LIBRE

Are considered criminals and were considered dangerous. Despite the obsessive xenophobic campaigns against immigrants, the media do not deal with their conditions, especially those who work in construction and agriculture, including exploitation, violence and murder. Migrants who come from the East are often less visible, especially women who work as domestics or caregivers. Not to mention Africans living and working conditions sometimes worse than those left in their continent. In the South oppressed by archaic and violence, many of them were brutally killed. Is therefore by far the anger exploded in recent days in Rosamond.

"Terrelibere", the independent network upholds the uncontrolled exploitation of migrants in the South dominated by the mafia, published a dossier entitled "The emergency safety? Protect yourself by Italians, focusing especially the plight of two regions, Calabria and Sicily. The first victims, the women of the East: "They come from the heart of Europe, particularly among the EU countries last generation. They come often and what awaits them is a culture where women are still victims of prejudice. Foreign women are considered second-class citizens, willing to live and work in any condition. "

In Calabria, with more than 50,000 immigrants, dominates the 'Ndrangheta, "Stories of violence affecting women in particular, which sometimes lead to murder, violence hidden in other cases." Perfect Mediterranean theater of this hell, the Plain of Gioia Tauro and the orange of Rosamond, theater of the revolt of African workers. There, a Romanian girl of 17 years, Cornelia Doane, was shot and killed Dec. 31, 2007 for daring to leave the Italian partner, "a violent man and unreliable." Before the execution, including a volley of buckshot at the house of the parents of Cornelia.

"The widespread violence can turn into tragedy even more trivial dispute," says "Terrelibere," citing the tragic death of a young 22 year old Albanian, Lulzim Hoxhaj, gunned down in Reggio Calabria in shots by the manager of a local irritation the boy who, along with two friends (drunk) was reluctant to leave at closing. "The most numerous are those that relate to carers," says the dossier of the independent newsmagazine "The October 7, 2008 Olesa Ciobanu, Moldova, 30, was killed with two stab wounds to throat and thrown overboard. Be found on a beach Bovalino on the Ionian coast of Reggio. She had arrived in Italy for just a month. "

A few days later, a pensioner of 88 kills his caregiver, Ilaf Elut, Romanian, 44 years, with a shotgun. Mysterious motive: according to the elder, was simply cleaning the weapon. And 'he was to call the police, who arrive in an anonymous apartment and found the woman in a pool of blood. "A good person, a man of another era, witnessed by neighbors. The February 8, 2009, informed by an anonymous phone call, the police found the lifeless bodies in Locride a pensioner Calabrese and her young Romanian partner: you will not even know whether it was an ambush or a murder-suicide. And on April 27 un'ucraina 35, after accompanying his son to school, is killed in shooting in a gun battle between rival clans dell'ndrangheta.

That of agricultural labor, of slavery, is a real black hole. Again, "Terrelibere" shows an exemplary sequence of death. On January 6, 2007 Ovidiu Candrea, Romanian, 30, dies in fields of broccoli around Tropea, hit by killer determined to punish its Italian title, the recipient of real bullets. And the August 8, 2008, near Sybaris, a Calabrian farmer kills a Moroccan to 37 years, Hajjaj Kabli, brother of his partner. The plain of Sybaris is one of the privileged places of agricultural labor in the region and its seasonal work in the stories focus more severe violence and exploitation.

The best known case is that of Rosamond, where already 12 December 2008 two Ivorians were wounded with a pistol in front of the former paper mill, an abandoned factory that houses during the winter since 1992 - in inhumane conditions - hundreds of Africans engaged in collecting oranges. The another, very serious incident of violence against migrant workers, already exploited and humiliated on the fields of the Plain. But this time the "invisible" found the courage to revolt in the streets of the town, a few weeks from similar events in Castel Volturno. The case of African Rosamond, adds, "Terrelibere", was told by the national and international media (BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Agence France-Presse), but "incredibly national and local politics not intervened seriously, nor was the question paradox of secrecy enforced by law. "

The issue focuses on the plight of the slave trade, also managed by the 'Ndrangheta first EU enlargement to the East, men started to work illegally in agriculture, with ridiculous fees, and women relegated to domestic use or prostitution after being lured to Italy by fake ads from maid to his secretary. Open borders with Romania, the music has not changed: September 14, 2008 was discovered in a stream in charred corpse of a Romanian girl cold shots.

Frightening numbers, those provided by the investigation "Spartacus": 32 provinces involved, 1,311 complaints and 784 arrests for trafficking, slavery, aiding illegal immigration and exploitation for prostitution. Young foreign girls, who would be entitled to residence permits for social protection, were sold in their country, forced into prostitution, raped and threatened. In 2007, Calabria was also aimed at extortion traffic scenarios: Migrant seized after landing in Lampedusa and released after paying a ransom. About thirty people traffickers arrested by police.

Terms of degradation, scarce employment opportunities, uncertainty of their few rights already: Delayed or denied payments, free assault, robbery. So why immigrants flock to Calabria? "Terrelibere" in the dossier which has collaborated Anna Foti, suggests several reasons: the proximity with the coasts of the landings and the presence of opportunities for seasonal work, the only possibility that remains to irregular penalized by law.

From Sicily, Lampedusa and in particular, migrants are often transported by an air bridge to the center of Croton, who not infrequently found in overcrowded conditions. In years past, the center has become famous in half Calabrese Africa for its "permeability", ie the ease with which one could escape. Among legal doubts (it has never been a detention center) and controversy about living conditions within, around it were organized large and small trades. At the center of Croton, therefore, it must be a good part of the African presence in Calabria.

"Foreign workers living in the South, and sometimes worse than starting from the bureaucracy are thus marginalized from the labor market, by racist laws, violence and the tendency of Italians to abuse, exploitation, denial rights of those who are in need, "concludes" Terrelibere. "A bureaucratic impediment, an employment contract that expires, a factory closing, a refusal to the request for political asylum can transform a regular migrant in what the news scornfully called" illegal "by suggesting that the base there is a choice aware when an inclination to commit a crime. "

In fact, it is the bureaucratic difficulties in concentrating so many migrants to the South, lived as a last resort after an attempt (failed) to find regular work in the North. Migrants in the South imagine to find a less acute state, a less rigid and hostile. "The need for foreign workers instead goes into a state of slave labor, subjected to violence and blackmail." The first problem, stresses "Terrelibere", is the innate propensity for moonlighting and exploitation of the entrepreneurial class in the South This is more violence and Mafia domination of criminal cartels.

"An impressive list of women killed in Calabria in recent months, completely ignored by the media." When the killer is not the 'Ndrangheta, to shed blood provide "values" archaic as "honor" and "respect." The first victims are women, from which we will not tolerate a refusal: "The woman is a property," property available, "especially if it is a foreign maid." Not surprisingly, the American anthropologist Jeffrey Cole and Sally Booth call "Dirty Works" is the domestic season that agriculture in southern Italy. A drama submerged that only the brave uprising of African Rosamond has now brought to the attention of the media (info: www.terrelibere.it ).