International disgrace
In the UN, Conectas calls on Brazil to resume combating slave labor
Since August 2017, inspections of slave labor conditions by Brazilian authorities have been suspended. Conectas notified the UN Human Rights Council about this fact at the session yesterday, September 12, and called on the Brazilian government to resume allocating funds to combat forced labor.
The government of Michel Temer halted funding to Detrae (Division of Inspection for the Eradication of Slave Labor), an agency of the Ministry of Labor responsible for combating this crime. Since 1995, the agency has freed more than 50,000 workers who were being exploited in conditions akin to slavery.
The statement given by Conectas at the 36th session of the Council warned of the risk that the lack of funding is having on the agency’s field work. One of the main points of concern are coffee farms in the south of Minas Gerais state, where cases have already been found of human trafficking, degrading work conditions and violence against workers.
“The suspension of inspections of slave labor conditions will have devastating effects. Brazil had been operating at a pace that enabled an average of 2,500 workers per year to be freed. These people were living in totally degrading conditions and were subjected to contemporary forms of slavery. Nearly 130 years since the signing of the ‘Golden Law’, slavery is still a reality in Brazil and must not be treated lightly. The current government has a duty to retain the mechanisms to defend workers so we don’t have to tolerate this type of unacceptable situation,” said Caio Borges, coordinator of Business and Human Rights at Conectas.
In response, the Brazilian government claimed that “no field work to combat contemporary slavery has been suspended” and that the Ministry of Labor will reallocate funding to continue the inspections.
- Click here to read the report submitted to the UN on slave labor in southern Minas Gerais
