The Hindu
Tuesday, Jul 20, 2004
Slave labour in Brazil
By Paul Brown
An unpublished report for the ILO says that despite
the best efforts of the
Brazilian Government, slave labour continues in the
country's interior.
AN ESTIMATED 25,000 people are working as slave
labourers in Brazil clearing
the Amazon jungle for ranchers, or producing pig iron
in the forest using
charcoal smelters, according to a new study.
An unpublished report for the Geneva-based
International Labour Organisation
concludes that despite the best efforts of the
Government of President Luiz
Ignacio Lula da Silva to free slaves and prosecute
offenders, the level of
lawlessness in the country's interior means that the
practice continues.
The report also uncovers a new area of labour
analogous to slavery, where
men, women and children who are illegal immigrants
from Bolivia, Peru and
Paraguay are working in sweatshops in Sao Paulo.
Workshop owners are part of a flourishing cheap
clothes industry that uses
the fear of deportation to enforce harsh conditions
under which people are
sometimes locked up where they work and sleep. The
London-based Guardian
newspaper was passed a copy of the report because
anti-slavery campaigners
feared that the ILO was suppressing it. They believe
that officials are
nervous of criticism of the organisation's failure to
make an impact on the
situation. The report is also sensitive because it
shows that the United
States is directly benefiting from the proceeds of
slavery.
But Roger Plant, head of the ILO's forced labour
programme in Geneva, denied
the report was being withheld. He said it had been
held back to include more
statistics and it would be updated and published next
year.
Mr. Plant said the report made clear that the
Brazilian Government was
making efforts to attack slavery, and it was unfair to
single out a state
when Peru and Bolivia also had slaves, probably in
similar numbers.
New figures show that since the Lula Government took
office in January 2002
with a promise to end slave labour, 5,400 slave
workers have been released
and £ 1.4 million paid to them in compensation.
The author of the report, Jan Rocha, said on Sunday:
After a good start
cracking down, the Government has given in to the
landowners' lobby's
pressure in Congress to delay a bill that would
confiscate their estates
when slave labour has been found, in exchange for
their votes on other
bills.
As the report pointed out, the scandalous fact is
that many federal
Congressmen and regional politicos have been found
using slave labour on
their cattle ranches - so some of the men who got the
law postponed are
those who personally benefit from the delay.
Attempts to tackle slave labour have been hindered by
the lawlessness of the
territories involved and the puny punishments that
have been handed out.
Ms. Rocha describes how slave workers live in hovels
under plastic sheets
without sanitation, with the job of clearing the
forest for soya bean
plantations and cattle. In the charcoal smelters they
work without
protective clothing in extreme heat.
The report concludes that the only way slavery will
disappear is that if
everyone regards it as a national outrage and
ranches and businesses are
confiscated as a punishment. - Guardian Newspapers
Limited 2004
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.
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