Brazil faces modern slavery allegations at Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
| Autor | Scruggs, Gregory |
Following nearly two decades of alleging slavery-like conditions at a plantation in the Amazon, two human rights groups had their day in court last month, where they accused the Brazilian government of gross negligence.
Since 1998, the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), a legal NGO serving citizens of the Americas, and the Comissao Pastoral da Terra, a Catholic NGO serving the Brazilian Amazon, have filed formal complaints with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) about the Fazenda Brasil Verde, a privately-owned cattle ranch in Para. They have argued that the Brazilian government failed to prevent a case of modern slavery through forced labor, despite repeated visits by government authorities to assess conditions at the ranch. Lawyers for the Brazilian government have countered that there were "labor irregularities" but not slavery conditions on the plantation.
The case was finally heard on Feb. 18-19 in the IACHR courtroom in San Jose, Costa Rica. It was the first time the Inter-American Court of Human Rights formally addressed modern slavery since the judicial body was established in 1979. Three days before the hearings, Brazilian judge Roberto Caldas assumed the presidency of the court, but he did not participate in the proceedings.
The court is expected to hand down its decision in the second half of 2016. If the judges rule in favor of the plaintiffs, the Brazilian government will be expected to launch a full-scale investigation of the Fazenda Brasil Verde. The government will also be compelled to pay compensation to victims and search for the remains of six workers who died or disappeared on the plantation. Finally, Brasilia will also be expected to adopt stronger legislation to prevent future incidents.
'Exploitative labor system'
In a 65-page IACHR brief from 2011, CEJIL and Comissao Pastoral da Terra accuse Brazil of violating the American Convention on Human Rights and the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. Specifically, the brief alleges that an exploitative labor system operates through rural Brazil, whereby young men, usually of African ancestry and/or from the country's poorer states, are recruited for manual labor only to discover, upon arrival, that they have incurred debts for their transport to the work site. They subsequently must work to pay off these debts, but their wages are lower than the supposed interest on their debt, which makes effective repayment impossible.
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