Mulierum Verecundia: Shame as a Mechanism of Control and Resistance Suppression in Women's Exploitation Within the Caporalato System

ABSTRACT

This article examines shame as a mechanism of control and resistance suppression among migrant women subjected to caporalato, an illegal system of labour intermediation and exploitation in Italian agriculture. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 28 women from nine African countries, the analysis shows how internalised and externally imposed shame reinforces compliance, constrains agency and sustains exploitative labour arrangements. Shame operates through linked mechanisms that include gendered obligations of caregiving and endurance, collective pressure that frames silence as loyalty and moral blackmail through which caporali present domination as protection. Within participants’ accounts, resistance becomes associated with dishonour and submission with survival, making refusal, reporting and exit socially and emotionally costly. Effective responses therefore require attention to the economic, legal, emotional and relational conditions that restrict migrant women's labour rights and capacity for resistance.