A Council of Europe report denounces a “hypocritical” immigration system whose economy is based on millions of “disenfranchised workers”. On franceinfo, rapporteur Ada Marra, Member of the Swiss Parliament, recommends the automatic issue of residence permits in the event of a human trafficking complaint, at least for the duration of the investigation.
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Posted on 06/18/2023 17:09
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A migrant at work in Calabria, southern Italy. Italian agriculture faces many difficulties due to the lack of labor for fruit and vegetable harvesting. (ALFONSO DI VINCENTZO / IPA / MAXPPP)
While 78 migrants died in a shipwreck off Greece in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday and the French government is preparing its immigration law, a report by the Council of Europe denounces a “hypocritical system” that bases its economy on several million “invisible workers”. Rapporteur Ada Marra, Member of the Swiss Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, this Sunday on franceinfo.
In this report you use the term “invisible workers”. How many are there in Europe?
There are four to five million of these people in Europe, in all countries, from north to south. I call them “workers without rights”. For me, we are getting out of the migration issue. Even if the route to Europe is through migration, today we are dealing with workers without rights who are therefore exposed to precarious conditions and the risk of exploitation. In the domestic economy, the employer knows very well who and how to hire a person. It is the responsibility of all companies, even if they subcontract, to check what types of contracts workers receive. I don’t think employers are unaware of this at all.
The “invisible”, sometimes “undesirable” as we hear in certain political speeches, but useful for creating the wealth of countries?
There is a whole hypocritical system. Entire areas of the economy live from these people (agriculture and food industry, service platforms, etc.). They are invisible because their social and economic rights are not recognized. But they are visible because they have gone through an asylum procedure, i.e. they have been registered somewhere at state level. In France, for example, if you change employer you no longer have a work permit, so you no longer have a residence permit, so you are illegal if you have existed for years. The state is aware of this operating system.
Are these people very poorly protected?
One of the fundamental problems is access to justice for these people. Many don’t go there because they fear being denounced without a residence permit. This report recommends that the different administrative authorities do not cross-check the data – in other words, that the immigration authorities do not have access if an undocumented person files a complaint. And above all, if there is a complaint, especially for human trafficking or in connection with work, these people automatically receive at least a temporary residence permit for the duration of the investigation.
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