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Forced Labour and Other Forms of Labour Exploitation in the Italian Agri-Food Sector: Strong Laws, Weak Protection for Migrant Workers

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Book cover Labour Migration in Europe Volume II

Abstract

The fight against labour exploitation is a top priority in the current global agenda. Italy has recently reset its legal framework to implement European Union and international standards, while for some time it has had an integrated system aimed at both tackling the phenomenon and protecting victims. Yet despite the estimated scale of the phenomenon and the available legal tools, the prosecution of cases of labour exploitation continues to be rare. This chapter focuses on the main reasons why victims are reluctant to report abuse, that is, the real danger of being charged with the offence of “irregular entry or stay” and ultimately expelled if undocumented. Indeed, the fear of having to leave the host country has been identified as the main reason why victims avoid seeking legal protection and remedies, even when they are entitled to them. The same law-enforcement agencies often fail to identify victims of trafficking by merely looking at their irregular status. The essay is divided into three sections. First, it analyses the phenomenon, specifically targeting the Italian agri-food sector. After citing the large number of rules governing all forms of labour exploitation, it will be argued that criminalization of irregular immigration may result in impunity for exploiters, making (undocumented) migrants more vulnerable to human rights abuses. In doing so, the concept of “vulnerability created or exacerbated by the law” as developed by Mantouvalou (The Right to Work. Legal and Philosophical Perspectives. Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2015) will be employed. Finally, specific policy recommendations will be made, leaving criminal law tools as the last resort.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See the Preamble to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union of 2012.

  2. 2.

    International Labour Organization, Profits and Poverty. The Economics of forced labour (Geneva: ILO, 2014).

  3. 3.

    Fundamental Rights Agency, Severe labour exploitation: workers moving within or into the European Union. States’ obligations and victims’ rights (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2015).

  4. 4.

    Eurispes, Agromafie. 4° Rapporto sui crimini agroalimentari in Italia (Roma: Minerva, 2016), 156.

  5. 5.

    Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Detecting and tackling forced labour in Europe (London: The Policy Press, 2013), 12–13.

  6. 6.

    Ivi, 13–14.

  7. 7.

    Ivi, 51–53. On this see further Charles Woolfson, Petra Herzfeld Olsson, and Christer Thörnqvist, “Forced labour and migrant berry pickers in Sweden”, International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 28, no. 2 (2012): 147–176. The paper explains how some of the poorest workers on the planet arrive annually in Sweden, one of the richest countries in the industrialized world, to be locked into a transnational chain of exploitation.

  8. 8.

    According to the OSCE, agricultural work has been particularly impacted by global trends such as migration, labour contracting and fragmentation of labour: Organization for Security and Co-Operation In Europe, A summary of challenges on addressing human trafficking for labour exploitation in the agricultural sector in the OSCE Region (Vienna: OSCE, 2009), 29–32. According to Bonanno and Barbosa Cavalcanti, labour exploitation may be understood as the primary factor in the restructuring of global agri-food: Alessandro Bonanno, Josefa Salete Barbosa Cavalcanti, Labor relations in globalized food. Research in rural sociology and development (Bingley: Emerald, 2014).

  9. 9.

    Chowdury and others v. Greece, case no. 21884/2015, ECHR [2017]. See further Eurojust, Prosecuting THB for the purpose of labour exploitation - Report, Eurojust (The Hague: Eurojust, 2015).

  10. 10.

    Gabrio Forti, L’immane concretezza. Metamorfosi del crimine e controllo penale (Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2000), 10.

  11. 11.

    With regards to the dark figure of the phenomenon (the number of actual instances of a specific crime committed minus the reported cases of that crime within a population), see in the Italian literature Gabrio Forti, L’immane concretezza, 397.

  12. 12.

    Among others, in chronological order: Amnesty International, Exploited Labour. Migrant workers in Italy’s agricultural sector (London: Amnesty International Publications, 2012); Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, Agromafie e Caporalato. Secondo Rapporto (Roma: Lariser, 2014); Amnesty International, Lavoro sfruttato due anni dopo. Il fallimento della “Legge Rosarno” nella protezione dei migranti sfruttati nel settore agricolo in Italia (Roma: Amnesty International Publications, 2014); Medici per i Diritti Umani, Terra ingiusta. Rapporto sulle condizioni di vita e di lavoro dei braccianti stranieri in agricoltura (2015), http://www.mediciperidirittiumani.org/pdf/Terraingiusta.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018; Dasudterra! and Terrelibere.Org, #FilieraSporca Il Rapporto. Gli invisibili dell’arancia e lo sfruttamento in agricoltura nell’anno dell’Expo (2015), http://www.filierasporca.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FilieraSporca01.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018; Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, Agromafie e Caporalato. Terzo Rapporto (Roma: Ediesse, 2016); Associazione Bruno Trentin and Cittalia, Agree project. Phase one: desk research - Italy (2016), http://www.agreeproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/DESK-REPORT-AGREE-ITALY_pdf, accessed August 5, 2018; Dasud-Terra! and Terrelibere.Org, Secondo rapporto. #FilieraSporca - La raccolta dei rifugiati. Trasparenza di filiera e responsabilità sociale delle aziende (2016) http://www.filierasporca.org/2016/wpcontent/uploads/2016/06/filierasporca_2016.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018.

  13. 13.

    Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, ed., Agromafie e Caporalato. Terzo Rapporto (Roma: Ediesse, 2016).

  14. 14.

    Mainly Romanian women are victims of economic subjection that has also become sexual. There are no episodes of brute violence, Romanian women are just at the mercy of their bosses. As Palumbo and Sciurba put it, “migrant women who work in the greenhouses know that, in order to keep their job, sooner or later, they will probably have to go along with sexual requests of the employer”: Letizia Palumbo and Alessandra Sciurba, “New mobility regimes, new forms of exploitation in Sicily”, Open Democracy, July 9, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/letizia-palumbo-alessandra-sciurba/new-mobility-regimes-new-forms-of-exploitation-in-s, accessed August 5, 2018. If they lose their job, they lose their housing. This is how the farmers’ unspoken blackmail works.

  15. 15.

    Several interviews have revealed the scale of the exploitative conditions to which Sikh workers are subjected in the fields of the Agro Pontino region (Lazio): they work 10–14 hours per day, seven days per week, for 3.00 euro per hour instead of 8.26 euro per 6.40 hours as stated by the relevant collective agreement. A growing number of these labourers take performance-enhancing drugs and painkillers in order to cope with the long hours, poor working conditions and low pay. Cases of physical violence have been reported too. See In Migrazione, Doparsi per lavorare come schiavi. Un esercito di braccianti indiani sikh sfruttati e costretti a doparsi per sopportare la fatica dei campi e le violenze dei “padroni”, a pochi chilometri dalla Capitale (2014) http://www.inmigrazione.it/UserFiles/File/Documents/87_2014%20-%20DOPARSI%20PER%20LAVORARE%20COME%20SCHIAVI.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018; In Migrazione, Sfruttati a tempo indeterminato. Storie di un collaudato sistema di sfruttamento lavorativo dei braccianti agricoli nell’agro pontino (2014), http://www.inmigrazione.it/UserFiles/File/Documents/109_SFRUTTATI%20A%20TEMPO%20INDETERMINATO.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018; Marco Omizzolo, “The Sikh community in the province of Latina (Italy). Exploitation, discrimination, violence”, Review of Agrarian Studies 3, no. 1 (2013).

  16. 16.

    Alberto Di Martino, “‘Caporalato’ e repressione penale: appunti su una correlazione (troppo) scontata”, Diritto Penale Contemporaneo - Rivista Trimestrale 2 (2015): 106–126; Domenico Perrotta, “Il caporalato come sistema: un contributo sociologico” and Anselmo Botte, “Caporali per legge. Per un percorso legale nel lavoro agricolo”, both in Leggi, migranti e caporali. Prospettive critiche di ricerca sullo sfruttamento del lavoro in agricoltura, ed. Enrica Rigo (Pisa: Pacini, 2015), 15–30 and 115–127; Carlo Colloca and Alessandra Corrado, eds., La globalizzazione delle campagne. Migranti e società rurali nel Sud Italia (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2013); Francesco Carchedi, “Il lavoro gravemente sfruttato in agricoltura. Primi risultati di ricerca”, in Quasi schiavi. Paraschiavismo e super-sfruttamento nel mercato del lavoro del XXI secolo, Enzo Nocifera, ed. (Santarcangelo di Romagna: Maggioli Editore, 2014), 83–102.

  17. 17.

    Jean Allain, Andrew Crane, Genevieve Lebaron, and Laya Behbahani, Forced labour’s business models and supply chains (London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2013), 47–49.

  18. 18.

    Shelley Cavalieri, “The eyes that blind us: the overlooked phenomenon of trafficking into the agricultural sector”, Northern Illinois University Law Review 31 (2011), 514.

  19. 19.

    As stated by the European Commission, it should be emphasized that early identification is crucial to promptly assist, support and protect victims of trafficking in human beings and it may enable police and prosecution authorities to better investigate and punish traffickers: European Commission, Guidelines for the identification of victims of trafficking in human beings - Especially for Consular Services and Border Guards (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013), 3.

  20. 20.

    According to the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM), in Italy large retailers’ share of the food market grew from 44% in 1996 to 71% in 2011: Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, Indagine conoscitiva sul settore della GDO - IC43 (Roma: AGCM, 2013).

  21. 21.

    Institute of International Sociology, Light on: cross-community actions for combating the modern symbolism and languages of racism and discrimination. Understanding perception - Research as a tool against racism (Gorizia: ISIG, 2015), 77–80, http://www.lightonproject.eu/uploads/File/Final_Research_Report.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018. The agricultural model in the area is, indeed, based on low levels of investment in technological innovation, which is made possible by the use of “a real reserve army of undeclared or semi-undeclared work force, to be used only at specific moments, such as public holidays, production peaks, extreme rainfall events, malfunctioning machinery or ‘just-in-time’ supermarket orders”: Radici, Dossier Radici/Rosarno. Monitoraggio autunno/inverno 2010/2011 (2012), http://www.integrazionemigranti.gov.it/Documenti-e-ricerche/CampaniaDossier%20Radici%20Rosarno%202012%20FondazioneIntegrazione.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018.

  22. 22.

    Equality and Human Rights Commission, Inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sector: report of the findings and recommendations (London: EHRC, 2010).

  23. 23.

    Carlo Colloca and Alessandra Corrado, ed., La globalizzazione delle campagne. Migranti e società rurali nel Sud Italia (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2013) as cited by Letizia Palumbo and Alessandra Sciurba, “Vulnerability to forced labour and trafficking: the case of Romanian women in the agricultural sector in Sicily”, Anti Trafficking Review 5 (2015), 89–108.

  24. 24.

    Amnesty International, Exploited Labour. Migrant workers in Italy’s agricultural sector (London: Amnesty International Publications, 2012), 23.

  25. 25.

    Fundamental Rights Agency, Severe labour exploitation: workers moving within or into the European Union. States’ obligations and victims’ rights (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2015), 30. See further UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants - François Crépeau, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants - Labour exploitation of migrants, A/HRC/26/35, April 3, 2014.

  26. 26.

    Eurispes, Agromafie. 4° Rapporto sui crimini agroalimentari in Italia (Roma: Minerva, 2016); Medici per i diritti umani, Terra ingiusta. Rapporto sulle condizioni di vita e di lavoro dei braccianti stranieri in agricoltura (2015), http://www.mediciperidirittiumani.org/pdf/Terraingiusta.pdf, accessed August 5, 2018; Hannah Lewis and Louise Waite, “Asylum, immigration restrictions and exploitation: hyper-precarity as a lens for understanding and tackling forced labour”, Anti-Trafficking Review 5 (2015): 49–67; Letizia Palumbo and Alessandra Sciurba, “New mobility regimes, new forms of exploitation in Sicily”, Open Democracy, July 9, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/letizia-palumbo-alessandra-sciurba/new-mobility-regimes-new-forms-of-exploitation-in-s, accessed August 5, 2018; Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, Agromafie e Caporalato. Terzo Rapporto (Roma: Ediesse, 2016).

  27. 27.

    Beate Andrees and Patrick Belser, eds., Forced labour. Coercion and exploitation in the private economy (Boudler: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009), 89–90 as well as Beate Andrees, Forced labour and trafficking in Europe: how people are trapped in, live through and come out (Geneva: ILO, 2008), 1.

  28. 28.

    Louise Shelley, “The commodification of human smuggling and trafficking”, in Labour migration, human trafficking and multinational corporations: the commodification of illicit flows, ed. Ato Quayson and Antonela Arhin (London; New York: Routledge, 2012), 38–55.

  29. 29.

    The concept has been introduced by Skrivankova to understand and analyse the wide range of situations beginning from decent work to forced labour, overcoming the problem of absence of a clear definition of labour exploitation: Klara Skrivankova, Between decent work and forced labour: examining the continuum of exploitation (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2010), 16.

  30. 30.

    Compulsory military service, civic duties, work required to cope with an emergency situation and prison labour under certain stipulated conditions are not to be considered forced labour (Article 2, para. 2). The ILO Convention No. 105/1957, specifically addressing forced labour imposed by the State, has abolished several exceptions, such as forced labour used as (a) a mean of political coercion or education, or as a punishment for holding or expressing political views or views ideologically opposed to the established political, social or economic system; (b) a method of mobilizing and using labour for purposes of economic development; (c) a mean of labour discipline; (d) a punishment for having participated in strikes; (e) a means of racial, social, national or religious discrimination. See also the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of 1998.

  31. 31.

    According to the Palermo Protocol (2000), “trafficking in persons” means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation (see Article 3). International Labour Conference, Report III - Part 1B. General Survey concerning the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105) (Geneva: ILO, 2007), 77.

  32. 32.

    Natalia Ollus, “Regulating forced labour and combating human trafficking: the relevance of historical definitions in a contemporary perspective”, Crime, Law and Social Change 63, no. 5 (2015): 221–246.

  33. 33.

    International Labour Organization, ILO global estimate of forced labour. Results and methodology (Geneva: ILO, 2012), 13. The estimate covers the period 2002–2011, meaning that around 3 out of every 1000 persons worldwide were in forced labour at any given point in time over the ten-year reference period. According to the most updated available data, an estimated 24.9 million people were in forced labour at any moment in time in 2016. Out of them, 16 million people were exploited in the private sector. See further International Labour Organization, Walk Free Foundation, and International Organization for Migration, Global estimates of modern slavery: forced labour and forced marriage (Geneva: ILO, 2017).

  34. 34.

    It entered into force on November 9, 2016 (see Article 8). See also Recommendation No. 203.

  35. 35.

    Article 2, lett. e, 2014 ILO Protocol.

  36. 36.

    Article 22, para. 12, Consolidate Immigration Act prohibits the employment of illegally staying third-country nationals, in conformity with Article 3, Directive 2009/52/EC. When such illegal employment is accompanied by “particularly exploitative working conditions” the punishment is increased (Article 22, para. 12 bis, Consolidated Immigration Act).

  37. 37.

    To date, Article 603 bis CC, still titled “Illegal intermediation and exploitation of labour”, punishes: (1) whoever recruits workers for third parties under exploitative conditions, taking advantage of the workers’ state of need; and (2) whoever uses, hires or employs workers, including through brokering activities, exploiting them and taking advantage of their state of need. It has been introduced to fill the gap in the legal system by countering the distortions of the labour market that, as characterized by exploitation, lie in between mere illegal brokering activities and the crime of slavery. However, as the provision has been reframed in 2016, there is no experience to date with its practical implementation and enforcement.

  38. 38.

    To date, Article 600 CC, titled “Reduction or maintenance in a condition of slavery or servitude”, reads as follow: “Whosoever exercises over a person powers corresponding to those of the right of ownership or whosoever reduces or holds a person in a state of continuative subjection, forcing the victim to do work or perform sexual services or to beg or any other activity that involves exploitation or to consent to organ removal shall be punished by imprisonment from eight to twenty years”. See Article 2, para. 1, lett. b) of Legislative Decree No. 24/2014. Unofficial translation.

  39. 39.

    Article 601 CC reads as follows: “A term of imprisonment from eight to twenty years shall be applied to whoever recruits, introduces into the territory of the State, transfers even outside said territory, transports, yields authority over a person to another person, offers lodging to one or more persons who are in the conditions specified in Article 600, or performs the said conducts against one or more persons by deceit, violence, threats, abuse of authority or taking advantage of a situation of vulnerability, or of a weaker physical or psychic condition or a condition of need, or by promising or giving money or of any other advantage to the person having control over that person, for the purpose of inducing or forcing him/her to perform work, sex or to beg or, in any case, to perform unlawful activities entailing his/her exploitation or removal of organs.” Unofficial translation. No specific provision has been introduced with respect to Article 8 of the Trafficking Directive providing for non-punishment of trafficking victims involved in criminal activities they have been compelled to commit as a direct consequence of being trafficked.

  40. 40.

    Article 12, Consolidated Immigration Act.

  41. 41.

    See Article 572 CC.

  42. 42.

    See Article 629 CC.

  43. 43.

    Thus, concerning labour exploitation crimes under Articles 600, 601, 603 bis in its own new formulation and 629 CC.

  44. 44.

    The social assistance programme under Article 18 Consolidated Immigration Act provides victims with long-term accommodation (the permit lasts six months but it can be renewed for one more year), training courses, access to social services, legal advice and psychological follow-up. Finding decent work remains the biggest challenge.

  45. 45.

    Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Report by Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, following her visit to Italy from 17–18 June and 15–19 July 2013 (Vienna: OSCE, 2013), 9.

  46. 46.

    A diverse application practice across the national territory, especially with regard to the “social path”, has been pointed out: Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, “Verso una nuova strategia contro la tratta e lo sfruttamento”, in Quasi schiavi. Paraschiavismo e super-sfruttamento nel mercato del lavoro del XXI secolo, ed. Enzo Nocifera (Santarcangelo di Romagna: Maggioli Editore, 2014), 123–132 and Vincenzo Castelli, Punto e a capo sulla tratta. Uno studio sulle forme di sfruttamento di esseri umani in Italia e sul sistema di interventi a tutela delle vittime (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2014), 242.

  47. 47.

    Fundamental Rights Agency, Severe labour exploitation: workers moving within or into the European Union. States’ obligations and victims’ rights (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2015), 44.

  48. 48.

    Chris Forde and Robert MacKenzie, “Employers’ use of low-skilled migrant workers: assessing the implications for human resource management”, International Journal of Manpower 30, no. 5 (2009): 437–452.

  49. 49.

    Andreas Inghammar, “The employment contract revisited. Undocumented migrant workers and the intersection between international standards, immigration policy and employment law”, European Journal of Migration and Law 12, no. 2 (2010): 212.

  50. 50.

    Francesco Carchedi, Schiavitù di ritorno (Santarcangelo di Romagna: Maggioli Editore, 2010), 53.

  51. 51.

    The agricultural sector in itself is characterized by high rates of irregularities: pursuant to Eurispes’ estimate, the rate of irregularities has grown to 35% in 2015. See Eurispes, Agromafie. 4° Rapporto sui crimini agroalimentari in Italia (Roma: Minerva, 2016), 152–153.

  52. 52.

    Article 10 bis of the Consolidated Immigration Act—introduced with the 2009 Security Package—provides that “unless the fact constitutes a more serious offence, the alien who enters or remains on the national territory, in breach of the Consolidated Immigration Act or of Article 1, Law No. 68/2007, is punishable by a pecuniary penalty of between 5000 and 10,000 euros”. The crime had been announced to be abolished and dealt with merely under administrative law, but the deadline to enact the parliamentary decree—Law No. 67/2014—expired on November 17, 2015. Thus, the crime of illegal entry and stay is still in force, even though the announced decriminalization. Irregular migration is unlawful in all EU Member States in compliance with Article 79, TfEU and triggers a return procedure accordingly Directive 2008/115/EC. EU law does not prevent Member States to impose a criminal sanction for irregular entry and stay in addition to the removal of the person from the territory of the State, to the extent that it does not undermine the latter: what matters is that domestic sanctions do not interfere with expedited return (the real object of the Return Directive).

  53. 53.

    UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children - Joy Ngozi Ezeilo. Mission to Italy, UN Doc., A/HRC/26/37/Add.4, April 1, 2014, 37.

  54. 54.

    UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review - Italy, UN Doc. A/HRC/14/4, March 18, 2010. On the universal periodic review see Resolution 60/251 adopted by the General Assembly on March 15, 2006.

  55. 55.

    See Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Report by Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, following her visit to Italy from 17–18 June and 15–19 July 2013 (Vienna: OSCE, 2013), 21 and Amnesty International, Exploited Labour. Migrant workers in Italy’s agricultural sector (London: Amnesty International Publications, 2012), 29–31.

  56. 56.

    International Labour Conference, Application of International Labour Standards 2010 (I) - Report III (Part 1°) (Geneva: ILO, 2010).

  57. 57.

    International Labour Conference, Application of International Labour Standards 2012 (Geneva: ILO, 2012).

  58. 58.

    Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, Report concerning the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings by Italy (Strasbourg: CoE, 2014), 61, 112 and 125. Previously the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights had stated that the 2009 Security Package in Italy “presents a number of difficult challenges regarding the criminalization of foreigners”: Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Issue Paper - Criminalisation of migration in Europe: human rights implications (Strasbourg: CoE, 2010).

  59. 59.

    UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children - Joy Ngozi Ezeilo. Mission to Italy, UN Doc., A/HRC/26/37/Add.4, April 1, 2014, 37. It is noteworthy that under Article 8 of the EU Trafficking Directive No. 36/2011 (and Article 26 of the CoE Convention on Action against Trafficking), victims of trafficking in human beings should not be punished for their involvement in criminal activities committed as a direct consequence of their victimisation. This includes an exemption from punishment for immigration-related offences.

  60. 60.

    UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children - Joy Ngozi Ezeilo. Mission to Italy, UN Doc., A/HRC/26/37/Add.4, April 1, 2014, 33.

  61. 61.

    Following the adoption of the Trafficking Protocol, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has developed non-binding Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking, which provide guidance on how to integrate a human rights perspective into all anti-trafficking efforts: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Recommended principles and guidelines on human rights and human trafficking (Geneva: OHCHR, 2002), 3. The text was presented to the Economic and Social Council as an addendum to the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (E/2002/68/Add. 1).

  62. 62.

    Mantouvalou identifies three central elements to the exploitation of undocumented migrants: (a) legislative precariousness; (b) abuse of this vulnerability consisting in the violation of human rights; and (c) an aim to make profit. Following this theory, it might be said that Article 10 bis exacerbates migrants vulnerability, having unintended negative consequences for (trafficking) victims: Virginia Mantouvalou, The right to non-exploitative work, in The right to work. Legal and philosophical perspectives, ed. Virginia Mantouvalou (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2015), 39–60. For an overview of migrants’ vulnerability in the labour market focusing on the current organization of the production, see Louise Waite, Gary Craig, Hannah Lewis, and Klara Skrivankova, eds., Vulnerability, exploitation and migrants. Insecure work in a globalised economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

  63. 63.

    On this see also Alberto Caselli Lapeschi, L’azione penale a un bivio tra i delitti contro la persona e ricettazione, in Francesco Buccellato and Matteo Rescigno, Impresa e “forced labour”: strumenti di contrasto (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2015), 169.

  64. 64.

    Christien van den Anker, “Rights and responsibilities in trafficking for forced labour: migration regimes, labour law and welfare States”, Web Journal of Current Legal Issues, 1 (2009) and Toby Shelley, Exploited: migrant labour in the global economy (London: Zed Books, 2007).

  65. 65.

    See Art. 2, let. (f) of the 2014 ILO Protocol.

  66. 66.

    The concept of modern slavery though not legal is used by some scholar to further an expansionist approach to the elimination of slavery, capturing slavery and slavery like practices, forced labour and trafficking in persons.

  67. 67.

    Rosa Raffaelli, “The European approach to the protection of trafficking victims: the Council of Europe Convention, the EU Directive, and the Italian Experience”, German Law Journal 10, no. 3 (2009): 205–221 and Conny Rijken and Eefje de Volder, “The European Union’s struggle to realize a human rights-based approach to trafficking in human beings. A call on the EU to take THB-sensitive action in relevant areas of law”, Connecticut Journal of International Law 25, no. 49 (2009): 49–79.

  68. 68.

    See above Paragraph 4—Irregular migration and victims of exploitation.

  69. 69.

    See again European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Severe labour exploitation: workers moving within or into the European Union. States’ obligations and victims’ rights (Vienna: FRA, 2015), 44.

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    Paola Cavanna

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    Marco Borraccetti

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Cavanna, P. (2018). Forced Labour and Other Forms of Labour Exploitation in the Italian Agri-Food Sector: Strong Laws, Weak Protection for Migrant Workers. In: Borraccetti, M. (eds) Labour Migration in Europe Volume II. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93979-7_4

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