Agriculture/Agriculture Italian police free 33 Indian farm workers

Italian police have freed 33 Indian harvest workers from slave-like working conditions in the northern Italian province of Verona. Two Indians were arrested for exploiting foreign workers, the police announced on Saturday.

Assets worth 475,000 euros were confiscated from the suspects. They own two farms without employees.

The migrants were given jobs in agriculture, working seven days a week for twelve hours a day for just four euros an hour, according to the police. The treatment of the migrants was described by the police as "slavery".

Some of those affected were forced to work for free and pay an additional 13,000 euros for an unlimited work permit, which in reality would never have been granted to them, it was said.

Like other European countries, Italy is also suffering from an increasing shortage of labor, which is often compensated for by immigration, especially in lower-paid professions. Following the death of an Indian harvest worker in a work accident in the fields south of Rome, a debate about slave-like working conditions in the agricultural sector has begun. Following the accident, the government has tightened controls against undeclared work in the agricultural sector.