1
00:00:00,755 --> 00:00:02,035
The foreman pushes you.

2
00:00:02,092 --> 00:00:04,321
He sees tomatoes on the ground 
and screams,

3
00:00:05,119 --> 00:00:06,313
"Pick them up!"

4
00:00:10,413 --> 00:00:16,392
If there are any left over he gets angry,
he pushes and slaps you.

5
00:00:17,240 --> 00:00:20,574
He hurts you, he doesn't respect you. 
That is slavery.

6
00:00:21,555 --> 00:00:23,966
Slavery, not just exploitation.

7
00:00:27,358 --> 00:00:31,103
Exploitation is unfair wages, but if they
push you,

8
00:00:31,317 --> 00:00:35,220
if you work in the full sun,
if you can't speak out,

9
00:00:35,220 --> 00:00:39,709
you don't have papers and you sleep in
ghettos - that's slavery.

10
00:00:39,709 --> 00:00:43,374
Modern day slavery does not require 
chains.

11
00:00:43,856 --> 00:00:46,493
What is happening here is slavery.

12
00:00:48,363 --> 00:00:54,272
Slavery in Italy

13
00:00:54,598 --> 00:00:57,798
A report by 
Katrin Sandmann and Fritz Schapp

14
00:01:02,476 --> 00:01:07,286
Yvan Sagnet refers to the over 400,000 
african and eastern-workers

15
00:01:07,286 --> 00:01:11,058
that work in the Italian agriculture 
industry as slaves.

16
00:01:11,911 --> 00:01:13,792
This man from Cameroon used to be 
one of them.

17
00:01:14,738 --> 00:01:18,649
Today, I fight for their rights 
against mafia-like unfair competition,

18
00:01:18,649 --> 00:01:21,825
abuse of power and exploitation

19
00:01:25,756 --> 00:01:30,152
Sañe wants to send the exploiters
to prison and put an end

20
00:01:30,152 --> 00:01:33,247
to the inhumane living condiitons
of these workers.

21
00:01:37,241 --> 00:01:39,976
These are typical living conditions
for the immigrants.

22
00:01:42,328 --> 00:01:47,843
They use the fireplace for everything as
there's no power, light or running water.

23
00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:49,522
Nothing at all.

24
00:01:52,979 --> 00:01:57,049
But they improvise; they use the fireplace
to heat and cook.

25
00:01:58,489 --> 00:02:01,901
This is used as a table.
There's not even any oil.

26
00:02:02,679 --> 00:02:04,771
And these are the plates they eat off.

27
00:02:18,110 --> 00:02:20,572
Look, there are eight mattresses.

28
00:02:22,802 --> 00:02:25,376
40 people may sleep here.

29
00:02:26,846 --> 00:02:27,660
See them?

30
00:02:27,910 --> 00:02:30,753
They put 40 people in this room.

31
00:02:44,981 --> 00:02:47,772
Plaster may fall on them as
they sleep

32
00:02:48,774 --> 00:02:50,521
and it's too cold.

33
00:02:51,540 --> 00:02:55,109
There's no glass in the windows. They're
covered with a metal sheet.

34
00:02:59,271 --> 00:03:01,024
The immigrants have to buy

35
00:03:01,024 --> 00:03:03,444
almost everything they need to survive

36
00:03:03,444 --> 00:03:06,402
from intermediaries called foremen.

37
00:03:07,212 --> 00:03:10,116
Sometimes they come from the same
countries as the workers.

38
00:03:11,278 --> 00:03:14,219
For a rotten mattress, they ask
for 10 euros.

39
00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:26,679
Italians live in that yellow house.
No foreigners, Italians.

40
00:03:28,020 --> 00:03:29,960
But they get on with the foremen.

41
00:03:30,691 --> 00:03:34,704
It's the only house in the area with
running water and power.

42
00:03:35,513 --> 00:03:39,917
The ones who live here have to go there
to charge their phones, for example.

43
00:03:40,506 --> 00:03:42,009
Because there's nothing here.

44
00:03:42,513 --> 00:03:47,911
And they charge 50 cents for each charge
and €1 or €1.50 to have a wash.

45
00:03:55,558 --> 00:03:59,878
It makes me cry. I am so disgusted
when I see that there are

46
00:03:59,878 --> 00:04:04,331
people who have to live in these
conditions in 21st century Italy.

47
00:04:07,705 --> 00:04:11,167
It's horrible, it's dreadful, and everyone
knows it.

48
00:04:12,892 --> 00:04:16,741
Everyone knows it but they don't care
because it's about immigrants.

49
00:04:18,581 --> 00:04:21,067
They treat immigrants like animals.

50
00:04:21,535 --> 00:04:23,162
They only want them to work so

51
00:04:23,162 --> 00:04:26,847
the farmers' and politicians' businesses
make money.

52
00:04:27,017 --> 00:04:29,327
They aren't considered human.

53
00:04:32,409 --> 00:04:34,810
This is Italy, welcome to Italy.

54
00:04:46,958 --> 00:04:51,758
The immigrants that live here are totally
controlled by the foremen

55
00:04:51,758 --> 00:04:54,963
who are organised like a kind of mafia.

56
00:04:55,493 --> 00:04:59,493
When the farmers need labour
for the fields,

57
00:04:59,493 --> 00:05:03,271
they call the intermediaries who abuse
their power

58
00:05:03,271 --> 00:05:06,495
to exploit and control the migrants.

59
00:05:08,619 --> 00:05:12,439
And they can do it because they live
alongside them in the ghettos.

60
00:05:20,782 --> 00:05:24,802
The regions of Apulia and Basilicata in
the south of Italy

61
00:05:24,802 --> 00:05:28,275
are the country's biggest vegetable
producers.

62
00:05:28,275 --> 00:05:32,516
30% of Italian tomatoes are harvested
in Apulia alone.

63
00:05:33,752 --> 00:05:38,759
The large ghettos are often found
in the isolated areas

64
00:05:38,759 --> 00:05:40,845
which surround the fields.

65
00:05:44,210 --> 00:05:47,710
Cities of misery grow there.

66
00:05:49,613 --> 00:05:55,328
If we go in, we'll have to use a hidden
camera. Put the big camera down.

67
00:06:05,463 --> 00:06:09,553
The foremen don't like camaras.

68
00:06:09,553 --> 00:06:13,385
They'd show their illegal business.

69
00:06:18,247 --> 00:06:23,527
And the immigrants are ashamed to be seen
living in the ghettos.

70
00:06:23,527 --> 00:06:25,624
They are ashamed to be recorded.

71
00:06:25,624 --> 00:06:28,807
They'd be ashamed if peopleback home
could see them like this.

72
00:06:29,957 --> 00:06:34,517
Because every time they speak to friends
and family, they tell a completely

73
00:06:34,517 --> 00:06:39,177
different story, where they are lawyers
or work in an office.

74
00:06:39,177 --> 00:06:41,910
They lie simply because they're ashamed
to admit

75
00:06:41,910 --> 00:06:44,449
what their life is really like.

76
00:06:49,753 --> 00:06:53,433
During the harvest, more than
3,000 people live here.

77
00:06:53,433 --> 00:06:56,199
Most of them are from Africa.

78
00:06:56,199 --> 00:07:00,645
They are people who arrived on the
coasts of Italy decades ago,

79
00:07:00,645 --> 00:07:05,188
the immigrants who Europe has been
abandoning to Italy for years.

80
00:07:05,188 --> 00:07:08,430
Some have papers. Others are illegal.

81
00:07:12,225 --> 00:07:16,415
The Italian government looks the other way
because without cheap labour,

82
00:07:16,415 --> 00:07:18,734
the harvests would go to waste.

83
00:07:19,817 --> 00:07:23,629
There's rubbish everywhere,
it attracts flies and mosquitos.

84
00:07:26,829 --> 00:07:30,786
In these ghettos, there's neither
rubbish collection nor laws.

85
00:07:30,786 --> 00:07:36,216
This land, where the strongest rule,
is dangerous for Yvan.

86
00:07:36,216 --> 00:07:40,378
He suspects this is where the
death threats are coming from.

87
00:07:40,378 --> 00:07:45,379
The foremen who live here know
that he's their most determined enemy.

88
00:07:45,379 --> 00:07:50,752
Yvan has spent years gathering proof of
their illegal behaviour in these fields.

89
00:07:51,076 --> 00:07:54,626
He's looking for witnesses and
identifying criminals.

90
00:07:54,626 --> 00:07:58,375
That's why he knows many of the
inhabitants and their stories,

91
00:07:58,375 --> 00:08:00,662
like the one of this man from Sudan.

92
00:08:00,662 --> 00:08:02,859
He fled to Italy 20 years ago.

93
00:08:13,623 --> 00:08:18,032
His European dream ended in a hut
where he sells second hand clothes.

94
00:08:20,643 --> 00:08:23,616
His customers are refugees from
all around the world.

95
00:08:27,831 --> 00:08:32,326
Suddenly a man approaches Yvan.
He's a foreman.

96
00:08:36,772 --> 00:08:42,205
He exaggerates his nervousness, but
he urges us to leave.

97
00:08:49,002 --> 00:08:52,009
We want to put an end to these ghettos
once and for all.

98
00:08:52,650 --> 00:08:57,973
We demand structures, water, light
kitchens, decent bedrooms,

99
00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:01,749
and my dream is to achieve all this
with NOCAP.

100
00:09:10,657 --> 00:09:16,575
Roma. Yvan Sagnet lives and works in the
city centre, near the Vatican.

101
00:09:23,487 --> 00:09:26,633
Here in his apartment, he founded NOCAP,

102
00:09:26,633 --> 00:09:31,169
a certification system for
ethically-produced food.

103
00:09:35,012 --> 00:09:40,272
NOCAP is based on article 4 of the
universal declaration of human rights,

104
00:09:40,272 --> 00:09:45,085
which says "No one shall be held
in slavery or servitude;

105
00:09:45,085 --> 00:09:49,927
slavery and the slave trade shall be
prohibited in all their forms."

106
00:09:56,743 --> 00:10:01,193
NOCAP is an organisation that says "no"
to the foreman system,

107
00:10:02,413 --> 00:10:05,344
and opposes it with a labelling system.

108
00:10:06,938 --> 00:10:11,998
We put these labels on products from all
the farmers who don't exploit

109
00:10:11,998 --> 00:10:17,561
their workers, after checking that
they respect the workers' rights.

110
00:10:24,103 --> 00:10:29,357
We have started a collaboration with
an association of small farmers

111
00:10:29,357 --> 00:10:32,271
called "Altra-Agricultura".

112
00:10:32,638 --> 00:10:35,446
There are sixty thousand producers.

113
00:10:37,735 --> 00:10:41,377
That's how we've started with a small
and solid base.

114
00:10:47,306 --> 00:10:51,906
Yvan's commitment to human rights and
his bravery when it comes to calling out

115
00:10:51,906 --> 00:10:55,176
and reporting the mafioso structures
in agriculture

116
00:10:55,176 --> 00:10:57,136
is valued by the Italian president,

117
00:10:57,136 --> 00:11:01,597
Sergio Matarella, who awarded him a
a knighthood in 2017.

118
00:11:08,130 --> 00:11:10,777
It was a great moment in my life.

119
00:11:10,777 --> 00:11:15,075
It was an amazing moment, because I
received recognition from a country

120
00:11:15,075 --> 00:11:17,333
of which I don't have citizenship.

121
00:11:17,888 --> 00:11:21,623
I'm not Italian, I'm still Camaroonian
at the moment.

122
00:11:21,623 --> 00:11:26,132
And receiving an award from Italy made
me so happy.

123
00:11:29,477 --> 00:11:34,337
[Singing in Italian]

124
00:11:34,337 --> 00:11:39,052
In 2017, Yvan is a father. It's a year
full of happiness.

125
00:11:39,052 --> 00:11:42,489
But it is overshadowed by death threats.

126
00:11:42,489 --> 00:11:47,203
His enemies know that Yvan is ready to
take them to the supreme court.

127
00:11:51,406 --> 00:11:54,873
Verónica, his wife,
fears the consequences.

128
00:11:56,116 --> 00:12:00,116
[Singing in Italian]

129
00:12:00,742 --> 00:12:04,472
Unfortunately, the death threats indicate
how well he's doing his job,

130
00:12:04,472 --> 00:12:07,892
how much he's obstructing the
interests of the powerful.

131
00:12:07,892 --> 00:12:11,263
And naturally, as his family,
that worries us.

132
00:12:16,029 --> 00:12:20,252
Especially when he goes to the places
those death threats come from.

133
00:12:21,844 --> 00:12:26,055
We pray that he can achieve
what he wants without coming to harm.

134
00:12:36,155 --> 00:12:39,667
Yvan has proved that he's very brave
and tenacious,

135
00:12:39,667 --> 00:12:43,970
and he's shown us that it's possible
to change things, little by little,

136
00:12:43,970 --> 00:12:46,816
by working hard and making sacrifices.

137
00:12:46,816 --> 00:12:50,046
And he has my support in that battle
he fights every day.

138
00:12:55,993 --> 00:13:00,913
In 2017, Yvan arrived in Italy,
the country he'd admired since childhood,

139
00:13:00,913 --> 00:13:03,726
not to fight, but to study.

140
00:13:04,626 --> 00:13:06,961
It was all going well until he failed
an exam

141
00:13:06,961 --> 00:13:09,427
and lost his grant at Turin University.

142
00:13:10,053 --> 00:13:14,193
His desperate search for work led
him to Nardó, in the south,

143
00:13:14,193 --> 00:13:16,030
to the tomato harvest.

144
00:13:24,752 --> 00:13:28,722
Yvan Sagnet arrived at this station on
10 July 2011,

145
00:13:28,722 --> 00:13:31,726
and something happened that changed
his life forever.

146
00:13:37,034 --> 00:13:41,594
Today, this 33 year-old is returning
to the outskirts of the place

147
00:13:41,594 --> 00:13:47,413
where, at the time, there were thousands
of African workers in dome tents,

148
00:13:47,413 --> 00:13:50,623
under plastic covers or outdoors.

149
00:13:59,346 --> 00:14:02,575
This was incredibly dirty and
it was very hot,

150
00:14:02,575 --> 00:14:06,037
and I asked God, "What is this? Where have
I ended up?"

151
00:14:12,244 --> 00:14:16,106
I'd been living in a normal environment
in Turin,

152
00:14:16,106 --> 00:14:20,395
where I was living in normal house,
a student residence

153
00:14:20,395 --> 00:14:24,085
with a bath, my own room, a bed.

154
00:14:24,085 --> 00:14:29,403
And suddenly I found myself in a place
sleeping on a mattress outdoors.

155
00:14:37,635 --> 00:14:40,479
While exploring the terrain, Yvan
discovers that

156
00:14:40,479 --> 00:14:42,739
there are harvest workers here again.

157
00:14:46,865 --> 00:14:51,700
There aren't many, but their conditions
are no better than back then.

158
00:15:08,854 --> 00:15:13,241
Three days after he arrived, he met
a foreman called Meki.

159
00:15:14,474 --> 00:15:18,864
He was from Sudan. A big strong guy.

160
00:15:21,585 --> 00:15:26,230
Yvan spent four days in the fields
under Meki's brutal control.

161
00:15:26,230 --> 00:15:30,339
He was paid one euro for every
100 kilos of tomatoes picked.

162
00:15:30,555 --> 00:15:33,952
He earnt a total of 14 kilos on day one.

163
00:15:34,478 --> 00:15:38,979
From that, he had to pay 10 to Meki for
transport, food and water.

164
00:15:42,347 --> 00:15:46,152
After a 14-hour day under the hot sun
and being beaten,

165
00:15:46,152 --> 00:15:48,069
he was left with four euros.

166
00:15:54,362 --> 00:15:57,751
That's it. And it would be even worse
if you got ill.

167
00:15:58,128 --> 00:16:02,746
I remember a co-worker who fainted
suddenly because of the sun.

168
00:16:02,746 --> 00:16:06,669
It was too hot. He fell to the floor.

169
00:16:07,728 --> 00:16:10,139
Damn, it was really hard.

170
00:16:12,549 --> 00:16:17,587
I was next to him when he fell and I asked
him what happened, what should I do.

171
00:16:17,587 --> 00:16:20,734
I went to find water and
poured it on him.

172
00:16:24,513 --> 00:16:27,693
I told the foreman he needed to go
to hospital.

173
00:16:27,693 --> 00:16:30,700
But there wasn't one nearby.

174
00:16:33,101 --> 00:16:36,013
The nearest hospital was a long way away.

175
00:16:37,021 --> 00:16:44,635
And the foreman answered: "Leave him.
If you want him to go to hospital,

176
00:16:44,635 --> 00:16:48,285
I'll charge you 50 euros
for the transport."

177
00:16:48,285 --> 00:16:51,883
That isn't even exploitation.
It's slavery.

178
00:16:55,936 --> 00:16:59,891
The man barely survived the collapse
in the field.

179
00:17:01,775 --> 00:17:09,554
I worked for five days and on the fifth,
we said "Enough. We're exhausted.

180
00:17:10,464 --> 00:17:14,427
We want a contract. We want our
rights to be recognised.

181
00:17:14,427 --> 00:17:17,065
We're fed up of being
treated like slaves."

182
00:17:24,789 --> 00:17:29,046
Yvan called for a strike, the first
among the workers.

183
00:17:29,889 --> 00:17:31,932
The men from the ghetto follow him.

184
00:17:32,569 --> 00:17:35,871
The local TV channel, Telerama, reported
on the event.

185
00:17:35,871 --> 00:17:41,559
The death threats made Yvan flee,
but his indignation made him return.

186
00:17:42,361 --> 00:17:46,462
When three months later, the harvest was
in danger of rotting,

187
00:17:46,462 --> 00:17:50,733
the farmers gave up and offered more
money and work contracts.

188
00:17:51,729 --> 00:17:56,059
The govenment of Rome passed a law
against the brutal foreman system.

189
00:17:56,934 --> 00:18:02,942
Shortly afterwards, Yvan brough the first
case against owners and supervisors.

190
00:18:11,477 --> 00:18:14,787
Yvan has dedicated his life to the fight
for human rights,

191
00:18:14,787 --> 00:18:19,758
and today he's fighting on several fronts:
In industrial zones,

192
00:18:19,758 --> 00:18:24,129
in the fields, in the courts, and
increasingly at the negotiation tables.

193
00:18:25,412 --> 00:18:28,668
Here in Basilicata, he's meeting with
some farmers.

194
00:18:28,668 --> 00:18:31,238
And he needs speakers from among the

195
00:18:31,238 --> 00:18:33,768
workers' direct employers.

196
00:18:36,516 --> 00:18:39,896
The meeting was organised by Yvan's
main ally,

197
00:18:39,896 --> 00:18:42,255
the trade unionist Gianni Fabris.

198
00:18:43,762 --> 00:18:48,568
The production of fruit and vegetables
in Italy is on the verge of disaster.

199
00:18:48,568 --> 00:18:52,779
Our products are subjected to
"price dumping".

200
00:18:57,619 --> 00:19:01,433
The sellers tell the farmers
"I will pay the same

201
00:19:01,433 --> 00:19:04,706
for your peaches as I pay for those
from Morocco or Turkey.

202
00:19:04,706 --> 00:19:09,288
They are cheaper than yours. If you
want to sell them, that's the price."

203
00:19:09,288 --> 00:19:12,020
This is the reality in the
Italian countryside.

204
00:19:19,511 --> 00:19:23,747
The food industry corporations
keep the system as it is.

205
00:19:24,837 --> 00:19:29,327
They lower the prices to the minimum,
leaving no margin for the farmers to pay

206
00:19:30,017 --> 00:19:34,996
the workers, meaning the system dictates
they have to exploit their workers.

207
00:19:40,863 --> 00:19:45,433
Yvan is trying to find a solution with
farmers and trade unions.

208
00:19:49,542 --> 00:19:52,934
We need to raise awareness
and ask consumers

209
00:19:52,934 --> 00:19:55,502
to take more social responsibility.

210
00:19:55,935 --> 00:19:59,975
The consumer needs to be aware that for
every kilo of tomatoes they buy,

211
00:19:59,975 --> 00:20:01,376
there is a job.

212
00:20:03,065 --> 00:20:08,223
A job that exploits workers, or one that

213
00:20:08,223 --> 00:20:09,944
is ethically sound.

214
00:20:09,944 --> 00:20:13,072
If they don't rethink it, we're dead.

215
00:20:16,185 --> 00:20:19,656
A few days later, Yvan gets a message that
cheers him up.

216
00:20:20,404 --> 00:20:24,780
An Italian supermarket chain offered
him a first deal.

217
00:20:25,914 --> 00:20:28,445
They committed to buying NOCAP products,

218
00:20:28,445 --> 00:20:32,514
for a value of up to a million euros
for the first consigment.

219
00:20:33,059 --> 00:20:37,136
A great incentive for all those who
want to work with Yvan.

220
00:20:42,653 --> 00:20:48,196
Yvan shows us how the NOCAP
system works in Graziano.

221
00:20:49,818 --> 00:20:54,268
Here, the farmer picks up the workers
himself and doesn't leave transport

222
00:20:54,268 --> 00:20:56,384
in the hands of the intermediaries.

223
00:21:04,940 --> 00:21:08,009
The vans establish the power
of the foreman.

224
00:21:08,009 --> 00:21:11,073
They take the workers to the fields.

225
00:21:15,197 --> 00:21:17,145
There is no public transport.

226
00:21:17,145 --> 00:21:21,141
This means the foremen are in charge of
transporting them and abuse the situation.

227
00:21:23,164 --> 00:21:27,529
The foremen put up to 30 people
in one vehicle with a maximum

228
00:21:27,529 --> 00:21:29,508
of 8 passengers permitted.

229
00:21:30,427 --> 00:21:35,121
I can assure you that a journey in those
overloaded vans is horrible.

230
00:21:38,126 --> 00:21:42,416
Most of them have no window because
the foremen don't want the police to see

231
00:21:42,416 --> 00:21:44,484
how many people they're carrying.

232
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There's almost no air, and there
are deaths every year.

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In August 2008, two totally packed vans

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00:22:00,637 --> 00:22:03,624
crashed in a few days.

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16 African workers died.

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00:22:08,928 --> 00:22:15,601
I will do it differently. These lads
are workers who've come here

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in a normal vehicle.

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They haven't had to pay for transport.

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00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:26,914
As you can see, their clothes are white.
They're working clothes.

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00:22:26,914 --> 00:22:31,377
They also wear protective
masks and gloves.

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00:22:34,116 --> 00:22:36,221
We take care of occupational safety.

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00:22:38,184 --> 00:22:44,028
Before starting work here, everyone
signs a work contract.

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00:22:45,098 --> 00:22:47,334
And the salary complies
with the law.

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00:22:50,892 --> 00:22:55,236
In this field, they're going to pick the
last tomatoes of the season.

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00:22:55,236 --> 00:23:00,354
One of the workers, Tómas, from Ghana,
agrees to talk for a moment.

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00:23:02,361 --> 00:23:06,681
We don't usually have a contract, because
in Europe and Italy, you need

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00:23:06,681 --> 00:23:10,973
permits and contracts to find
a decent job.

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00:23:10,973 --> 00:23:14,676
That means that often we don't
leave the ghettos.

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00:23:17,118 --> 00:23:21,418
You believe we're bad people or that we're
not human beings.

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00:23:22,578 --> 00:23:26,599
Bur we are people, with a
different skin colour.

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00:23:26,599 --> 00:23:31,218
We have blood in our veins. We're all one.
We're all human.

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00:23:33,289 --> 00:23:38,109
The man in whose fields Tómas and 
the others are working thinks the same.

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00:23:38,588 --> 00:23:43,596
Giuseppe Viniola's family have been
growing organic vegetables for 30 years.

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00:23:50,968 --> 00:23:55,174
Viniola signs a contract with the workers.
Like an increasing amount of farmers,

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he's trying to leave behind the system
which, due to extreme price pressure,

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00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:01,872
makes him an exploiter.

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00:24:03,815 --> 00:24:08,035
I think the foreman system is the worst
possible error,

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00:24:08,035 --> 00:24:12,587
because it means you employ a workforce
which you are ultimately exploiting.

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00:24:13,046 --> 00:24:15,313
The tomato harvest is very hard so

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00:24:15,313 --> 00:24:18,277
it's essential to recognise the value
of their work.

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00:24:20,977 --> 00:24:24,780
That's why it's important to sign
contracts and protect the workers.

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00:24:25,090 --> 00:24:30,730
For the tomato harvest, we pay 
€5 net per hour plus bonuses.

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00:24:31,453 --> 00:24:34,908
That's double the amount paid by
foreman systems.

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00:24:45,395 --> 00:24:48,712
We must change the system from the roots
up for the tomato harvest.

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00:24:48,712 --> 00:24:52,887
There are great difficulties and it's
extremely hard to fight

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00:24:52,887 --> 00:24:54,217
against those prices.

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00:24:56,466 --> 00:25:01,306
An Italian trade unionist worked out what
needs to happen to solve this.

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00:25:01,747 --> 00:25:05,606
If the large commercial chains were to pay
the farmers,

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just two cents more per kilo of tomatoes,
they would have 235 million euros

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00:25:11,867 --> 00:25:13,587
of additional turnover.

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00:25:14,042 --> 00:25:17,642
This would allow them to provide the
workers with dignified

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00:25:17,642 --> 00:25:19,650
accomodation and working conditions.

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00:25:19,650 --> 00:25:22,951
And the problem with the foremen
would be resolved.

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00:25:27,890 --> 00:25:31,225
The end of October.
Lecce, in the south of Italy.

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00:25:32,104 --> 00:25:36,404
Yvan's battle against the leaders and
producers began five years ago.

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00:25:36,514 --> 00:25:41,484
This is where he had his biggest success.
A conviction in the first instance.

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00:25:42,077 --> 00:25:46,737
But now the court could also be
the setting for his worst defeat.

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00:25:51,655 --> 00:25:54,569
The appeal process begins today.

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00:25:59,348 --> 00:26:06,045
At the first hearing, nine foremen
were sentenced to 11 years in prison.

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00:26:08,907 --> 00:26:15,932
They were declared guilty of slavery;
nine foremen and

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00:26:15,932 --> 00:26:18,723
three Italian farmers were sentenced.

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00:26:24,277 --> 00:26:28,687
To begin with, about 50 of us testified
against those who exploited us

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00:26:28,687 --> 00:26:30,541
to the police.

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00:26:30,541 --> 00:26:33,496
We reported them all by name.

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00:26:33,496 --> 00:26:38,859
Today, there are only eight left
who are brave enough to testify.

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00:26:38,859 --> 00:26:41,208
I am the main witness.

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00:26:46,191 --> 00:26:49,581
Their enemies, sitting on the
accused bench,

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00:26:49,581 --> 00:26:52,391
defend themselves with
every means possible.

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00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,928
The farmers have a team of
expensive lawyers.

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00:26:57,288 --> 00:26:59,264
Yvan isn't happy.

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00:27:00,116 --> 00:27:02,805
"They all exploit workers.

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00:27:02,805 --> 00:27:06,734
I am one of their victims and I
stand by my statement.

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00:27:08,919 --> 00:27:13,172
If the conviction were confirmed
at the end of the appeal,

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00:27:13,172 --> 00:27:16,407
it would be an extraordinary success for
Yvan Sagnet,

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00:27:16,407 --> 00:27:19,098
although for now, it would only
be symbolic.

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00:27:21,959 --> 00:27:24,906
This process hasn't changed
the working conditions

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00:27:24,906 --> 00:27:26,913
of the workers in the fields.

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00:27:28,251 --> 00:27:33,551
Of course, the foreman system still
rules all over Italy.

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00:27:33,551 --> 00:27:37,449
And the bad living conditions of the
people in the ghettos are the same,

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00:27:37,449 --> 00:27:39,788
they still have no water or light.

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00:27:39,788 --> 00:27:45,220
I was always aware that this process
wouldn't be enough to change everything.

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00:27:48,034 --> 00:27:52,540
However, Yvan Sagnet believes that
the process is a milestone.

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00:27:56,719 --> 00:28:02,442
It's worth fighting. We live in a world
where you have to fight for your rights,

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00:28:02,442 --> 00:28:06,123
because if you don't fight,
nothing will ever change.

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00:28:06,403 --> 00:28:10,882
Change will only be achieved by fighting,
and we're ready.

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00:28:10,988 --> 00:28:13,568
April 2019:
The first sentence was overturned,

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00:28:13,568 --> 00:28:18,954
The accused were acquitted,
Yvan Sagnet will appeal against this.