A White Christmas in Italy means Christmas without non-EU citizens

by redrum Tue Dec 01, 2009 11:19

A White Christmas in Italy means Christmas without immigrants, no matter if they are from EU or not

by anya Sun Nov 22, 2009 00:19

Italy - Up to 700 migrants who were squatting in abandoned buildings without water and electricity in San Nicola Varco, some 100 kilometres south of Naples, have been evacuated by the Italian Police, with many transferred to nearby identification and expulsion centres.

An International Organization for Migration (IOM) team discovered in July that many of the migrants, all young men from Morocco, living in the area had entered Italy with a regular visa. Some said they had paid up to 8,000 Euros to middle-men in Morocco to obtain a seasonal work contract in Italy.

Once in the country, the migrants found that their employer had disappeared or just refused to employ them. Without a legal work permit, the men became irregular migrants working without a contract in the agricultural sector where they were exploited by unscrupulous employers to labour in nearby greenhouses and fields.
They said they had been paid between 15-25 Euros for a 12.5 hour day and had to pay employers for services such as water.

"We discovered that many migrants had visas with details of the Italian employers who refused to hire them. We collected all the relevant information and passed it to the local prosecutors. We wanted to give the migrants the possibility to denounce this fraud in order to receive some kind of protection," says Peter Schatzer, IOM Chief of Mission in Italy.

Without a response from the relevant authorities, IOM is concerned that the potential removal of the deceived migrants will put an end to the on-going judicial enquiry.

"This effectively means that those who organized and benefited from this scam might not be brought to justice while the migrants, who were duped by unscrupulous employers, run the risk of being denounced as irregular migrants under a new law," says IOM's Peter Schatzer. "It would also set a precedent to the effect that the seasonal worker quota can be abused to deceive more migrants in search of better life conditions."

Illegal labour in Italy, especially in the agricultural sector, is widespread. Official statistics show that it accounts for between 15.9 per cent and 17.6 per cent of the country's gross domestic product.

The demand for this kind of labour was the focus of a new IOM campaign launched last month. "Buy Responsibly" aims to not only raise awareness of the demand side of labour exploitation, but also to encourage consumers to play a role in ending this kind of exploitation.

http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/press-briefing-not...26644