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Italian police free 33 Indian farm workers from ‘slavery’

The police further said the abusers were charged with crimes connected to slavery and labour exploitation, and the victims would be offered protection, work opportunities, and legal residency papers…reports Asian Lite News

Police in Italy said on Saturday that they freed 33 Indian farm labourers from slave-like working conditions in the northern Verona province, news agency Reuters reported. The police also said that they seized $545,300 (around €500,000) from the alleged abusers of these labourers.

The abusers, who are also from India, brought fellow nationals to Italy on seasonal work permits, asking them to pay 17,000 euros each and promising them a better future, the police added, while describing the migrants’ treatment as “slavery”.

The migrants were given farm jobs, working seven days a week and 10-12 hours a day for just $4.37 per hour, which was entirely docked from them until they settled all their debts. Some were asked to continue working for free to pay an additional $14,197 for a permanent work permit “which, in reality, would have never been given to them.”

The police further said the abusers were charged with crimes connected to slavery and labour exploitation, and the victims would be offered protection, work opportunities, and legal residency papers.

Italy, like other countries in Europe, faces growing labour shortages that are often filled via immigration, particularly in lower-paid jobs. The country has a migrant work visa system that has faced cases of fraud.

The incident comes days after an Indian fruit picker died after his arm was severed by machinery in June. Police arrested farm owner Antonello Lovato on suspicion of homicide of Satnam Singh. Lovato, driving the tractor at the time, allegedly abandoned Singh after the accident, refusing entreaties to call an ambulance.

In a similar incident last month, four members of the affluent Hinduja family were sentenced by a Swiss criminal court to prison terms ranging from four to 4.5 years for exploiting vulnerable domestic workers. The family members were accused of confiscating workers’ passports, paying them in Indian rupees rather than Swiss francs, restricting their movement, and forcing them to work excessively long hours for minimal pay in Switzerland.

Geneva prosecutors had launched the probe over alleged illegal activities, including exploitation, human trafficking, and violations of Swiss labor laws.

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King backs study into Royal Family slavery links

The issue of the British Empire’s slavery links and calls for possible reparations from the monarchy has been growing in the Caribbean…reports Asian Lite News

King Charles has given his support to research that will examine the British monarchy’s links to slavery, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday, after a newspaper report said a document showed a historical connection with a transatlantic slave trader.

The Guardian said an archive document discovered by historian Brooke Newman showed that in 1689 King William III had been given 1,000 pounds of shares in the Royal African Company (RAC) which was involved in the transportation of thousands of slaves from Africa to the Americas.

The recently discovered document was signed by Edward Colston, a slave trade magnate whose history became widely known after protesters pulled down a statue to him in Bristol, southwest England, and threw it in the harbour during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

“This is an issue that His Majesty takes profoundly seriously,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

The issue of the British Empire’s slavery links and calls for possible reparations from the monarchy has been growing in the Caribbean where King Charles remains head of state of a number of countries including Jamaica and the Bahamas.

Buckingham Palace said the royal household would help to support an independent research project looking into any links between the monarchy and slavery during the late seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries, by allowing access to the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives.

The Palace highlighted a speech King Charles made to Commonwealth leaders last June, when he said: “I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.”

That process had continued with “vigour and determination” since King Charles succeeded his mother on the throne last September, it said.

There were a protests and calls for an apology for slavery when King Charles’s eldest and now heir Prince William went on tour with his wife to the Caribbean in March last year.

“Given the complexities of the issues it is important to explore them as thoroughly as possible,” the Palace statement said. “It is expected that the research will conclude in September 2026.”

In a visit to Jamaica last spring, Prince William said slavery was abhorrent, “should never have happened” and “forever stains our history”.

The King wants to continue his pledge to deepen his understanding of slavery’s impact with “vigour and determination” since his accession, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said.

They continued: “This is an issue that His Majesty takes profoundly seriously.”

“Given the complexities of the issues it is important to explore them as thoroughly as possible.”

A Palace statement was issued in response to the Guardian, which has published a previously unseen document showing the 1689 transfer of shares in the slave-trading Royal African Company from Edward Colston – the slave trader and the company’s deputy governor – to King William III.

The King has also said that each Commonwealth country should make its own decision over whether it is a constitutional monarchy or a republic.

He said he was aware the roots of the Commonwealth organisation “run deep into the most painful period of our history” and said acknowledging the wrongs of the past was a “conversation whose time has come”.

There are currently 14 Commonwealth Realms in addition to the UK where the King is their head of state.

Dr Halima Begum, chief executive of the Runnymede Trust – a race equality think tank – told the BBC “it is wonderful to see King Charles building on his mother’s legacy”.

She described it as “incredibly encouraging” to see an incremental engagement from the monarchy on issues surrounding the injustice of slavery.

Dr Begum went on to say that the “next step could be a royal commission to unearth the complex histories of colonialism,” and that it would “really inspire millions of British citizens, and of course citizens across the Commonwealth”.

The Palace’s announcement came as the King took part in a centuries-old Easter tradition, known as Maundy Thursday, for the first time since becoming monarch.

Dr Edmond Smith, who is supervising Ms de Koning’s project, said the crown has “often been left out of discussions” on the transatlantic slave trade, calling it an “important hole that needed to be filled through the research”.

“How the royal household may take that research on board is something we can only hope to see develop in the coming years,” he added.

The PhD study is co-sponsored by Historic Royal Palaces which manages several sites. It started in October, one month after the King came to the throne. It will look into the extent of any investments from any other slave trading companies.

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May warns Sunak on slavery laws

The former prime minister warned Sunak against unintended consequences in his attempts to prevent the rules being exploited…reports Asian Lite News

Theresa May has warned Rishi Sunak that his attempts to tighten modern slavery laws to stop migrants using them as a way to avoid deportation will create more loopholes that could be exploited.

The former prime minister, who championed the “world-leading protections” for victims of modern-day slavery, warned Sunak against unintended consequences in his attempts to prevent the rules being exploited.

The Prime Minister has promised to “raise the threshold someone must meet to be considered a modern slave” and “remove the gold-plating” in the system.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has claimed the laws are being “abused by people gaming the system” to stay in the UK when they would otherwise face being deported.

The Modern Slavery Act was introduced by May during her time as home secretary in order to protect vulnerable people from exploitation, domestic servitude or being trafficked for sex.

May said: “We need to ensure we don’t reduce our world-leading protections for victims of modern slavery.”

She added: “It’s important not – inadvertently – to create another potential loophole.

“So, for example, there’s talk of requiring more evidence from individuals. If you’re somebody who’s been trafficked here as a sex slave, and you manage to find your way out of that and look to somebody for help, the chances are you probably haven’t got a piece of paper or a written statement from somebody to say ‘you’ve been in slavery’. The evidence comes gradually. If you are somebody who is being brought by a criminal gang who are abusing the system, and they know there needs to be a piece of paper, they probably will provide a piece of paper. So it’s making sure that, in dealing with problems that are identified, we don’t create other problems.” She told BBC Radio 4.

Meanwhile, official figures showed 90 people crossed the English Channel in two small boats on Christmas Day.

They were the first crossings recorded since December 21 and take the provisional total for migrants making the dangerous journey from France this year to 45,756.

Sunak has promised legislation in the new year to help tackle the problem by making sure that if someone enters the UK illegally they do not have the right to stay in the country.

Ministers are also working to tighten immigration rules to curb numbers coming to the country legally.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has drawn up a plan that would target foreign students, make it harder to bring spouses to the UK, and increase the minimum salaries for companies employing skilled workers, The Times reported.

Under a draft of the proposals, seen by the newspaper, the Government would increase the minimum income threshold for British citizens applying for a family visa.

Currently, a couple must earn at least £18,600 and may need thousands more for any children they seek to bring to the UK.

The plans could also make it harder for overseas students to bring dependants with them.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has previously suggested that the rules around student dependants are “ripe for reform” as he is concerned people are coming to university as a “backdoor way of bringing their families into the UK”.

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