Socio-economic context |
The global population has tripled over the last 50 years thanks to rural migration to the cities in Brazil and the rest of the world, intensifying the supply of people seeking work and income, and lowering wages in rural areas and urban centers. The urbanization rate in the 1960s was 57% in the Southeast region, reaching more than 92% in 2010. The states of Maranhão, Piauí and Pará present the lowest rates of urbanization in the country: 59%, 67% and 70%. |
Population density |
Production chains seek to lower production costs through the reduction of labor costs, without investing in decent working conditions. |
Formation and organization of cheap labor with mechanisms of substitution, cheap production costs and cheap sales prices - formed an institutionalized system combined simultaneously with low remuneration: outsourcing. Denunciation to CADE for unfair pricing in the cattle farming chain. |
School attendance, lack of employment and income, as well as the lack of resources for health are related to the incidence of slave labor in Brazil. Brazilian slaves tend to originate from states with the country’s lowest MHDI indices. |
MHDI |
The state of poverty places individuals in direct line of fire with the luring mechanisms used by ‘gatos.’ Begging, hunger, malnutrition, earthquakes and migration can intensify the vulnerability of Brazilian and foreign workers. Certain vulnerable regions (N and NE) coincide with slave labor. |
Vulner-ability |
Geographic context |
[...] “I’m a Northeasterner, I was born in a small town. There it is rare to find good job opportunities. So it was normal to see family and friends leave for other states in search of opportunities. In 2011 it was my turn to head south. A man appeared in my town to recruit people, it was a project for a leading construction firm, he said, good work, good wages, and travel costs, accommodation and meals were covered. I needed [the work] and accepted it. After two days in a coach, I arrived in São Paulo. And there the conversation changed. [...] I thought about giving up and returning home, but I had no money for the ticket and was obliged to stay” (MTE, 2016bMTE. Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego. Trabalho em situação análoga à escravidão. Depoimento 2. 2016b. Available on: <http://trabalho.gov.br/trabalhoescravonao>. Acessed on 20 mai 2016. http://trabalho.gov.br/trabalhoescravona...
). [...] “Pedro, 13 years old, lost count of the number of times he felt cold, soaked by the Amazonian storms, underneath the yellow tarpaulin tent that served as home during the week. Before dawn he would gulp down black coffee thickened with manioc flour, grab the 14 kilo chainsaw and begin work transforming the Amazonian forest around him…” (OIT, 2007MPT. Ministério Público do Trabalho. OIT. Organização Internacional do Trabalho. Observatório digital do trabalho escravo no Brasil. 2017. Available on: <https://observatorioescravo.mpt.mp.br>. Acessed on 01 mar. 2018. https://observatorioescravo.mpt.mp.br...
, p. 28) |
Geographic isolation |
[...] “I didn’t have an easy life. At 14 I ran away from home and my violent stepfather. Since then I’ve worked hard, I always wanted to improve. That’s why I didn’t think twice when a Brazilian appeared in La Paz. [...] I had two options, pay the R$450 for the trip or work for him for a year for no money. Without any option, I submitted [to the latter]. I learnt to sew. I worked every day from 7 in the morning to 11 at night” (MTE, 2016cMTE. Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego. Trabalho em situação análoga à escravidão. Depoimento 3. 2016c. Available on: <http://trabalho.gov.br/trabalhoescravonao>. Acessed on 20 mai 2016. http://trabalho.gov.br/trabalhoescravona...
). CASE D [...] “immigration is extremely high. We do not know how many Paraguayans, Bolivians and Peruvians have already entered. Even Haitians, they caught 200 Haitians trying to cross the border to work in the construction projects for the Olympics” (ILO COORDINATOR, 2013, verbal information). [...] “we’re about to host two major events in Brazil, the World Cup and the Olympic Games, which are already attracting [workers], including… coming from there in Mato Grosso, and there are already reports of people arriving here in Brazil from outside the country, and even migrating internally to work in these construction projects” (ILO COORDINATOR, 2013). |
Human trafficking |
Cultural context |
[...] “there is a lot of resistance in the Brazilian congress, a lot of resistance in various sectors of Brazilian society, to deepening affirmative action policies, but clearly, a dividing line needs to be drawn between public policies and State and civil society actions against slavery. It needs to be recognized that slaves in Brazil are mostly black. Denying this fact is to fly in the face of reality” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2011). Verbal information [...] “look, we cannot accept that a load of blacks and Africans board an overcrowded boat to try to reach Sicily and there the boat sinks and they drown, so it’s a human rights issue, what we have to do to solve the problem is close the border” (COORDINATOR OF REPÓRTER BRASIL, 2014). |
Race and color |
Regulatory context |
[...] “in an operation in Goiás, GEFM released 128 workers in two farms. The coordinator recounts that the inspection met with resistance despite the presence of the Federal Police. The farm managers did not reply to the questions, ignored them and addressed them aggressively. They mocked the inspection. Two civil police officers went to the location and even started interfering in the inspection work until they were removed by the team from the Federal Police. The mobile group confirms that the ‘gato’ has two brothers in the Civil Police (COSTA, 2010COSTA, P. T. M. Combatendo o trabalho escravo contemporâneo no Brasil: o exemplo do Brasil. Organização Internacional do Trabalho: Brasília, 194p. 2010., p.132). |
Corruption and inspection |