São Luís, 3/25/2004 (Agência Brasil) – The state of Maranhão has become the first Brazilian state with a plan to combat slave-type labor. The plan was unveiled on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by Patricia Audi, the Brazilian coordinator of the International Labor Organization (ILO)project on slave-type labor and Sandra Lia Simon, a labor-law prosecutor.

According to the governor of Maranhão, José Reinaldo Tavares, the problem urgently needs a solution. "We cannot permit the existence of slave-type labor in the XXI century," he declared.

The plan Maranhão is implementing is part of a campaign that the ILO office in Brazil began last year. The problem of slave-type labor exists in the states of Maranhão, Pará, Amapá, Ceará, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Tocantins and Piauí.

The ILO reports that frequently workers are enlisted in Maranhão and taken to slave-type jobs in the Amazon region. In the state itself, the problem exists in 47 locations, mainly in charcoal industries and on cattle farms.

It is estimated that some 25,000 to 30,000 people in Brazil work in slave-type labor situations. (translator: Allen Bennett)