More than 4,000 slaves were freed by the Brazilian authorities last year, according to new government figures. But campaigners fear hundreds of thousands more still live and work in near-slavery.
The Brazilian employment ministry said its officials raided 183 farms, the highest number since SWAT-style teams were introduced 10 years ago. In total 4,133 workers were freed, with 7.4 million reals (US$3.2 million) paid to victims, the ministry said.
"What we know about is the tip of the iceberg," said Father Ricardo Rezende, an anti-slavery campaigner and author of Stepping Out of the Shadow: Slavery for Debt in Contemporary Brazil, the first study of modern-day slavery in Brazil.
Slavery study
Although slavery was officially abolished in Brazil in 1889, Rezende said the estimate of just 25,000 could be way off the mark.
"The real figure could be 250,000," he said.
Brazil's modern-day slave trade began to boom again during the 1964 military dictatorship.
Following the creation of Sudam, a regional development agency which opened up industries in the Amazon region in 1966, business people and cattle ranchers flocked to the rainforests to make money.
The landowners employed middlemen, known as gatos, who found unemployed workers in Brazil's impoverished rural communities, often in northeastern Minas Gerais.
"The gato arrives in a community and says he can get legal work in a certain place," Rezende said.
"They say the person will be able to send money home to their family ... [but] when they arrive they discover they owe money for the transport and the food. The first imprisonment is that of the soul," he added.
"Often a worker will have the false sense that he is in the wrong [if he flees]," Rezende said.
First conviction
Neide de Oliveira was the first prosecutor in Brazil to secure a conviction against a farmer for using slave labour in 1998.
She said landowners manipulate workers, knowing that slavery is, for many, a more attractive proposition than unemployment.
"I once interviewed a worker with malaria, and the farmer had given him a paracetamol and told him he would have to work for two months to pay for it," she said. "I said to him, `Why don't you run away,' and he replied, `Run away to where? I don't have any money and I can't go home like this.'"
The campaign against slavery has taken center stage since President Lula da Silva came to power in 2002. In 2003 a national action plan drafted a blacklist of the companies involved.
Shield of impunity
Yet campaigners say a shield of impunity still exists for many slave owners and warn that until a new bill is passed allowing the confiscation of land, little progress will be made.
In the past, several politicians have been denounced for exploiting slave labour.
Last year, Senator Joao Ribeiro was fined 760,000 real after 38 men, working in slave-like conditions were found on his farm.
Rezende fled northern Para state after receiving death threats from pistoleiros (hired guns).
He claimed that the landowners reasoned the workers were uncivilized, and that they were offering them work and food.
"It is a cultural problem," Oliveira said. "The landowners say, `Everybody does this, so why should I be different?'"
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese