Figure 40.1 Teenagers working in Abeokuta
Source: the author
Each teenage labourer is hired on a two-year contract and is expected to work six days a week for his boss, who in return houses, clothes, and feeds the young worker, and pays him 140,000 FCFA (about $260, or an equivalent sum in material terms –e.g., a motorbike) upon completion of the contract. If the boy is a younger worker,7 it is possible that some of this money will have been advanced to his parents before he departed for work, since younger boys’ income is treated as family income much more commonly than that of older boys. This, it should be underlined, is very different from the ‘sale’ of children into debt bondage.
The boys are free to work on their own account on their day off, or when they have already loaded the lorry that is their day’s work for their boss. Though the work is hard, they work in groups of three, with the biggest and strongest pick-axing the ground; the second strongest shovelling the gravel; and the smallest sifting it through a filter. They rest when they need to, share the workload among themselves, and are often helped by the boss, who is in many ways dependent on them. This dependence is not only intrinsic to the employer-employee relationship; it is also reflected in the fact that each boss relies on his reputation as a good employer to attract the labourers whose surplus he will ultimately extract. He thus has an interest in treating each of his charges sufficiently well that they will not tarnish his image when they return to Benin. Consequently, while no-one would deny the inherent physical challenge of the work performed by these adolescents, it is an experience that over-taxes few of them, and rarely is it any worse than the farm work they would otherwise be doing at home.
Foggia’s tomato fields
The chain of economic actors involved in the Foggian ‘tomato economy’ is much longer than that involved in Abeokuta’s quarries, since it involves major Italian agro-industrial firms that process harvested tomatoes into passata, pelati, or salsa, as well as global multi-national retailers that sell these products to Western consumers. Ultimately, as we will see below, these top-tier actors structure the lower levels of the tomato supply chain; and although they are never physically present in Foggia’s fields, their power is felt in nearly every socio-economic interaction that takes place at this level. What is most striking, however, is how similar the world of the ‘local’ tomato economy is to that built around the quarries in Abeokuta.
Various different ‘classes’ populate the world of the tomato harvest. First, of course, are the landowning Italian farmers. These figures supply the capital inputs for the production of millions of tonnes of tomatoes across tens of thousands of hectares, which they sell to Italian agro-industrial firms for transformation (Figure 40.2). The price negotiation between farmer and industry is sometimes conducted by representative associations and is typically fraught – yet ultimately both depend on the price set for them by global retailers. Though farmers and industry do deal directly with each other, they are physically and sociologically separated by the pivotal class of the transporters, who collect harvested tomatoes in specially fitted lorries before transporting them across Southern Italy. It is commonly accepted that these transporters are controlled by mafiosi, though this assertion remains to be definitively proven.
The manual labour of the harvest is organised by the farmer and the labour-broker – the caporale, in terms of the dominant discourse. The caporale’s role is absolutely critical, since he is responsible for scheduling work with the farmer, sourcing the necessary workers, transporting them to and from the field, and ensuring that they complete the harvest. He is an intermediary in social, cultural, and economic terms.
The harvest in Foggia is conducted predominantly by hand, and by tens of thousands of temporary migrant labourers. Although machine harvesters are now common, the majority of Foggian tomatoes are still picked by hand, since better quality tomatoes are often damaged by harvesting machines. Workers are therefore necessary in large numbers for the intense harvest period that lasts from August through September. These workers – like their caporali –come mainly from either the eastern edge of the EU (Bulgaria and Romania) or from the various countries of western Africa. The EU citizens are in Italy legally (though their work is often informal), while the west Africans are divided into those who have papers (ranging from very long-term residents to those awaiting asylum decisions) and those who do not (who have either arrived in Italy illegally or overstayed, having once been in regola). Although Europeans and Africans interact in the fields, the labour gangs are never mixed – with caporali mobilising workers according to personal contacts and, therefore, ethnicity.
Figure 40.2 Tomatoes harvested in Foggia
Source: the author
The work itself is physically very demanding: involving long hours bent double under the blazing Foggian sun. A typical work-day will begin at 4am, and can last anywhere up to 8pm. Workers work in ‘gangs’ that vary in size from a handful to over a dozen. They receive between €3 and €3.50 per cassone of harvested tomatoes, and will commonly seek to fill ten cassoni each day. Some say that the caporale earns a small sum for each filled cassone, though others deny that this is the case. Of the €30 to €35 euros that migrant workers take home, between €2.50 and €5 certainly goes to the caporale to cover the ‘costs’ of transport to and from the fields. No-one involved in the harvest – including the farmer – is paid immediately. Payment is delayed for everyone until industry receives its goods. Industry pays the farmer, who pays the caporale, who pays the workers.
This chain of payment, and the delays entailed, necessarily offers opportunities for exploitation. But while it is certain that some labour-brokers do avail themselves of these opportunities, far fewer do than is suggested by the dominant discourse. None of the farm-workers spoken to accepted that the caporale depicted by politicians or the media has any basis in reality. The notion, for example, that he either could, or would, seek to discipline his workers using violence or intimidation was simply rejected out of hand. This is for a number of reasons. First, the workers are all grown men with a strong sense of right and wrong, meaning that any violence would itself be met with violence. Second, there are so many seasonal migrants seeking employment that violence is unnecessary to the maintenance of labour discipline. Third, both the caporale and his workers live together in the ‘Ghetto’ amidst tight webs of mutual reciprocity and obligation, none of which permit violence or severe exploitation.
The Ghetto is the sociological site in which the writer and his research assistant spent most of their time; it is home to the final major class involved in the summer tomato harvest. This is ‘the service provider class’ that has emerged and built itself up around the itinerant population resident in the Ghetto. These people run the Ghetto’s many restaurants, bars, shops, and brothels. A sizeable proportion of them are women, mostly in their 40s or 50s, who have been in Italy for a long time and are now critical to transforming the Ghetto from a seasonal tent city into a semi-permanent settlement in which migrant Africans can seek social and cultural solace as well as earning some money.
It’s (almost) all about the money
The discourse of the coyote or caporale implies that the only individual making any money in either of these contexts is ‘the trafficker’. The trafficker is depicted as a hyper-exploitative, vampire capitalist who valorises his workers without concern for their well-being. These workers are, in turn, depicted as agency-less victims who have been duped or ‘forced’ into servicing the trafficker’s plans for accumulation, with no benefit of their own. This picture is, without question, reductive. Although some workers are exploited and some bosses are abusive, the clear majority are not. The dominant discourse thus bears no relation to the empirics of the research in Abeokuta and Foggia. What this research makes clear, above all else, is this: a majority of migrant workers in each location actively seek out their work, and do so primarily for the money. Every single one of the more than 80 respondents in Abeokuta and 40 in
Foggia underlined this fact. Below are two case studies that do likewise.8
Case Study 40.1 Alchide
Alchide is 18 years old. He, like so many of the workers in Abeokuta, is from the Zou region of Benin. He has never been to school, and spent many of his teenage years as an apprentice welder. Once he finished his apprenticeship, however, he lacked the money necessary to pay for his ‘graduation’ and thus his formal incorporation into the trade. This is why he moved to Abeokuta at the age of 17, following an older male relative who is one of the ‘bosses’ in the gravel pits.
Alchide views the work he does as “absolutely fine”. “You need to be strong”, he emphasises, “but what you do is easier than the farm work you would be doing at home”. His work earns around $15 per day for his boss; and from this sum the boss takes his own cut, pays for the living expenses of all his workers, and puts some aside to eventually pay each of these workers when they will have finished their two-year contracts and return to Benin.
Alchide gets on very well with his own boss, a fact no doubt aided by the two being relatives. The boss “looks after us”, he explains – providing food and board, along with money for a visit home at the end of the year. Alchide has seven months left until his next visit.
In general, he is happy and not a little proud to be here. In his view, what makes you ‘a man’ is being financially autonomous, having one’s own house, and supporting a family. He needs this work to achieve these goals; and he knows that he is respected for pursuing them. His dream is to become a famous welder, and this is what he aims for. He rejects entirely the notion that this work is ‘forced’ or ‘bonded labour’, and he thinks that it is absurd that some call it ‘slavery’. There is no doubt that some bosses are exploitative – a term he defines in terms of not receiving the money promised – but he does not suspect that his will be one of them. He is comfortable saying that he would recommend this work to a younger relative.
Alchide’s story echoes the greater part of those gathered among the young males who were working in Abeokuta’s gravel pits. It is echoed, too, by the voices featured in parallel studies conducted in the various artisanal quarries dotted across West Africa9 –as well as in research studies with young labour migrants in other types of work who are also assumed to be ‘trafficked’.10
Although the contexts are very different, Alchide’s story finds major echoes, too, in those gathered in Foggia. Notable in this regard is that of Gascoigne, an Ivorian worker in the tomato harvest, who is featured below.
Case Study 40.2 Gascoigne
Gascoigne is a 29-year-old Ivorian. We meet in one of the Ghetto bars that are so central not only to social life in Rignano Garganico, but also to the organisation of labour. He is a worker, but not an ordinary one, since his elder brother is a senior figure in the harvest economy. Unlike many of his fellow Ghetto inhabitants, therefore, he enjoys regular work; and as a result, he earns very well.
He comes from a lower middle class family in Abidjan. We know this because he tells us that he has relatives in France, and because another relative paid for him to get to Italy. The story of his journey is shocking, but not unlike a great many of the stories around here. He crossed the Sahara and the Mediterranean, the latter journey in a boat that lost one quarter of its passengers. I asked him whether he was aware of the dangers before setting out and he smiled. “Of course I did”. “Then why did you come?” He smiles again. “In Abidjan, I was a mechanic. I earned around €25 a month. Now I make up to €1000. Wouldn’t you have?”
The picture he goes on to paint of the tomato harvest economy is one of real labour segmentation. Migrants come down from all over Italy to make what little they can, given how few money-making opportunities they have in Italy. There is no labour unity whatsoever, because if one group of workers combine and strike, dozens will run behind them to offer their labour. Everyone here is keen to make as much as they can as quickly as possible. And so all take what they can. What matters here is, therefore, who you know. If you have contacts, like he does, you can find work. If not, you rely on the good will of labour-brokers willing to take you on, or on the solidarity that exists in the Ghetto.
There are a small handful of other anthropologists and sociologists who have examined the socio-economic life of this Ghetto and the places like it in Southern Italy.11 Domenico Perrotta is perhaps the most celebrated. He, too, paints a picture of highly vulnerable, largely excluded migrant labourers working in the hope of making whatever they can in the only socio-economic space that affords them the opportunity to do so. Although it is clear from his research, and from the writer’s own, that few of these workers receive adequate recompense for their labour, it is similarly clear that they know what they are signing up for and they do so with the aim of earning as much money as they can. It is simply indefensible to reduce this complex reality to the hero-villain narrative of ‘trafficker’ vs. ‘trafficked’.
Socio-cultural factors
One of the key reasons why neither Abeokuta’s quarries nor Foggia’s tomato Ghettos can fit neatly into that narrative is that each location brings its workers far more than just money. It is true that money is the major motivator for any labourer in either place; but not money alone. For all of these migrant workers are human beings embedded in myriad social and cultural webs, ranging from those structuring their immediate setting to those that extend across worlds and ‘back home’. Money is, therefore, often a means to an end; and other ends are served in the process of earning it.
Two of the major ends served by earning money in Abeokuta and Foggia are: 1) the acquiring of status; and 2) the fulfilling of reciprocal duties towards one’s family. Across the interviews in Nigeria and Italy respondents made clear that the successful migrant is someone who is ‘well seen’ or ‘considered’ in his home community. This has been confirmed in myriad other studies of migrant workers – to go away and make a success of one’s life is to return with respect.12 Similarly, it is to be able to assist one’s family: often the money that is put aside through sifting gravel or picking tomatoes goes to sustain or help those at home. In Abeokuta, a major response to the question, “Why are you here?” is, “To put a roof on my father’s house”. Young men move to earn some for themselves and contribute some to their family. The same is, of course, true in Foggia – where it is by far the majority practice for those earning in Euros to send home cash that can be converted into local currency.13
Yet there are other, immaterial gains that workers enjoy in each of these places. For the largely younger workers in Abeokuta’s quarries, there is a sense of independence, of adventure, and of camaraderie to be found working in a team. For those older and often more socially excluded workers living in Foggia’s largest Ghetto, there is solidarity, social support, and the existence of a socio-cultural space beyond both the intrusive reach of the law and the humiliating gaze of the racist. As one of the Ghetto’s elder statesmen, Sheikh, explained to the writer: “Guys come here because there is solidarity. No-one goes hungry here, and here people are at home. It’s not like being in the cities, here they are with friends and in a space that is like being in Africa”.
‘Folk-devils’ or ‘facilitators’?
In light of the above, might it not make sense to ask whether these coyotes and caporali would be better understood as facilitators rather than as ‘folk devil’ traffickers? They play a critical intermediary role, and in doing so they line both their own pockets and make money for the various groups with whom they come into contact. What is more, they accumulate not simply by putting others to work, but by valorising their own socio-cultural capital and their position as socio-cultural and thus economic intermediaries. In Abeokuta, each boss is a bridge between a community in search of work in Benin and a site of work in search of workers in Nigeria. The boss knows the back roads leading illegally from one country to the next; and in Abeokuta he knows the lorry-drivers and land-owners integral to the entire accumulation process. In Foggia, that intermediary positi
on is even more marked. The tomato harvest simply could not take place if caporali were not able to organise the labour gangs and co-ordinate with the farmers. Many spend weeks planning the summer schedule. Unlike most migrant workers, they speak Italian and can thus communicate with the farmers; while, unlike the farmers, they speak various West African languages and can thus communicate with the workers. Without this intermediary function, there would be no harvest, and no money for anyone. Everybody knows this; and this is why workers implore their bosses to hire them. In making the decision of who to hire and when, bosses in both Foggia and Abeokuta do so on the basis of profitability calculations, but never solely on that basis. For like entrepreneurs everywhere else in the world, they are fundamentally embedded in socio-cultural and moral systems – meaning that sometimes they hire family, friends, or simply those less fortunate than themselves and on whom they have taken pity. This may not make them egalitarian socialists, but it does beg the question as to whether they are really any different to any other petty capitalist in other legal parts of the economy.
Case Study 40.3 Trevor
Trevor is an influential figure in the Zou region of Benin and runs a successful local business that employs many young interns, including a number sponsored by an NGO to stay at ‘home’ instead of migrating for work. We first met in 2007, when he was introduced to me by a local government official as ‘a former trafficker’ who had apparently repented and decided to mend his ways. He became one of the most significant participants in the research, meeting the writer on myriad occasions, and facilitating my access to a large group of ‘traffickers’/bosses involved in the migrant labour network linking the Zou region to the quarries of Abeokuta.
Routledge Handbook of Human Trafficking Page 102
