions.

In the old tent city of San Ferdinando’s industrial zone, one of the biggest ghettos in Italy, 2,000 people are once again living in crowded cold tents and shacks. Another 250 people currently sleep in an adjacent shed that was meant to be part of a new reception center, opened last August, and risk being kicked to the streets as managing bodies want to close the structure due to monitoring difficulties. Furthermore, an additional 300 people live in a nearby abandoned factory in conditions of extreme discomfort with their beds and mattresses lining the ground. Those who cannot find a place in the ghetto, shed or factory most often take up residence in one of the dozen abandoned farmhouses situated in the countryside of the Piana, which shelter seasonal workers for some 10 euros a day.

All these settlements generally lack basic facilities, such as electricity and adequate restrooms, where there are any. In these conditions, residents collect their water from the foul-smelling restrooms or nearby fountains, despite these not being potable water sources, and cook their meals using portable gas cookers. All around, one can smell plastic and burnt garbage. In the streets of the Piana, one can see swarms of bicycles ridden by tired young men returning home from their workday, carrying water cans, gas tanks and sacks of rice. They make their way down the roads despite the huge holes in the asphalt that fill with water and mud.

All of the different settings in which the migrant workers of the Piana are forced to live are characterized by extreme degradation, disastrous sanitary conditions, un-breathable air, and a sense of overwhelming precariousness. MEDU has adamantly denounced this shameful and unacceptable situation for years, as these working conditions continue to entail serious exploitation and illicit practices.

During their first month of activity (December 2017), MEDU’s physicians and operators assisted 99 individuals. They were all young men (average age, 29) from Western sub-Saharan African countries such as Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Mauritania, Nigeria and Togo. Of these 99 young men, 80% had been in Italy for less than three years and 90% were legal residents (47% with a residence permit on humanitarian grounds and 37% in the process of appealing a negative result from their request for asylum). Among the 10% without a valid residence permit, half were in such conditions because they had not had access to the procedure to submit an asylum application when they could have.

8% of these 99 individuals assisted by MEDU were unemployed during the time of their visit, while the remaining 91% were employed collecting tangerines and oranges. Alarmingly, 80% of those employed did not have a work contract. Furthermore, even the remaining 20% that had been legally hired were still exploited via low pay rates, working hours and withheld benefits. Although heightened government controls in recent years had led to a slight increase in the number of contracts issued – even if irregularities in pay and contribution rates remained consistent – the first round of data collected from this season points to a bleak return to the past as evidenced by the widespread lack of work contracts. The numbers collected thus far further shed light on the government’s inability to effectively manage this area fraught with unlawfulness and crime.

Half of the employed migrant workers assisted by MEDU were remunerated according to the number of fruit boxes collected in a day (1 euro for tangerines, 0.50 cents for oranges). The other half were paid 25 to 30 euro per 7 to 10 hour workday, which is much lower than the 42 to 45 euro they should be receiving according to National and Provincial labor Agreements. Most of the migrant workers said to travel to their employment sites by bike (over 63%), while a quarter of them said to pay around 2.5 to 5 euro for a ride with makeshift private transport systems. Very few of those interviewed knew what a paycheck is (28%) and those who did were uncertain as to whether they would actually ever receive one. Furthermore, 80% of the migrant workers assisted were unaware that they could request unemployment benefits through agricultural labor unions if they needed to. Although the word “caporale” (recruiter of day laborers) hardly emerges from the stories told by those in the area, the practices linked to the recruitment, transport and payment of migrant workers reveal widespread illegality and exploitation.

In addition to the exploitation, the living and working conditions described were also found to affect the migrant workers from a medical stance point. Digestive (21%) and respiratory (17%) diseases directly attributable to the dangerous environmental conditions were prevalent among the patients assisted by MEDU. Such was also the case for osteomioarticular diseases (22%), which can be linked to the physical demands of harvesting fruit. Certain individuals also presented clear signs of having been tortured and symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The psychological distress observed in these individuals is most likely due to traumatic events experienced in their countries of origin and along their migratory journeys (particularly in Libya). 

“I obtained political asylum and ended up here, to live in these conditions … how can one live like this? I asked for a place in the new tent city, but they told me it’s full. I would like to rent a flat, I can pay for it, but how can I do that? Nobody gives you a flat for rent here … “(M., Nigeria)

A few hundred meters from the shanty town that arose the old tent city, a new temporary housing facility was inaugurated last year in August. The structure is surrounded by wired fences and cameras, which are part of a sophisticated surveillance system that monitors all movement in and out of the perimeter. The facility even boasts blue and white curtains, provided by the Ministry of the Interior. Yet, there are only a few places available, less than 500 to be exact, and the tents were already full before the citrus season even started. Despite the advanced appearance, the facility has also proven to be largely inadequate in providing appropriate shelter from the rain and harsh temperatures of the winter months. Furthermore, the agreement signed by the managing body of the facility and the San Ferdinando municipality concerns only the management of the camp, failing to provide its hosts other essential services such as linguistic, legal, social and psychological support.

Given the dramatic conditions of the old San Ferdinando tent city and its surrounding settlements, MEDU has welcomed bridge solutions such as the new tent facility that aim to promote the dignity, safety and health of migrant workers. Yet, the new structure is only a temporary addition and sustainable solutions are generally lacking. Thus, the commitment made with the signing of the Operational Protocol in February 2016 by the institutions responsible for overseeing this situation (the Prefecture of Reggio Calabria, the Region of Calabria, the Province of Reggio Calabria, and the Municipalities of Rosarno and San Ferdinando) remains unfulfilled due to the lack of concrete measures envisioned for the widespread integration and reception of migrants.

As such, MEDU once again reiterates the need to tackle the issue of migrant worker exploitation within the Italian agricultural industry, through the adoption of policies that promote the integration of these individuals into the local social housing system. It is now clear that the partial, temporary and unnecessarily expensive reception measures taken to date are unsuccessful as they keep the African workers far from the town center, favoring serious marginalization. A structural housing plan that provides concrete and sustainable solutions in the municipalities of Rosarno, San Ferdinando and the other municipalities of the Piana di Giaia Tauro should to be launched as soon as possible. Such a housing plan would both ensure humane living conditions for migrant workers and help repopulate the increasingly abandoned residential neighborhoods in the area. MEDU hopes that the recent nomination by the Ministry of the Interior of the Extraordinary Commissioner for the San Ferdinando will lead to the implementation of the commitments established by the Protocol so that the plight of the migrant workers of the Piana territory may be resolved once and for all.

In consideration of the above MEDU requests to:

Provide further temporary reception facilities, to ensure that all migrant workers may be accommodated. The new structures should be located in the municipalities of Rosarno and San Ferdinando and should guarantee decent living conditions as well as social and legal assistance. Operators should furthermore be enabled to identify vulnerable people;

Launch within the coming season the social inclusion plan foreseen by the Operational Protocol signed in February 2016. Additionally, MEDU asks that the institutions involved obtain adequate funding and define clear timelines and rules for the implementation of the plan;

Establish measures to eliminate unlawful employment which does not respect the rights supported by labor unions. As such, agricultural companies that employ seasonal migrant workers should be regularly overseen and monitored; concrete measures that allow matching employment supply and demand should be defined and monitored;

Adopt constructive policies that eliminate any discrepancies between production and distribution chains that influence the exploitation of migrant workers.

In light of the information revealed during MEDU’s first month of activity in the area, MEDU also calls for an immediate national commitment towards:

– Enabling all those arriving in the country to have access to international protection procedures regardless of their country of origin;

– Providing the most vulnerable, such as survivors of torture or victims of inhumane or degrading treatment, adequate accommodation, employment, and healthcare.

 

SEE PHOTO GALLERY

Medici for Human Rights (MEDU) established the Terragiusta project in 2014. Campaign against the exploitation of migrant workers in agriculture. The partners of the two-year period 2016-18 are: Arci “Iqbal Masih” of Venosa, Flai-Cgil of Gioia Tauro, City of Rosarno, Terra! Onlus, Zalab, Amisnet / Echis, OIS- Osservatorio Internazionale per la Salute Onlus (International Observatory for Health Onlus)

This project was realized with the support of: Fondazione con il Sud; Fondazione Charlemagne; Open Society Foundations.

 

Document type: Press releases, Report,
Project: Terragiusta nel sud d’Italia