Farmworker Protections and Labor Conditions in Brazil’s Coffee Sector
Over the past 20 years, Brazil has implemented a progressive, creative, multifaceted and multisector campaign to eradicate modern slavery—a campaign that has been cited as a model by multilateral organizations such as the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO), foreign government agencies including the U.S. Department of Labor, and leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs) specializing in issues of slavery and human trafficking like Free the Slaves.
The Government of Brazil acknowledged the existence of modern slavery in 1995. Since then, a Special Mobile Inspection Group within the MTE has been primarily responsible for enforcing the country’s prohibition on modern slavery, enshrined in Article 149 of its penal code. Article 149 prohibits “reducing someone to a condition analogous to that of a slave”
and establishes four conditions that violate the prohibition: forced labor, debilitating workdays, degrading working conditions and debt bondage.
When this definition of modern slavery was ratified in 2003, Brazil introduced a new tool in its campaign to eradicate modern slavery: an Employer Register that identifies factories, farms and firms found to be employing workers in conditions analogous to slavery. The “Dirty List,” as it is popularly known in Brazil, is maintained by the MTE, which publishes an updated version of the list semiannually.
The July 2013 edition of the Dirty List included 15 coffee estates found to be employing workers in conditions analogous to slavery. The agents who inspected those estates during unannounced visits secured the release of nearly 400 people who were working against their will or under conditions Brazil’s legal framework describes as slave-like. The labor practices of those estates—recruitment, working and living conditions, worker freedoms, worker compensation, etc.—were the primary subject of the research behind this report.
Area of focus: Coffee
Organisation/institution: Catholic Relief Services