Pope Denounces 'Cancer' of Exploitation in Italian City
Pope Francis has denounced the "cancer" of abusive labor practices during a visit to the Italian industrial city of Prato, where a 2013 garment factory fire killed seven Chinese workers.
Francis recalled the "tragedy" of the deaths in off-the-cuff comments Tuesday to Prato residents gathered in the piazza outside the city's cathedral. Prato is home to some 40,000 Chinese immigrants, nearly half of them in Italy illegally, and is a major producer of cheap clothes.
Francis said everyone deserves respect, welcome and dignified work. He said the "inhuman" conditions the Chinese garment workers were forced to live in "is not dignified work."
He said: "The life of every community requires that we fight the cancer of corruption, the cancer of human and labor exploitation and the poison of illegality."
Source: Associated Press
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