Is that very low? 4€/hour at 8h/day, 22 days/month is 700€/month. I don't know how are the salary levels in Italy, but that's quite a bit more than the minimum wage in Portugal, and only slightly less than the minimum wage in Spain at the time.
While both describe some incredibly poor working conditions, neither suggest that illegal immigrants are large factor. The UC Davis piece says that it existed but the numbers were exaggerated, the Guardian piece says there might be 100,000 in a labor force of 23 million.
> Those who are enslaved are exploited for the financial gain of their captors. The vulnerable are made to work in cruel conditions for long hours without pay. Examples include women and girls forced into prostitution for profit, young boys made to commit criminal acts against their will and men kept in slave-like conditions in factories.
> Last year there was a total of 3805 recorded victims of modern slavery in the UK, a 17% increase on the year before. Victims came from 108 different countries, with the top 3 being Albania, the UK and Vietnam (find out more on the Resources page).
> In 2016 the most common types of exploitation for adults and children in the UK, where known, were labour exploitation and sexual exploitation. Individuals in the UK are exploited for labour in various places of work, from hotels to farms, boats to building sites and nail bars to cannabis factories. Labour exploitation spans the agricultural, hospitality, fishing and construction sector. In addition, people are exploited for sexual purposes, including forced prostitution, escort work and pornography.
