Italy needs to fight farm
gangmasters who exploit agricultural workers by using the same
tough techniques deployed by the state against Cosa Nostra, Farm
Minister Maurizio Martina said Thursday.
"We need, like against organised crime, a quantum jump to
break through the wall of rubber, the code of silence and the
fear," Martina told la Repubblica newspaper.
The minister made his remarks after a farm gangmaster in
Puglia this week was placed under investigation on suspicion of
murdering a woman labourer.
Paola Clemente, 49, died on July 13 and was buried but
prosecutors on Tuesday ordered her body to be exhumed and an
autopsy to take place on August 21. The man, who drove the
workers to the fields to pick grapes, was named as Ciro Grassi,
from Taranto. He is suspected of murder and failure to provide
assistance.
"Fighting off-the-books work and exploitation in the
fields must be a duty for everyone," Martina said, "for the
institutions who must intensify controls on the ground, as we
are doing already, but also for the associations and firms who
must demand maximum rigour from their associates, punishing
anyone breaking the rules."
"And anyone who knows of unacceptable conditions must
denounce them".
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