Italy
Background
The most recent National Action Plan against Trafficking and Serious Exploitation of Human Beings expired in 2025.
The Second National Action Plan om business and Human Rights expires in 2026.
There was also a dedicated national plan to combat labor exploitation in agriculture and gangmastering for the period 2020 - 2022.
The Italian government established Osservatorio Interventi Tratta, the Permanent Observatory Project on human trafficking and serious exploitation, pursuant to Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990.
The Observatory manages the implementation of the Anti-Trafficking hotlines.
There is a comprehensive labor inspectorate program which produces detailed data including cases of labor exploitation investigated and enforcement actions.
Italy has substantial migrant smuggling and trafficking issues and has invested heavily in border control.
Italian trade and supply chains are primarily connected to Europe with some trade directly with the Africa, Americas and Asia, however it is unclear there is robust due diligence and investigation into exploitation existing in supply chains with European businesses. From publicly available information, investigation and enforcement of supply chains is very limited.
The Italian Financial Intelligence Unit, Unità di Informazione Finanziaria per l’Italia, states commitments to human trafficking but there are no typologies publicly available.
Enforcement and prosecution use their considerable experience combatting organized crime to pursue traffickers.
Other Key Factors
Freedom of association and collective bargaining is very active and powerful in Italy.
Italy has a sizable informal economy, lavoro nero, is estimated to be 3.4% by the World Bank but by other sources it is as large as 15%.
Wage theft is a significant issue in Italy, particularly in the apparel and agricultural industries.
To understand Italy’s situation more fully, we show the percentage of the population using the internet in Italy, along with the highest usage and lowest usage countries amongst the G20 members (Saudi Arabia and India).
Italy’s remittances are also shown with the respective highest and lowest inflow remittance countries in the G20 (India/Saudi Arabia) and the highest and lowest outflow countries in the G20 (US/Philippines). Keep in mind that remittance estimates are often an under count of actual remittance volume.(Graph unit is in Billion US$)
Italy’s Role in the Global Economy and Its Supply Chains
Text to come
Trade flows from The Observatory of Economic Complexity