Reply #1: Brazil Rescues 4,634 from Slavery in 2008 [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil Rescues 4,634 from Slavery in 2008


BRASILIA -- Brazilian authorities rescued a total of 4,634 workers this year from conditions analagous to slavery, the Ministry of Labor and Employment said Wednesday.

The ministry's Mobile Group, an interagency unit that includes officers of the Federal Police, conducted 133 operations in 2008, the most since its creation in 1995.

Most of those liberated were farm laborers forced to work long hours under often dangerous and unhygienic conditions.

One of the most common forms of defacto servitude in Brazil is debt peonage, under which an employer binds a worker to the job by paying him far too little for the employee to repay his ever-growing debt to the boss for food, lodging and transportation.

The biggest offenders are cattle ranchers and owners of sugarcane plantations, the ministry said.

Ministry regulations call for sugar workers to be paid the equivalent of $540 a month for cutting 10-12 tons of cane per day, but many plantation owners ignore the law.

More:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=324484&CategoryId=14090

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01/03/2009 04:26 PM ID: 75954 Permalink
Slaves Freed From Remote Farms

Last year more than 4500 people were rescued from slave-like conditions by authorities in Brazil. Though slavery is banned in the country from 1888, many impoverished people work as debt slave on remote ranches and plantations.

While they are in debt to pay off it, are forced to work, living in isolated camps. There are no contacts between them and their families. Small armies of gunmen are employed by ranchers to prevent the escapes.

Many slave workers are killed when they demand for payment from their employers.

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