Barikama, From explotation to a social cooperative

After years of exploitation, former fruit pickers set up a co-operative near Rome selling vegetables and yoghurt

In Italy we often talk about corporalato, a form of illegal hiring and exploitation of farm day workers (generally immigrants) through an intermediary. Some immigrants after being rescued from sea finally often ended up in the "Caporalato system" in southern Italy. Some of them, escaped from such system and after partecipating on the "Rosarno's riot" in 2010, decided to organize themselves near Rome, creating a coopeative that produces yoghurt in which Italians also work and of which they became promoters. The cooperative is part of a set of projects gathered around the GAS (Solidarity Purchasing Groups) that carry out similar activities with migrants who find redemption by working with Italians and leaving the mafia system of Caporalato through cooperative work.