Brazil frees 'slave workers' at sugarcane field

03 July 2007 02:35  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--Brazil’s Labour Ministry freed 1,100 workers on a sugarcane field in the northern state of Para due to working conditions resembling slavery, an official said on Monday.

This was the largest such operation conducted by the Labour Ministry on a sugarcane field since 2005, a government official said.

“We are faced with a modern type of slavery through which workers have to pay their employers to keep their jobs,” the official said in Portuguese during a telephone interview.

Workers taken to sugarcane fields in remote areas can be obliged to deduct transportation and lodging costs from their salaries, ending up owing their employers more than they earn and working as slaves to pay the debts, the official said.

In the recent past, the disclosure of forced labour conditions to produce charcoal in remote regions of Brazil led to the temporary shut down of pig-iron exports to the US. Federal officials have for a number of years been aware of the problem and have been cracking down on violations.

When questioned about labour conditions on Brazilian sugar fields, an industry source recently told ICIS news that concerns about the possibility of market closure to Brazilian ethanol for such reasons were minimal.

The source said that cane for ethanol production tended to be harvested mechanically under well supervised operations, and not by hand in remote locations.

Brazil is the world’s top exporter of the biofuel.

Additional reporting by John Waggoner.

By: William Lemos
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