Migrant workers in southern Italy continue to face exploitation, MEDU warns

Rome: The Italian organization Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU) has once again shed light on the exploitation of migrants employed for the harvesting of citrus fruits in the area of Piana di Gioia Tauro, in the southern Italian region of Calabria.

For the 12th consecutive year, the NGO Doctors for Human Rights (Medici per i Diritti Umani, MEDU) has been operating in the Piana di Gioia Tauro region with its mobile clinic as part of the project “Open Country: Laboratory of Territorial Practices to Promote the Dignity of Life and Labour”.

Over 12 years of uninterrupted activity, the humanitarian organization has provided medical assistance and information to thousands of people about their rights, bringing to the attention of institutions and public opinion the precarious living and working conditions of migrants employed to harvest citrus fruits.

During the recent season, from November 2024 until February 2025, MEDU’s team — including a doctor, a coordinator, a cultural mediator and a legal operator — offered medical, social, and legal aid to 371 individuals. Their mobile clinic operated three times a week in the shantytown of San Ferdinando, Contrada Russo in Taurianova and Largo Bruniani in Rosarno.

The people assisted were mainly men between the ages of 31 and 50 (61 percent), coming from nearly all Western African countries, as well as from Maghreb (Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania), Sudan, Cameroon, and Bulgaria. The figures showed a situation already reported in the past: the majority of workers who were in contact with the team (87 percent) had a regular residence permit. Among them, 25 percent had subsidiary protection, 17 percent a work permit and 17 percent special protection.

Only 10 percent of the people interviewed did not have a regular residence permit and 3 percent did not provide any information.

Some 78 percent of the migrants MEDU met had been living in Italy for more than three years and mainly worked in agriculture, migrating to different regions over the course of the year.

MEDU denounced that 15 years after the Rosarno riots of January 7, 2010, when hundreds of African immigrant workers staged a violent protest, clashing with police and causing significant damage in the town, many farmworkers still face exploitation on the job.

Many farmhands — 70 percent of people who replied to the question — had a short-term contract (ranging from a week to three months), and were often paid less than the salary stated in their contract. They also had fewer days off or no vacation time, according to the NGO.

Farmhands without a contract — or 30 percent of the people who provided information on their contract — were even more exposed to exploitation, MEDU noted.

According to the organization, regardless of the conditions outlined by contracts, the migrants it aided were all in a state of need that made them more vulnerable, with extremely flexible working hours and salaries that were lower than previously established.

Among the people it assisted, some provided information on how they were paid: out of 66 workers, 35 percent were only paid in cash, 33 percent through a bank transfer and the remaining 32 both in cash and through a bank account.

In addition, among the 55 people who discussed the issue with the organization, 58 percent said they did not get a pay slip and only one said they had reached through the 102 days necessary to apply for unemployment.

Moreover MEDU denounced that farmhands had trouble finding adequate housing. Grave difficulties persist in finding lodgings in residential areas, forcing many workers to live in makeshift and unhealthy shelters or on the outskirts of residential areas, it said.