Fighting slave labor in charcoal industry
By Mario Osava
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug. 17 (IPS)— “It was terrible
to see 30-year-old men crying like little boys,” said Carmen Bascarán,
trying to portray the sense of terror in which a group of charcoal workers
in northern Brazil were living before they were taken in by her human
rights organization three months ago.
The 11 men, who were working on a charcoal-producing ranch in the southeastern
portion of the northern Amazon state of Pará, fled to escape
slave-like working conditions and sought help from the Center for Defense
of Life and Human Rights (CDVDH) in the nearest city, Açailandia.
CDVDH gave them shelter in a house in the city for a few days. But the
threats from their “employers” and the fear of being killed
made a safer refuge necessary.
“At midnight we took them to a remote estate, owned by friends,
until the Labor Ministry took a hand in the matter” 15 days later,
Bascarán told IPS.
As president of CDVDH, she had already been involved in many similar
cases, protecting and hiding workers who had been subjected to forced
labor in appalling conditions — a phenomenon that is common in
Pará and the state of Maranhao to the east, where Açailandia
is located.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are
between 25,000 and 40,000 people working in slavery-like conditions
in this South American country of roughly 180 million. Brazil’s
Landless Workers Movement (MST) says the number is even higher.
New hope for curbing slave labor on charcoal-producing ranches in northern
Brazil emerged on Aug. 20 when 15 local steel mills signed a pact in
which they promised to require that their charcoal suppliers ensure
decent working conditions for their employees.
The pledge was signed in Brasilia, the capital, by the Carajás
Steel Mill Association, other steel industry associations, and local
non-governmental organizations pushing for socially responsible business
practices, like the Ethos Institute and the Social Observatory.
There has been a concerted effort over the past decade to eradicate
modern-day slave labor in Brazil by drafting the support of industry
for measures aimed at abolishing servitude and degrading working conditions
at all points of the production chain.
Remote charcoal ranches, sugar plantations, and areas where land is
being cleared for growing monoculture crops like soybeans or for raising
cattle in northern Brazil are the main exploiters of forced labor, said
Bascarán.
The charcoal is produced from felled trees, whose wood is gathered by
workers, including children, and fired in kilns. The charcoal is used
as an input for pig iron smelters, which obtain it from subcontractors.
The pig iron industry boomed in the 1970s in the Carajás region
in southern Pará, leading to an increase in Brazil’s exports
of iron ore, of which it is one of the world’s leading producers.
The expansion of the industry took advantage of the high unemployment
in a part of Brazil where the state is largely absent and labor laws
go unenforced.
That area of northern Brazil has the highest number of rural murders,
whose main victims are trade unionists and rural, social, and human
rights activists, as well as Catholic priests who work with the poor.
The slave-like conditions involve workers who are recruited by agents,
known as gatos, with promises of decent wages. But once they are brought
to the remote ranches, the workers find they are unable to leave, not
only due to the lack of transportation but also because many of the
establishments are watched over by armed guards, and they are threatened
with torture or death if they try to escape.
When the workers arrive, they already owe the gatos the cost of their
transportation. And since they are forced to buy their food and tools
in the company store at inflated prices, they continue to fall further
and further into debt, because their meager wages fail to cover what
they owe.
Neither work contracts nor labor rights exist, and the charcoal producers
work up to 14 hours a day without even the minimal safety protection
of gloves or boots. On top of that, they are given poor-quality, insufficient
food, said Odilon Faccio, director of the Social Observatory.
But unemployment in the region is so high that there is an abundance
of workers who have no choice but to accept any job they are offered.
In the states of Maranhao and Pará there are between 20,000 and
23,000 charcoal ranches, according to Faccio. But Bascarán says
there may be many more, because a large proportion of the ranches work
in clandestine conditions in extremely remote areas.
Producing the charcoal poses a huge threat to the health of workers,
causing respiratory and skin ailments and circulatory problems due to
the charcoal dust and high temperatures in the kilns. They are also
prone to accidents due to the extremely unsafe working conditions. At
the age of 40, a charcoal maker is already old, Bascarán pointed
out.
The steel mills signed the pact to fight slave labor because legal action
against their charcoal suppliers threatened to bring them legal problems
and leave them without credit from Brazil’s government-owned banks.
In addition, some overseas markets are refusing to purchase charcoal-based
pig iron produced by forced labor, said Bascarán.
