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Unemployed Brazilians are frequently tricked into slavery by false
promises of good wages and working conditions on remote agricultural
estates in Amazonia.
Transported long distances, they discover upon arrival that they
owe the estate for the costs of their transport, their food, accommodation
and tools. They are then forced to work to pay off the debt - this
is bonded labour.
Despite working for 14 hours or more, six days a week, workers
are often paid about US$1 a day. Those who become sick or buy items
from the estate shop - the only shop available to them - find their
debts increase. Threats of violence from armed guards and the remote
rainforest locations stop most workers from escaping.
Although the Brazilian Government set up a Special Mobile Inspection
Unit five years ago to carry out raids on estates where slavery
was being used, the issue is not treated as a priority. The Government
is failing to provide the necessary resources which would enable
the Unit to carry out its work effectively. Federal police no longer
rank these raids as a priority, meaning they are delayed and the
element of surprise crucial to the operation's success is lost.
Even when raids are successful the guilty are rarely punished.
Only four arrests were made between 1996 and 2000, though 1,684
slaves were released during this period.
"The Government of Brazil must make the elimination of
slavery a priority. In 1995 Anti-Slavery welcomed its initiative
in setting up the Mobile Inspection Units. But since then it has
failed to devote the necessary resources for its success and to
impose penalties which fit the crime of using slavery,"
Mike Dottridge, Director of
Anti-Slavery said.
One estate, Brasil Verde, has repeatedly been denounced
for using slave labour, and, although criminal proceedings began
in 1997, they were suspended two years later and, as of November
2000, had not reopened. Those responsible have not been prosecuted
or had their land confiscated.
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