Brasília, February 16, 2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Minister Nilmário Miranda, of the Special Secretariat for Human Rights, believes that by 2006 slave-like labor will only exist sporadically, in isolated instances.
Thursday (12), at the close of a seminar on slave-like labor sponsored by Radiobrás, in conjunction with the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Minister said that the government is devoted to the erradication of slave-like labor in the country. "It is not enough to think only in terms of combatting it," he pointed out. "I believe that when the President said that we are going to erradicate it, we will really erradicate it," he added.
Miranda affirmed that various steps are being taken, such as the circulation of a "black list" of 54 landowners whom labor inspection officials have cited for maintaining workers in slave-like conditions on their properties. These landowners are prohibited from receiving government loans. The Minister also emphasized the importance of passing the Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) that permits the expropriation of properties where slave-like labor is used. "It will be a mortal blow," he underscored. The PEC is currently in the Chamber of Deputies.
The Minister also said that the government is determined to punish the masterminds and gunmen responsible for the murder of three Ministry of Labor inspectors and a driver late last month in Unaí, northeast Minas Gerais. "They left a lot of trails, and people are speaking up," he said.
It is estimated that between 25 and 40 thousand workers live under slave-like conditions in the country. The chief characteristic that identifes slave-like labor is the restriction of freedom. Cláudia Márcia Brito, from the Secretariat of Labor Inspection, said that the form of slavery that exists nowadays is crueler than the tradition form. "The contemporary slave is expendable," she declared.
Brito has already taken part in various inspections carried out by the Ministry of Labor's mobile group that checks the existence of slave-like labor on rural properties. She said she discovered various workers living in canvas tents, eating poorly, and drinking the same dirty water as the animals on the property. She said that during one of the visits she heard a landowner remark that it did no good to offer filtered water to the workers, since they preferred the dirty water. The same landowner also admitted that the corral was cleaner and better cared for than the lodgings occupied by his employees, but that the workers liked it that way, Brito reported.
In her view, passage of the PEC that will permit land confiscation is very important and will serve as an educational tool. "We know that employers act only their pocketbooks are stirred," she affirmed. She also said that the only victim of slavery in Brazil is the worker. "He is not a slave because he wants to, but for complete lack of opportunity," she concluded. (DAS)
