However, in stark contrast to its cool, sophisticated image, a dark world of exploitation lurks behind the scenes of this new trend. Business owners often employ young migrants, including trafficked Bangladeshis, as kitchen porters, cleaners and chefs, for little pay and no worker protection or minimum wage, profiting from their desperation to remit money home to help their families.
Squeezed between low-pay and remitting money home they are forced to live in squalid conditions in cramped apartments and they make wages lower than a Sicilian would accept, earning about 700 Euros a month. They also have to contend with criminal networks that want to profit from their hard work and desperation.
The aim of this investigation is to shine a light on the exploitation of young Bangladeshi migrants in the Italian food industry and to examine how the remittances they toil so hard to send back home end up straight in the hands of traffickers.
© Kate Stanworth
