Brasília, January 28, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The National Secretary of Human Rights, Nilmário Miranda, wants to form a national pact to eliminate slave labor in Brazil. In an interview he gave today to Radiobrás, the Minister affirmed that the route for this type of human rights violation is well-known: 90% of slave laborers come from municipalities in Piauí and Maranhão, and the majority are exploited in the south of Pará.

According to the Secretary, last year alone around 25 thousand people in Brazil were submitted to work conditions comparable to slavery. "It is intolerable that anyone in Brazil, in the XXI century, can consider this as normal," Miranda observed, adding that, to end slavery requires an integrated effort as much in the suppression as in the prevention. (DAS)