permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6266712.stm         
Last Updated: Tuesday, 3 July 2007, 18:38 GMT 19:38 UK

'Slave' labourers freed in Brazil

Many slaves are used to clear Amazonian land for cultivation

More than 1,000 labourers have been freed in Brazil by the government's 
anti-slavery team.

They were said to be working in inhumane conditions on a sugar cane 
plantation in the Amazon.

An ethanol-producing company which owns the plantation has denied allegations 
of abusing the workers.

Human rights and labour organisations believe that between 25,000 to 40,000 people could be working in conditions akin 
to slavery in Brazil.

Many farmers in the Amazon region who incur debts are forced to work virtually for free in order to repay the money they 
owe.

Labour ministry officials and prosecutors discovered more than 1,100 workers working 13 hours a day and living in 
conditions described as "appalling".

It is the largest such raid in Brazil, a country beset by the problem of 
slave labour.

Officials said that the labourers lived in overcrowded conditions with no 
proper sanitation facilities.

Ethanol industry

The plantation was located about 250 km (155 miles) from the mouth of the 
Amazon river near the town of Ulianopolis.

Amazon workers
Many workers in the Amazon work on plantations to pay debts

The company which runs the plantation denies the charges against it and said that the workers were paid good wages by 
Brazilian standards.

But the BBC's Gary Duffy, in Sao Paulo, says many are thought to fall into debt slavery by paying for transportation to 
work far from where they live and by buying overpriced tools and food.

Ethanol sells in Brazil at half the price for conventional petrol and is said 
to be a greener fuel for cars.

Recently, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged to bring industry leaders and workers together to "to discuss the 
humanisation of the sugar cane sector in this country".

He was acting after being criticised for calling Brazil's ethanol producers "national and world heroes", despite critics 
accusing producers of exploiting workers in the sugar cane and ethanol industry.

The Mobile Verification Task Force, which conducted the raid on the plantation, was founded in 1995 by the Labour 
Ministry and claims to have freed more than 21,000 workers from debt slave conditions at more than 1,600 farms across 
Brazil.

The Roman Catholic Church estimates there are some 25,000 workers living in slave-like conditions throughout Brazil, 
most of them in the Amazon.