Employed by Montella Bio in Frignano near Caserta, an area renowned for its exploitation of farm labourers, including many migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, each day the 34-year-old drives herself and her colleagues to the farm where they work on a regular contract and with honest wages, rather than travelling in one of the trucks typically used by gangmasters (an individual or business that provides workers for agricultural work) to transport their ‘recruits’ to the fields, often for a fare that is deducted from their already miserable pay.
She and four other Nigerians - in all four woman and one man - are the beneficiaries of a project run by the No Cap Association led by former farm labourer, anti-gangmastering activist and writer Yvan Sagnet and a local branch of the Catholic relief charity Caritas, having been identified for their history of enduring labour exploitation in Italy.
However, throughout her time of exploitation, Agbonyinma says she has never lost sight of her independence or dignity and always refused to give in to the mirage of “easy money”, often with the associated risks of drugs or prostitution.
“I never wanted that money,” said the young woman, who arrived in Italy in 2008 aged 19 and has two children.
“Nor did I ever want to waste my life on the street, because life should be lived in dignity. I have always worked honestly, and I hope that many compatriots will follow my example,” she added.
Sagnet is the founder of the No Cap Association, a reward system working with report cards, evaluating how ethically goods have been produced through the parameters ethics, energy, circularity, added value and short supply chain.
The organisation advocates for the ethical employment of tomato pickers through regulated contracts and without a ‘caporalato‘ (an illegal form of labour intermediation in which the recruiter, a gangmaster called ‘caporale’, profits by enrolling and mobilising workers according to the short-term demand of employers), promoting the integration of ethically produced goods into the mainstream consumer market.
ANSA
