ROME – Thousands of migrants are being lured to Italy with false promises of work and forced to live in conditions akin to slavery, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said yesterday.
In a study of a migrant camp near the town of San Nicola Varco, 100km (63 miles) south of Naples, IOM officials found 1,200 migrants squatting in abandoned buildings without water and electricity, eking out a living among piles of rubbish.
The young men, most of them from Morocco, were being paid between €15 and €25 for a 12-hour day labouring in nearby greenhouses and fields, without work contracts. Their employers often charged them for basics like transport and water.
“The humanitarian emergency has become serious because they are living in conditions that are unsustainable,” said Flavio Di Giacomo, IOM spokesman in Italy. “The salaries are well below the minimum. It is a kind of slavery.”
Mr Di Giacomo said San Nicola Varco was one of the largest migrant settlements, but there were many more across southern Italy. – (Reuters)