The PCP defended this Friday that the operation of the Judicial Police (PJ) in the Beja region against a network that exploited immigrant workers “can only be effective” and “coherent” if the owners and companies involved are also sentenced.
In a statement, the PCP’s Alentejo Regional Directorate (DRA) considered “positive” the PJ police operation that took place on Wednesday, “targeting illegal immigration and human trafficking networks.”
But, he stressed, this “can only be effective, coherent and consistent if all those, namely owners and companies of Portuguese and foreign nationalitywho enrich themselves at the expense of this type of criminal contracting.”
For the communists, “it is absolutely essential that the investigation deepen into the entire cycle of recruitment, trafficking and direct or indirect contracting, since the illegal immigration and slave labor networks would never exist if there were no companies that feed on this million-dollar criminal business “.
In the statement, the DRA said that the operation, with 35 detainees belonging to a criminal organization that exploited immigrant workers, “only remains to be late.”
PJ detains 35 people on suspicion of human trafficking in a network that exploited hundreds of immigrants in Alentejo
Given “the existing indications and the situation on the farms in the region, for a long time a determined, fast and consistent action has been demanded by the Government and the competent authorities in defense of the labor, social and human rights of these workers. , regardless of their place of birth or nationality,” said the PCP.
What has now been verified by the authorities, he stressed, It only corresponds to a part of innumerable situations of overexploitation and denial of labor and social rights thousands of workers in the region.
According to the party, the Government “is far from exhausting the means at its disposal to monitor, prevent and combat these crimes” and it is necessary that the different authorities with competence in these matters intervene “permanently, to put an end to towards authentic organized networks and mafias and seek to create conditions of reception, integration, habitability, regularization and guarantee of labor relations” for all workers.
Alluding to the expansion of the irrigation perimeters of Alqueva and Mira or the possible construction of infrastructures that the Alentejo populations have been demanding for a long time, the PCP warns that “the need for labor is expected to increase.”
For this reason, he defended, it is “necessary that the various structures of the Central State Administration take measures that, in an articulated and coordinated manner, prevent from now on new labor and social crimes and ensure decent conditions of reception, housing and integration”. of the thousands of workers in these areas. “construction”.
To combat “the root causes of this social scourge, it is necessary and urgent to invest seriously in agricultural production, increase the wages of agricultural workers, combat precariousness and promote labor stability, along with other structural measures to combat desertification of the Alentejo”, suggested the communists.
Source: Observadora
