"New report denounces labor conditions for agricultural migrant workers in Italy", 21 June 2021

The organization Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU) said in a new report published on June 17 that the situation for migrant farmhands working in the fields on the Gioia Tauro plain are "desolate."

MEDU, which is operating in the area for the eighth consecutive year, said that tent camps where farmhands live have become "shanty towns" and there are "piles of waste in informal settlements as well as housing centers."

Transportation is "nonexistent, healthcare is near collapse" and institutions are "powerless and often placed into receivership," the report found. It also said undeclared work was very common and the agricultural sector is "in crisis."

MEDU went on to say in a statement that "access to [medical] treatment is hampered by red tape, lack of information, isolation in housing and on the job. Access to basic rights remains blocked for many due to irregularities in contracts, salaries and social security positions that systematically characterize" these types of contracts.

The second wave of COVID-19, pointed out MEDU, affected the container camp in Rosarno and the new tent camp in the town of San Ferdinando, leading to the creation of two red zones, "but the initiatives of epidemiological monitoring were incoherent and scarcely effective."...

The full report is available in Italian and can be found on Medici per i Diritti Umani's website.