Italy's Sikh Slaves:The Exploitation of Sikh Agricultural Workers in Italy By Organised Crime Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic.

The vast agricultural plains of the Agro-Pontino in central Italy is now one of the country's main areas of food production.

This 100 mile-long stretch of land facing the Tyrrhenian Sea was marshland until a century ago when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini organised a mass migration from northern Italy to drain the swamps and turn them into fertile farmland.

Sikh Workers Toiling in Fields Get Just Half a Day Off A Week, With Most of Them Spending That Time in The Local Gurdwara.

Mostly Sikhs from Punjab in northern India, they are economic migrants who have come here to work in local farms and send money home to give their families a better life.

Some manage to do just that. But for many others, their dreams are crushed.Instead, they face abuse and exploitation from both profit-driven agri-businesses and organised crime - labouring for pitiful wages, often without official documentation, and trapped in a system from which there is no escape.

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2020/08/italy-sikh-slaves-200819073932216.html

Dr. Gurdeep Kaur
Associate Professor
Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College
University of Delhi