Researchers map slavery in Brazil

The Atlas of Slave Labor, produced by geographers at Unesp and USP, describes the distribution and movement of Brazilian slave labor and presents tools to locate the most susceptible sectors and the most vulnerable populations

By Fabio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – After more than 10 years on the backburner, Constitutional Amendment 438, known as the Slave Labor Amendment, was passed in a second round of voting in the Chamber of Deputies.

In addition to this important step toward creating new legislation, which involves confiscating property at locations where there is forced labor, efforts to combat 21st-century slave labor have gained another important ally: the Atlas of Slave Labor in Brazil.

The publication, based on extensive research by geographers from Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) and Universidade de São Paulo (USP), characterizes, for the first time, the distribution, movements and types of slave labor in Brazil.

The Atlas also presents two new tools, the Slave Labor Probability Index and the Recruitment Vulnerability Index, which could help in the implementation of legislation and could guide public policy to combat slavery.

According to the authors, the publication will allow the government to evaluate the probability that slave labor will occur in specific regions and economic sectors, facilitating prevention and eradication efforts. Since 1995, the Brazilian government has released more than 42,000 people from slavery or slave-like conditions, according to data from the Pastoral Land Commission.

Produced by Eduardo Paulon Girardi of Unesp and Hervé Théry, Neli Aparecida de Mello and Julio Hato of USP, Amigos da Terra – Amazônia Brasileira conceived the book and released it exclusively on the internet.

The document incorporates data from the Atlas of Brazilian Agrarian Matters and is based on Girardi’s doctoral thesis, which was funded in part through a FAPESP fellowship and was defended in 2008 at Unesp’s School of Sciences and Technology.

According to Girardi, the Atlas allows users to map the typical profile of the Brazilian 21st-century slave: a migrant from Maranhão, northern Tocantins or western Piauí who is male and functionally illiterate. The most common destinations of these workers are agricultural frontiers in the Amazon within recently created municipalities, where the workers are primarily used in activities associated with deforestation.

“The Atlas demonstrates that there is a profound connection between slavery and extreme poverty. It is not by chance that there are many enslaved people from Maranhão and Piauí, which are the poorest units of the federation. Slavery occurs mainly on very remote properties,” commented Girardi in an interview with Agência FAPESP.

This geographic isolation makes it difficult to verify allegations of slavery and is one of the main characteristics of contemporary slavery, according to Girardi. The large distances between urban centers impede flight.

“The other resources are coercion through the violence of overseers, many types of humiliation for anyone attempting to flee and, principally, indebtedness,” says Girardi.

Once a worker is recruited from a poor region with the promise of a salary that he would never be able to obtain there, the worker contracts debts, generally exorbitant, for transportation to the work site. Upon reaching the destination, he is obliged to buy all his work tools and food and to pay for lodging. The debt becomes unpayable, and the condition of slavery is established.

According to Girardi, the Atlas utilizes official and consolidated sources from the Ministry of Labor and the Pastoral Land Commission. The details of the occurrences are divided into economic sectors and nationwide occurrences.

Examples of high-risk sectors for slave labor are activities related to livestock or charcoal in certain regions of the Amazon.

“We obtained data from the Labor Ministry about the origin of enslaved workers and their destination after being freed. We mapped these data and later conducted an analysis using information from the productive sectors, followed by data on human development, geographic conditions and income. With this analysis, we managed to map the movements and the social and geographic characteristics of this population,” says Girardi.

Misery generates slavery

Based on this analysis, the researchers produced two innovative tools: the Slave Labor Probability Index and the Recruitment Vulnerability Index. The first of these guides the practice of combating slavery, and the second is planned to aid in preventive actions.

According to Girardi, the indices will be fundamental for managers of public policy to outline plans to combat slavery. The instruments are also expected to aid foundations and companies in avoiding associations with criminal businesses linked to slave labor.

“In order to produce the probability index, we analyzed the main activities where slave labor is found – agriculture and the opening of new pasture areas, in particular – and mapped the economic characteristics of the regions where it occurs. This index indicates the municipalities that have similar characteristics to those where there is slave labor. With this, the managers have an instrument to combat slavery,” he explains.

The vulnerability index combines elements that demonstrate the economic and social fragility of workers who are at risk for recruitment.

According to Girardi, the regions that are characterized by precarious human development and low income are classified as areas with high indices of possible slavery recruitment.

“The data show that slave labor in contemporary Brazil is essentially a problem related to poverty. The misery of this population is exploited by groups of criminal land owners who lack scruples and do not see the worker as a human,” says Girardi.

“For this reason, increasing inspection and freeing slaves is not enough. For prevention, combating extreme poverty is a must.  Many times, the workers who are freed from slavery return to their regions of origin and, without being able to find a means to support themselves, end up being enslaved again,” he explains.

The Atlas of Slave Labor in Brazil is available at http://amazonia.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Atlas-do-Trabalho-Escravo.pdf.