Forced labour vineyards in Brazil expose modern slavery

topic:	Slavery
located:	Brazil
editor:	Ellen Nemitz

The most recent case involving forced labour in conditions analogous to slavery has just been discovered in Brazil, staining the reputation of the wine industry. Over 200 people - most of them brought from northeastern Brazil in buses - were rescued from vineyards in the southern State of Rio Grande do Sul and denounced the violent ways of repression supposedly used to maintain their captivity by those who first employed them. The wine brands involved in the case will naturally have the right to defend themselves in a due process, but evidence found by the authorities indicate grave human rights violations.

Several wineries operating in this region recruited foreign workers, promising them high salaries for working the manual harvest which cannot be performed easily mechanically due to the steep hills. However, these foreign workers soon found themselves subjected to 18 hour workdays, physical violence like electric shocks and pepper spray, delayed and low payments, and were coerced to remain on site. Federal police arrived onsite to investigate and found hundreds of forced workers living in degrading conditions. The owner of the company, which operates with several wineries in the region, was arrested but released on bail shortly after.

This is not the only case of what is sometimes called modern slavery: deeply degrading conditions of work, which includes extremely low incomes, long working journeys, insalubrious places and captivity by unpayable debts, for example, are all realities of people under modern captivity. In Brazil alone, the Ministry of Work and Social Security reports that there were 462 operations of this kind in 2022, leading to the rescue of 2,575 workers in slave-like conditions.

Globally, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 27.6 million people were under forced labour in 2021, equivalent to the whole population of Delhi, India, or more than twice that of London. Approximately 13 percent of this astonishing number was attributed to the region of Americas. When the ILO includes forced marriage in its consideration, a total of almost 50 million people were deprived of their liberty in some form. Moreover, the criminal exploitation of humans for work, which affects all genders and ages, or forced marriage has actually risen by about 23 percent in the past five years, the report shows.

In allusion to the National Day for Combating Slave Labour, marked on 28 January, a group of Brazilian institutions - most of them related to the Catholic Church, but also secular NGOs and governmental bodies - released a note demanding that society promote decent work conditions for all. This grave violation to human rights usually relies on discrimination and overall vulnerability - indeed, data confirms that victims of this crime often have poor levels of formal education and already live in miserable conditions when recruited.

"Society has the responsibility to demand an economy that prizes human dignity above profit and this implies, among other things, putting an end to the practice of enslaved labour still persistent in several fields of activity, such as agriculture and cattle breeding, large crops, civil construction, clothing industry, coalfields, mining, hotel services or housekeeping," reads the note.

Even though some Latin American countries agreed to improve efforts to combat forced labour in their territories and joined a global calling for the ratification of ILO Forced Labour Protocol, much more must be done to end this often hidden and, perhaps, underestimated issue. "The Protocol on Forced Labour won’t end forced labour by itself. But convincing governments to ratify it is a critical step in that direction," the ILO believes. In fact, efforts must be strengthened worldwide if we want to be able to write new stories of freedom together.

Image by Tim Mossholder

Call to Action

Join the fight against human trafficking