One of the most severe and enduring human rights violations in modern societies is forced labour, which is frequently concealed by legal economic systems and normalized by structural injustices. One of the most prominent examples of this phenomenon in Italy is caporalato, an illicit labour intermediation system that impacts a number of economic sectors, including agriculture, the fashion industry, and construction. Despite being formally prohibited and prosecuted by the Italian law, caporalato continues to thrive, exploiting vulnerable workers (especially, but not only,migrants) through coercion, forcing them to accept substandard working conditions, and subjecting them to a systematic denial of fundamental rights.

In this article, we will examine what is caporalato, what are its historical and structural roots, who are the people it targets the most and how come are they so easily trapped in such a perverted system, and what has been -and is being- done at a legislative and political level to prevent and fight this phenomenon.

Caporalato: a definition

According to Vocabolario Treccani, caporalato is “an illegal form of recruitment and organization of labour, especially in agriculture, carried out through intermediaries (caporali) who, acting on behalf of the employer and in return for an illegal fee, hire day labourers outside the normal employment placement channels and without respecting the contractual minimum wage rates”.

According to Grande Dizionario Italiano Hoepli, caporalato is an “illegal system of labour recruitment, especially in the agricultural sector, carried out by intermediaries who receive an illegal fee in exchange for this service”.

Based on these definitions, we can therefore outline a framework of the fundamenta characteristics of caporalato: the first fundamental characteristic is the illegality of this practice; other characteristics are the presence of a caporale, who acts as an intermediary on behalf of the employing company, the existence of a relationship of subordination between the workers hired by the caporale and the caporale himself, who in all phases of the relationship with the workers (from hiring to remuneration) does not comply with the regulations in force in the field of labour law (neither with regard to wages, nor, as we will see later, with regard to working hours, safety regulations and anti-exploitation legislation).

Historical and structural roots of caporalato in Italy

Caporalato is a phenomenon that has historically been present in Italy at least since the 1970s and, although it is particularly widespread in the regions of southern Italy, it is present throughout the entire Italian territory, both in the south and in the north. Since its origins, caporalato has predominantly affected the most vulnerable segments of the population: for many years, female labourers were the main target of the caporalato system; from the 1980s onwards, up to our days, the amount of workers with a migrant background (particularly from the Middle East, Maghreb, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa) employed through this practice increased. The main sectors in which caporalato is used are the agricultural one, the fashion one, the construction and the personal care sectors. The phenomenon is also rooted in a set of structural factors: in the agricultural food supply chain, competitive dynamics driven by price-reduction pressure exerted by large retailers on suppliers (which, in most cases, are SMEs) contribute to cost-reduction strategies that disproportionately affect labour. Even in the textile sector, the demands of large client companies (characterized by extremely high production volumes, very short delivery times, and competitive pricing) contribute to a system of institutionalized exploitation that is embedded within the fashion supply chain.

Socio-economic factors also play a crucial role in caporalato. The desire of thousands of people to seek better working and earning opportunities in Italy drives them to migrate; however, the complexity and opacity of the Italian bureaucratic procedures required to obtain a legal work permit often push them into the hands of caporali. These intermediaries offer an alternative, albeit illegal, path to employment. However, it is important to notice that caporalato does not affect only undocumented migrants: economic and labour uncertainties and the necessity of earning money to sustain themselves and their families makes it so that even legally residing workers and Italian citizens are at risk of falling victim to this form of exploitation.

Caporalato as forced labour

According to the ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), forced labour is: "All work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily." Caporalato can therefore be included in the definition of forced labour, as it functions through systemic mechanisms of exploitation in which both direct coercion (such as threats, violence, or confiscation of documents) and indirect coercion (such as economic dependency, debt bondage, or conditional access to housing and transport) constrain workers’ autonomy and their ability to exit the situation voluntarily.

Denial of human rights

Because Caporalato exploitative activities put workers in conditions that are far below internationally and constitutionally recognized standards, they constitute a systematic denial of fundamental human rights. Both article 23(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 36 of the Italian Constitution guarantee the right to a fair and dignified remuneration, a right which is frequently violated by wages that are significantly below the minimum legal requirements (and often paid irregularly, not unfrequently with delays), and illegal deductions or forced restitutions of portions of the salary. Likewise, hazardous conditions of work (such as the exposition to pesticides in the agricultural sector), lack of appropriate protective equipment, and insufficient medical precautions threaten the right to health and safety in the workplace, which is recognized in Article 31 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Excessive working hours and the non-observance of mandatory weekly rest periods consistently violate the right to rest, which is protected under Article 24 of the UDHR, Article 36 of the Italian Constitution, and Article 31 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Taken together, these offenses represent a clear infringement of human dignity, the respect and protection of which is a cornerstone of the Italian constitutional order and the EU legal system (as stated in the Article 1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights). In this respect, caporalato is a serious infringement of human rights that severely devalues the inherent dignity of every human being and reduces workers to mere instruments of production, rather than just a violation of labour rights.

Vulnerability of workers

Caporalato also thrives thanks to the condition of vulnerability affecting the workers it exploits. With regard to migrant workers, the precariousness of their legal status (whether due to an instable, precarious residence permit or the absence of a residence permit and, consequently, a dynamic of irregular stay on Italian territory) makes them easily subject to blackmail by caporali, who exploit many workers’ fear of being arrested and expelled from Italy. At the same time, this situation fosters a form of dependence of the worker on the caporale, who is often the only person able to guarantee access to employment (and, consequently, to income necessary for subsistence and for sending remittances to their families, back in their countries of origin). Other important factors contributing to the vulnerability of migrant workers are language barriers, which severely limit access to essential information on labour law and, therefore, to their own rights, as well as social isolation. This dynamic often results in workers being forced to live in accommodations (such as the so-called “agricultural ghettos”) that are entirely inadequate in terms of habitability and placed under the strict control of the caporale.

It is also crucial to highlight the additional vulnerability faced by women employed in these exploitative conditions: they are generally treated worse than their male colleagues, both in terms of pay and exposure to sexual blackmail. Even Italian workers, though in smaller amounts and affected by different dynamics, fall victim to labour exploitation: economic precarity, and chronic unemployment, especially in southern Italy, push many to accept undeclared or underpaid work.

Legal responses and policy measures in Italy

For years, although the existence of the caporalato phenomenon dates back at least to the 1970s, Italy did not have a specific criminal law regulating it: the phenomenon of caporalato, for which no autonomous criminal offense existed, was therefore addressed through the application of other, more serious criminal offenses, such as the crime of enslavement and keeping in slavery (Article 600 of the Italian Penal Code). However, these provisions were not adequate to provide sufficient protection to the victims of a phenomenon with its own specific characteristics.

In 2011, with the introduction into the Italian Penal Code of Article 603-bis, under Decree-Law No. 138/2011, later converted into Law No. 148/2011, the legislator established the offense of “illegal recruitment and labour exploitation,” commonly known as caporalato, in an attempt to fill this legislative gap. However, the original formulation of the law, also due to technical and interpretative issues, found limited application until its reform under Law No. 199 of 2016, after which a significant increase in investigations and criminal proceedings in this area was observed.

In its current formulation, Article 603-bis punishes both the person who recruits labour with the aim of assigning it to work for third parties under exploitative conditions (the so-called caporale) and the employer who uses, hires, or employs labour under exploitative conditions, (even independently of the intermediation by the caporale). The penalties include imprisonment from one to six years and a fine ranging from 500 to 1,000 € for each worker recruited or employed. However, the evolution of regulations against caporalato is not limited to punishing individual perpetrators: indeed, under Law No. 199 of 2016, the offense under Article 603-bis was included among the predicate offenses of Legislative Decree 231/2001, which governs the administrative liability of entities. This means that, where the offense is committed in the interest of (or to the advantage of) a company, the legal entity may also be held liable, provided there are deficiencies in organization, risk management, or in the adoption of adequate preventive models. A policy-based approach is represented by the creation, in 2022, of a national action plan to combat illegal hiring and working exploitation practices.

Conclusion

The caporalato system is a perverse and unjust form of labour exploitation that preys on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of individuals in a situation of difficulty to make them fall into the dark abyss of forced labour. This occurs within the 21st-century Italian economic fabric, with which the caporalato maintains a significant relationship. Although legislation on the matter arrived late relative to the need, it represents an important step forward in the fight against this practice; nevertheless, caporalato continues to thrive, highlighting the limitations of an exclusively punitive approach. To combat it, law enforcement alone is not enough; measures regarding migration policies, labourers’ rights, and supply-chain accountability are essential. The fight against caporalato is everyone's battle, because fighting caporalato means promoting social justice, protecting human dignity, and safeguarding human rights, principles upon which the very essence of being human is based.

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Michele Picca