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