Film: Bound By Promises: Contemporary Slavery in Rural Brazil
This comes from a post I created back in August. While cleaning out my unpublished post files, this was 1 of 4 unpublished entries. The film was longer, but it was only available on a video player which was too large to post on this blog page. Well once again, thanks to YouTube, someone posted it a few months ago, and tonight I found it. This film is everywhere now. Modern day slavery is still going on in many parts of the world. Here is a link to the full 17 minute film. Below is a YouTube excerpt from the film which is about 4 minutes long.
Slave workers freed from Brazilian plantation
Jul 3, 2007, 16:51 GMT
Rio de Janeiro - More than 1,100 workers held under slave- like conditions in Brazil were freed in the country's largest operation against forced labour in recent years, according to media reports Tuesday.
Officers from the Brazilian Labour Ministry and the federal police raided a sugar cane plantation used in the production of ethanol fuel in the northern state of Para. Reports said it was the largest such operation since the so-called razzia system - a fresh commitment by the government to root out slavery - was introduced in 1995.
The company operating the estate in the town of Ulianopolis, 250 kilometres south of state capital Belem, produces some 40 million litres of ethanol per year, reports said.
The Brazilian Labour Ministry has also paid out a total of 1.8 million real (940,000 dollars) to the affected workers as compensation since the raid, which took place some time in late June- early July.
The men and women freed were held in overcrowded warehouses in the rainforest. The estate owner used a method frequent in Brazil - he sold the workers clothes, work equipment, food and medicine at prices well above their market value, so that they were ever more in debt and ultimately became entirely dependent on their master.
The available drinking water was dirty and tasted like rust, the Labour Ministry said. There were no sanitation facilities in the plantation, and the working day went from 4 am to 5:30 pm.
In 2006, 3,308 men, women and children were freed from slave-like working conditions throughout Brazil.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 25,000- 40,000 people are subjected to such forced labour in Brazil, where slavery was officially abolished in 1888."
Reference:
Monsters and Critics.com
Stage6
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