Welcome to Italy enjoy your bloodstained food

did you know that we have actual slaves

in europe

did you know that more than a hundred

thousand workers are currently enslaved

in italy yes

here in europe most of them are paid

three euros per hour

to work around 11 hours per day every

day

with no contract no access to hygienic

facilities

and nothing that even remotely resembles

a human right

often they’re not even paid their wages

they are threatened with death to work

for free

they are abused tortured and killed

women are raped and their children are

held hostage

they die of fatigue and heat strokes in

our marvelous italian fields

yes their body collapse as they’re

picking up our delicious food

nationally there are more than four

hundred thousand workers

exploited in agriculture under the mafia

system

that is called capralato capitalato is

an illegal mediation system

that organizes workers

the capital as they’re called are

mediators between the employer and the

worker

and they legally receive wages

in order to take care

recruit and transport workers

the take care includes finding them an

accommodation which often

ends up just being islam an abandoned

farm

or even a mattress on the street

workers employed under this mafia system

also have to pay capara themselves

so these mediators they receive wages

both from employers both from workers

and workers have to pay for their own

accommodation transportation and

provisions

they have to pay for those if they want

a job

now you’re probably wondering why in the

world would anyone accept

to work in such conditions and most of

all

why does our food system rely

on such

system today i will try to answer

these two questions for you

let us go back to numbers for a moment

nationally there are more than 400 000

workers exploited in agriculture

under the mafi system that is called

caprilado

three hundred thousand of them are

migrants

one hundred thousand of them are from

eastern europe

and the rest are mainly from africa

sub-saharan africa for the most

one 100 000 of them which makes one

quarter

work in complete enslaved conditions

it really resembles something you’ve

probably seen in old movies about

slavery

these workers are male and female

migrants and italians

so what do they have in common they are

outcast

they have nothing to do with our

socioeconomic system they are excluded

from it

and here lays the strength of this

system

60 of them don’t have access to water

while working

now imagine you are on an italian beach

it’s august it’s 40 degrees

the sun is burning up and you would love

a sip of water

but there’s none you ask around and

you’re told to drink

from the sewer system nearby like a pig

now imagine you have been working for

the past 11 hours

without even making an actual living

imagine being the backbone of the

italian economy

and especially during the current

pandemic and at the same time

being invisible

today after all this talk about

sustainability

i wonder what’s sustainable about this

who harvest our food who picks it who

takes care of our livestock

it’s the workers but why don’t we see

them

do they either do they even get a chance

to join our political and social life or

are they just

accessories to our privilege and wealth

to our

allegedly healthy lifestyle to our food

blogging nights out

our food system nationally but also

globally mainly

rely on the cheap and disposable labor

force

of outcast mainly migrants that are

willing to accept

miserable living conditions in order to

survive

our economic system is supported by

people

who are denied basic human rights and

that tar at the same time

the force behind our wealth

in countries like italy where the former

formal institutions are often weak

international criminal organizations

like the mafia system

flourish and they manage to penetrate

wherever the state is absent

wherever it fails to protect its

citizens

what is crucial to understand here is

that

all those under the system and

especially those that operate illegally

are first of all victims of an

institutional vacuum

and of structural violence

this is a crucial point and i apologize

if today there is not enough time

to elaborate much on this

now i would like to tell you the story

of paula clemente

one of the many women who worked to

exhaustion in italy

who died of exhaustion in italy

paula was working the grape fields she

was separating the dried

and ugly grapes from the healthy looking

ones

to make it look good on our supermarket

stands

together with other workers she would

drive 300 kilometers back and forth

from her workplace to her hometown

their journey would take around two

hours and half

she would work 7 hours a day

making a total of 27 euros

nearly half of that wage 12 euros to be

precise

would go to the mediator the capitale

who found her a job

this would leave her with 15 euros per

hour for 7 hours worked

which is around 2 hours 2 euros per hour

she died on the 13th of july 2015

at 49 years old although paula clemente

was lucky enough to be remembered by

some of us

she was not lucky enough for us for her

death

to stop the oppression and violences

against people like her

despite the law against capriladore was

approved in 2016

a year later her death the system of

oppression is far from being over

in the newspapers at the time it was

told that paolo clemente died of a

natural death

what’s the meaning of nature really

something that has to do with nature

but what’s the meaning of that what’s

natural

really i mean her death had

something to do with nature if you think

about it but who would ever describe

such death as the nature of death to

work and die of exhaustion

under 40 degrees burning sun is it

natural

is it the nature to work with broken

fingers and ribs

and then get killed by the tire of a

truck

because you asked for a decent pay

is it natural to be coerced

into exploitation and then be found with

the face disfigured by acid

because you try to rebel

natural can also mean something obvious

something tied to the circumstances

and really if you think of it it’s not

wrong to say that workers death in

agriculture

is something obvious in other words it

is given that workers have to die

in order to pick our food

you see food is so political it’s

political how we grow it

how we collect it how we sell it how we

think of it

for us as consumers it is essential to

buy seasonal

and local products but this is not

enough

it is crucial to rethink food in a

global context

of exploitation and violence but also

resistance and the growth

food should feed not kill

i’m going to repeat this food should

feed

not kill

for the system to stop we must fight

against

corporate agriculture that forces

workers into an inhumane collection of

food

to do this we must first of all let

everyone know

how the improvement system works where

our food really comes from

we must let everyone know

if the terms of a fight are unclear the

results will disperse

we need to collaborate with all

interested parties

we need to create a slavery-free

certification in europe and subsidize

the companies that are opposing the

system every day

the companies that are opposing the

mafia infiltrations

in agriculture every day

it is necessary to give visibility to

the struggles

of the workers of the outcast of the

women of the people of color

who fight every day for this for this

system to change

we must fight along with them so they

can obtain

the rights for themselves the rights

to a decent job the right to housing all

the human rights everyone should be born

with

from what i’ve seen usually ted talks

and with young idolists mind-blowing the

public with light and hope

unfortunately i’m not here to spread

hope but awareness

i’m here to tell you that nothing will

go right

if you don’t act now

and i am absolutely afraid that you want

i am afraid you will go numb that you

will fall into your careless routine

and eventually you will start believing

that your life is worth more than

someone else’s

i’m here today to tell you that what you

believe in

is right and what is good

isn’t debatable what is good

is good and i’m here and it is your

choice and it is your

duty as well and it is your right to

fight for it

we must all fight alongside with farm

workers for them to win

we must use our voices especially if

privileged

as eco chambers for this ugly truth to

emerge

we must fight the system because we can

change it