Officially, slavery in “(Former laborer Jose) Silva was a modern slave, working with 46 other men and a boy to clear jungle with machetes, chain saws and tractors from sunup to sundown in the tropical heat, seven days a week, for no money. He and the others got one meal a day of rice, beans and a little chicken or beef, which they were made to eat standing up to discourage resting. There were no toilets or latrines at the workers' camp, only bushes.”
Brazilian president Inacio Lula da Silva vowed to eradicate forced labor and this has led to several crackdowns. In 2005, over 1000 workers were found abused and mistreated on a plantation in Mato Grosso, while authorities said yesterday that anti-slavery officers freed approximately 1100 workers from a sugar cane plantation owned by the country’s biggest ethanol producer.
Despite government efforts the problem of modern-day slavery in
“Frei Henri des Roziers, a French Dominican who has worked in the region for more than 30 years and has frequently received death threats from landowners, says this is not enough.
‘If they think that only a small minority is committing this kind of crime, why do they not denounce these people openly - I've never heard any of the landowner organizations saying anything of the sort…If these workers have no possibility of leaving, if they are prevented from doing so by armed guards, if they live in miserable conditions, and if they are charged more than they earn, then that to me is slavery,’ he says.
‘And they return to these jobs because there is absolutely nothing else they can do in the region,’ insists the friar.”
Sources- Wikipedia, mongabay.com, International Herald Tribune, Reuters AlertNet, BBC News
Image- BBC News
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