GRFDT

Putting light into the dark side of our system

In Conversation with Vincenzo Muratore[1]

Paddy Siyanga Knudsen: It’s time for me to introduce a migrant achiever organization. Because when I stumbled upon the story some years ago instead of as part of research, it was a story about a young man who had gone out to work as a migrant worker on a tomato farm. And as he was out there, so the kind of inhuman treatment that particularly Africa, young African migrants, was subjected to on Italian tomato farms. And he decided to do something about it. Unfortunately, he's not here to join us.

But the best part is that there is an organization that was formed by him…and Vincenzo will tell us a little bit more about it, because he's the project manager of an organization known as No Cap. And it's essentially I like what they put on their website. It's the story of activities Yvan Sagnet, who is not here with us and his international No Cap Association for the fight against illegal hiring and exploitation of labor. Vicenzo Maura Tory, please take us through what you do at No Cap. I know Yvan is not here with us. But I think he can tell us a bit more about what you do as a migrant achiever organization.

Vincenzo Muratore: So thank you very much for inviting us. And we're very proud to be here. And I would like also to thank all the people that have before me….Anyway, I'm here to talk about something else. I prefer the choice more presentation. So, if I can, I'd like to share with you thought to be also a bit more aligned with the moment please…

So, well, this is our organization called ‘No-Cap’. And you can see here, our email and I want to introduce before just time, our organization and everybody would like to split my interpretation into three main parts. So, I want to introduce before Yvan Sagnet, and that of course, center, you have the greetings and for the thanks for this invitation. Then I would like to just speak a little bit about this phenomenon that is called a plateau in Italy. You're talking about notation, we are talking about new slavery actually and at the ends about I will have to talk about ‘No-Cap’.

So he is Yvan Sagnet. He is a 35 years old guy came in Italy in 2008. He came in Italy to study attend a Polytechnic University in Torino, Italy to begin engineering. After 2011 more or less, he gets lost there…..so he needed to find a proper job continuing to study so he decided to move from the north of Italy to the south of Italy in a small country in a small city actually call it now though in Puyallup is a southeast of Italy. And he was working as a tomato pickers. What was very strange that sadly, after a while, he understood that something was very wrong. I will show you some picture because it's quite interesting to see that these were the condition which the people were living, they were living in ghettos illegally in this country was unbelievable. And they were completely exploited by an illegal urbanization, we can call them Kappa rally, as an English book became Master, actually. And they were exploited walking for 10-12 hours per day, or salary was ridiculous.

We are talking about 10-15 year old bad day and working without any respect of their human rights without access to them top 40 so what you're done actually was just to the side to fat process was one of the most famous products in Italy in 2011. We call their now door strike. And it was quite interesting because at the beginning, he was completely alone, but he understood that he needed community to fight together. And as he brought, he said, Actually, the workers in that ghetto doesn't know they arrived. They were completely normal about what was the low in Italy. They were mainly immigrants, of course, but he The main problem was that they were completely normal and not aware about their rights.

So he started this be tried, it was a big protest. And for the first time, I remember that, apparently, it was in 2011. And I remember that all the newspaper for the first time started to talk about the slavery in Italy. It was shocked prolapse. And we didn't know really, we didn't know. And that one was the first main process that we had before in the agricultural sector, that is one of the main sector, where these illegal activities take place. And after that, of course, he started the big activities he created, the group started creating our No-Cap, his organization, and after that, he brought several books. And at the end, just one of the most important recognition, he received one of the most important awards in Italy, and his medal for his fight, for this human right which was very important is what teach this exploitation because we didn't know in that period, and he started to understand that the main important thing was “to put light into this dark side of our system”.

So we have at the moment what we had a moment on sorry, we have 1.3 million workers in the sector, agricultural sector, and part of them are forming. It's quite important because we are not talking about just about people coming from outside the EU talking about also European Union citizens, and also Italian citizens working in slavery, actually, in this very pet system. We are 430,000 exploitive people that work mainly as a system award seasonal workers. And we can say that we have more or less at the moment in Italy 180,000 people come, we can consider its race. This is unbelievable. And we have eight zones in Italy, that we consider now as a high risk of copper lotto. And that 60% of these modern slaves, we call them modern slaves, they don't have access to the NHS or the top water order, you know, legalizing, and we are totally on the alpha and illegal business in general on this produce something like so content billions emails per year isn't a very big, big, big business.

And what we have done actually walking hard is I will not say you all the work that was behind this, but actually Finally, in 2016, we achieved his main goal, which was to have an approval from our local Italian Vogue mentor, the first anti copper collateral node. We know that also in the UK, we had in in 2015, the first and modern and modern slavery act. And finally, in 2018, we had a directive from the European Union that condemned this kind of theory all around Europe, it was shocking also to understand, because at the beginning, we were thinking that the problem was just in South Italy, you know, after that we discovered the problem was in North Italia, studying deeply who is cold. And we are discovering day by day that the problem is all around Europe, we have the same situation in a different way, in Spain, in France, and also in Germany, and Belgium and so on.

For watching the entire Interview, please feel free to go to GRFDT’s official YouTube Channel “Diaspora and Transnationalism”. URL of the entire interview is as follows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guA68qH5Ikk&t=3976s