Word: saviano
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...Rosarno valley in the southern Calabria region, moving with the seasonal agricultural jobs. Many have political asylum or are otherwise legally in Italy, but legal or not, the migrants are managed by a Mafia-run employment system, the caporalato, that operates like a 21st century chain gang. Saviano says that those who object to low wages or poor working conditions are simply eliminated - and not just by a pink slip. "It's a military system," Saviano tells TIME in Rome as one of the plainclothes cops guarding him stands nearby. "The farm and factory owners employ the Mafia caporali...
...Ironically, though, southern Italy's crime clans seem like a welcome wagon for the immigrants at the beginning, providing a deceptively accepting community for newcomers. "For the Mafia to keep them as low-priced labor, they create this atmosphere of tolerance," Saviano says. "They actually live better down there than in Milan. They are treated and paid like slaves, but the human relationships are warmer than those you would find in Milan. Africans say the Italian girls look them in the eyes in Calabria, while in the north they wouldn't." (See pictures of migrants being forced out in France...
...Still, as the Rosarno riots illustrate, the immigrants are far from accepted by most Italians. Shootings like the ones that sparked the unrest are not uncommon. "We used to learn how to use our guns down there by shooting at dogs," says Saviano, who was brought up in the Naples area. "Now the 14-year-olds shoot at immigrants. It can look like kids fooling around, but it's not; it's target practice." The town's African population responded by burning cars and smashing shop windows, prompting retaliatory attacks by white residents. It was the fourth outbreak of violence...
...were the apparent spark of the riots, the global economic downturn was a more distant cause. With budgets tightening, the E.U. cut its aid to southern Italian farmers, reducing the need for manual labor. "The Mafia wants to earn the same profits, and the workers are becoming a burden," Saviano says. Authorities have also turned a blind eye to their problems. Rather than increase social services or workplace regulations, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's administration has taken an increasingly popular anti-immigrant stance. About 1,000 of the African migrants in Rosarno were carted off to detention centers after...
...Saviano disagrees. "It's obvious they have let the Mafia freely do with the immigrants as they wish," he says. "When they undergo injustice, the immigrants have enormous difficulties speaking up about it, even when they have been abused by their own community." He adds, however, that this may be starting to change. "They are not like Italian workers, who will just leave if they don't like it. They protest because these jobs are the best situation they can have," he says. "As a southern Italian, I would tell these people, 'Stay. Please don't leave us alone with...