Trapped dreams
In the small towns around Ludhiana “half of the young people want to leave and the other half has already left”, says Arman, 21, who is managed to move to Italy. “Family members who remained in India got rich and built big houses. Now is my turn”.In Punjab the belief to move abroad, getting a better life for themself and relatives, is the dream pursued by many youngsters. Dazzled by the villas built with the remittance moneys, surrounded by billboards that promises Visa, they flock to the temples to bring gifts and toy airplanes to propitiate the process to obtain the documents to move to Europe, Canada, US or Australia. But behind the dream of a better life abroad there is a whole hidden truth. Debts, a network of travel agents and complicit employers trap thousands of people under exploitation in Italy, where a controversial migration law creates the condition for visa illicit intermediation to thrive. As a result, a community of thousands of Punjabi migrants work in slavery like condition, in Latina, one hour from Rome, where they harvest vegetables that are sold all over Europe.
