LATINA – Over three thousand people they marched from the Latina bus lines to Piazza della Libertà for the demonstration of the Indian community of Lazio with the trade unions of CISL and UIL Fai-Cisl and UilA Uil, to ask for measures against gangmastering in agriculture after the death of Satnam Singhthe illegal Indian agricultural worker dumped by his employer far from the company where he had seriously injured himself while working, and then bled to death.
Three days after the demonstration called by the CGILthe union that first and immediately after the events reported the episode, from the stage spoke among others the representative of the Indian community in Lazio, Gurmukh Singh, the representatives of the trade unions who promoted the new demonstration, the mayor of Latina Celentano. The testimony of a colleague from Satnam is dramatic, Taranjeet Singhone of the workers present when Antonello Lovato loaded the seriously injured 31-year-old Indian into the van and then unloaded him and his young partner in front of the house where the two lived, leaving him without help.
THE WITNESS – Taranjeet who is still in shock, and who is now also unemployed “after the accident – he said – they never called me to work again”, with the help of a translator, retraced the dramatic moments following the accident. First the screams of the injured laborer, then the attitude of the employer who shouted asking everyone to be quiet, uttering curses and blasphemies, then the decision to single-handedly load the injured worker onto the van with what remained of the arm in a cassette and leave the company at full speed. “I told him to call for help, but he didn’t care and did what he wanted,” Taranjeet said.
LIndian community demands dignity and respect: «We want rights at work. We want justice. We don’t want what happened in Satnam to happen again”, says Gurmukh Singh.
From the stage, the unions loudly asked that all institutions and politicians act to prevent things like this from happening again, recalling that it is the same reception system for workers that determines their state of clandestinity during which they become invisible and can be exploited in the fields.
THE HYPOCRISY OF A SICK SYSTEM – “These workers come with a seasonal residence permit and once the season ends they go underground.” The hypocrisy of the system told by provincial secretary of Uil, Luigi Garullo: “But consciences are awakening.”
SONI’S PARENTS WILL ARRIVE IN ITALY – “Defeating gangmastering is a war of civilization. And wars of civilization are won by all together, because no one can do it alone,” he concluded from the stage the mayor of Latina, Celentano who met the victim’s wife: “I will never forget her blank stare. A tragedy that struck her that cannot leave us indifferent. A young woman deprived of the affection dearest to her, far from her family. For this reason I was immediately interested in ensuring that she was followed up immediately by social services, also requesting psychological support from the local health authority. Soni expressed to me the desire to want her parents by her side in this painful moment and I made a commitment with her, namely that I would personally take action to have her mother and father come here from India. For this reason, yesterday morning, I made contact with the Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and with the Farnesina to verify whether the conditions were right to facilitate the entry into Italy of the girl’s parents. The good news has arrived: the Farnesina has taken steps to issue visas for Soni’s mother and sister, for whom a meeting is scheduled at the diplomatic headquarters in New Delhi to organize the trip. At the same time, I have been concerned that the young woman has legal protection in our country, which is necessary so that no one can take advantage of her fragility, in this particular moment. The president of the Latina Bar Association, Giovanni Lauretti, who I contacted, has made himself available to provide her with the legal assistance she needs. As for the announced mourning of the city: I confirm that it will take place. We are waiting to understand how the funeral rite will be carried out and the relative timing to intervene with a specific ordinance that will interpret the sentiment of the entire city”.
THE LAW MUST BE APPLIED – “This is a matter of great inhumanity against which we must all rebel, and then it must be a stimulus to react: on the one hand with a different management of migratory flows, stopping these instrumental hate campaigns against foreign workers and cascading with a series of actions already foreseen by law 199 of 2016, the law on gangmastering which has never been applied”, he commented the president of the Province Gerardo Stefanelli
