Human Trafficking in [Brazil Street Children in [Brazil] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Brazil] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Brazil.htm
Brazil is a source country for men, women, girls, and boys
trafficked within the country and transnationally
for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, as well as a source
country for men and boys trafficked internally for forced labor. The Brazilian
Federal Police estimate that 250,000 to 400,000 children are exploited in
domestic prostitution, in resort and tourist areas, along highways, and in
Amazonian mining brothels. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons
Report, June, 2009
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Forced Agence France-Presse
AFP, www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0129-01.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] The group praised ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/brazil.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The primary program to assist child victims of
commercial sexual exploitation is the Sentinel Program, which establishes
local reference centers to provide victims with psychological, social, and
legal services. In addition, the
government’s Global Program to Prevent Trafficking in Persons is working to
establish a database on trafficking in persons, including the trafficking of
children and adolescents, strengthen efforts to combat the practice, and
develop pilot programs to assist victims. [646] The program is being
implemented with the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC). Pilot programs are being launched in Human Rights Reports » 2005
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61718.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Although
comprehensive government statistics on the problem were unavailable,
authorities estimated that thousands of women and adolescents were
trafficked, both domestically and internationally, for commercial sexual
exploitation. NGOs estimated that 75 thousand women and girls, many of them
trafficked, were engaged in prostitution in neighboring South American
countries, the United States, and Western Europe. Women were trafficked from
all parts of the country. The government reported that trafficking routes
existed in all states and the Internal trafficking of rural
workers into forced labor schemes was a serious problem, while trafficking
from rural to urban areas occurred to a lesser extent. Union leaders claimed
that nearly all persons working as forced laborers had been trafficked by
labor recruiters (see section 6.c.). Labor inspectors found a small number of
persons from other countries trafficked to work in urban sweatshops. Labor
recruiters generally recruited laborers from small municipalities in the
North and Northeast and transported the recruits long distances to ranches
and plantations in remote areas in the central part of the country. Most
internally trafficked slave laborers originated from Maranhao
and Piaui states, while Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) - 2004 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1 October 2004 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/brazil2004.html [accessed 24 January 2011] [46] The Committee welcomes the
ratification by the State party of the Hague Convention on Protection of
Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption of 1993.
However, it regrets the lack of statistical data on domestic and
inter-country adoption and it expresses its concern that the State party does
not provide sufficient safeguards against trafficking and sale of children
for the purpose of, inter alia, adoption. [62] The Committee welcomes the
decision of the State party’s President, to make the fight against child
sexual exploitation a priority of his Government. However, the Committee is
deeply concerned by the wide occurrence of sexual exploitation and related
issues, as also noted in the report of the Special Rapporteur
on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography following
his mission to Brazil in 2003 (E/CN.4/2004/9/Add.2). Organ trafficking: a fast-expanding black market ISH Janes, 05 March 2008 www.janes.com/news/publicsafety/jid/jid080305_1_n.shtml [accessed 24 January 2011] Welcome to Augusto Zimmermann, L.L.B., L.L.M., Ph.D.
teaches constitutional law at This paper was presented at the Criminal Law Workshop held
by the John Fleming Centre for Advancement of Legal Research at the
Australian National University College of Law, 7-9 February 2008 www.brazzil.com/articles/188-february-2008/10042.html [accessed 24 January 2011] VIOLENCE
AGAINST CHILDREN - A 2002 report from the International Labor Organization
(ILO) reveals that more than 3,000 girls from the sparsely populated state of
Rondônia are subject to conditions of slavery and
prostitution. Working children are left
vulnerable to all sorts of accidents in the workplace. There are many reports
of children illegally working in areas such as the charcoal, sugarcane, and
footwear industries. They have reportedly suffered accidents and illness,
including "dismemberment, gastrointestinal disease, lacerations,
blindness, and burns caused by applying pesticides with inadequate
protection." The Protection Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/brazil.doc [last accessed 2009] FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE
TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - Organized crime plays a significant role in trafficking in women
into and out of PORTUGAL-BRAZIL: Human Trafficking and Marriages - Another
Link Mario de Queiroz, Inter Press
Service News Agency IPS, www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35071 [accessed 24 January 2011] Today it is also the main source
of victims of human trafficking to Portugal, women who fall into prostitution
and sexual exploitation networks, as well as a source of large numbers of
women who marry Portuguese men. Brazil
is the favourite country for traffickers who form
part of the prostitution networks that have mushroomed in Portugal, which is
a springboard to wealthier European Union destinations, according to studies
presented at a seminar organised Monday and Tuesday
by the governmental Portuguese Youth Institute (IPJ). Xinhua News Agency, June 29, 2006 english.people.com.cn/200606/29/eng20060629_278431.html [accessed 24 January 2011] Brazilians are the major victims
of international human trafficking, according to the United Nations. Most victims
are women aged between 18 and 30 with a low educational background. These
women want to leave for Europe and believe they will have a better job and
life there but end up being sexually exploited. Jen Ross, Women's eNews, June
19, 2005 www.womensenews.org/story/prostitution-and-trafficking/050619/brazil-tries-stem-tide-sex-slavery [accessed 24 January 2011] There's a good reason for the
widespread interest in human trafficking in Spanish Police Arrest 14 in Crackdown on Immigrant
Prostitution Ring Associated Press AP, 2005-06-06 www.libertadlatina.org/eur_spain_police_arrest_14_free_54_enslaved_brazilian_women_05-06-2005.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] The group recruited hundreds of
women coming mainly from The Price of a Slave in Bernardete Toneto,
[originally in Portuguese in the newspaper Brasil
de Fato], February 2004 www.brazzillog.com/2004/html/articles/feb04/p107feb04.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] Forced Child Prostitution in Gilberto Dimenstein, Adapted
from his book "Meninas da
Noite", Translation: NACLA Report on the www.libertadlatina.org/LA_Child_Sex_Auctions_Fortaleza_Brazil.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] Twelve girls--among them, Ana Meire Lima da Silva, age 15,
and Miriam Ferreira dos The girls are attracted by the
promise of licit employment, but then are sent to work in night clubs in
these faraway, inaccessible places, and kept captive like prisoners. Even the
more experienced girls, who are not new to prostitution, are tricked. By
contrast with the more naive girls, they know that they are going to sell
their bodies, but they have little idea of the regime of slavery that awaits
them. Everything rests upon the debt--a
bottomless pit. From the moment the girl arrives at the club, she is told
that she owes money: her plane or boat ticket, which can be as much as $100.
She cannot leave until this debt is paid off. The debt grows with the
purchase of clothes, perfumes, medicine and food furnished by the club owner
at an arbitrary price. Without the girls realizing it,
the owner keeps track of their expenditures using as a base the value of a
gram of gold. The debt snowballs, especially when the girls fall sick--a
common occurrence in this region ravaged by malaria. During the time they
cannot "work," the debt piles up. Money
from clients does not pass through the girls' hands; it goes, instead,
directly to the cashbox. "Foreigners in Our Own Country": Indigenous
Peoples in Amnesty International, Index Number: AMR 19/002/2005, Date
Published: 28 March 2005 www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR19/002/2005 [accessed 24 January 2011] 1. INTRODUCTION - Amnesty International has
documented and campaigned against human rights violations committed against
indigenous peoples in 4. IMPUNITY AND INSECURITY - Impunity for human rights
violations in Forced Agence France-Presse
AFP, www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0129-01.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] The group praised Associated Press AP, www.lamnews.com/japan_sex_industry_ensnares_latin_women.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] At least 1,700 women from Latin
America and the Caribbean are lured each year into sexual slavery in He said a typical trafficking
scenario is that of Irene Oblitas, a Peruvian who
told her story last year to her country's media. She said that in 1998 she
boarded a plane with three Japanese businessmen who had promised her a job in
a plastics factory. When she arrived
she was raped by all three men and sold to a Yakuza organized crime boss, who
branded her across the chest with a 6-inch (15-centimeter) rose tattoo. He
forced her to provide sexual services to up to 40 clients a day, she said. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7573 [accessed 24 January 2011] Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide [accessed 24 January 2011] Library of Congress Call Number F2508 .B846 1998 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/brtoc.html [accessed 24 January 2011] BBC News, 29 January, 2004 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3440615.stm [accessed 24 January 2011] Three Brazilian officials were
shot dead while investigating allegations that farm workers were used as
slave labour, the Labour Ministry has said.
A spokesman said the officials and their driver were ambushed in the
state of Minais Gerais. But he said it was not clear whether the
murders had anything to do with the investigations. SURPRISE RAIDS - Most are in isolated parts of
the country, far from the capital, where powerful farmers hold sway. Labour Ministry inspectors travel around Between 250,000 and 2 million children forced into
prostitution in Brazil LibertadLatina, Short quotes and Links www.libertadlatina.org/LA_Brazils_Child_Prostitution_Crisis.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] Coalition Against Trafficking in Women www.catwinternational.org/factbook/UK.php [accessed 24 January 2011] 100 women were trafficked for
prostitution from remote villages in Essential Background: Overview of Human Rights Issues in Human Rights Watch, January 1, 2004 www.hrw.org/english/docs/2003/12/31/brazil6998.htm#5 [accessed 24 January 2011] FORCED
LABOR - The
use of forced labor in New era of slavery exposed in Gabriella Gamini, Scotsman,
February 22, 2004 www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=29640 [accessed 24 January 2011] A skeletal Geraldo da Silva was found sleeping under plastic sheets in a
jungle camp with no running water or toilets, the deep bloody cuts on his
hands and feet evidence that he had spent months clearing thick jungle
vegetation. Armed vigilantes watched
over him as he worked and had threatened to kill him if he tried to flee. Silva was among 32 slaves found by
Brazilian labour ministry inspectors during a recent raid on remote cattle
ranch in the Amazon owned by a right-wing senator - a find which has brought
to the attention of the wider world an appalling violation of human rights. More than 2,000 slaves have been freed in
raids over the past year, and there are now thought to be more than 25,000
people living in inhumane conditions and working for nothing on cattle
ranches, coffee farms and sugar cane fields across Brazil. The African American Desk Reference, Schomburg
Center for research in Black Culture, Copyright 1999 The Stonesong
Press Inc. and The New York Public Library, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Pub.
-- ISBN 0-471-23924-0 www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/brazil-abolishes-slavery [accessed 24 January 2011] Most forced labor takes place on
large estates called Fazendas. In its present-day
version, slavery begins with labor contractors called Gatos, or cats. They
lure uneducated workers, largely from the northeast, with the promise of
decent wages. Once the laborers arrive, however, they find they have already
run up un-payable debts to their employers for food, medicine, and lodging,
even the use of tools. In many cases they work long hours in the hot sun in
exchange for food or wages as low as 10 cents and hour. Armed guards patrol
work areas to ensure nobody escapes until debts are paid. Dozens of slaves freed in BBC World Service, 21 May, 2004 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3736207.stm [accessed 24 January 2011] They said the sugar-cane cutters
had been lured from the poor north-eastern region of A Victim's Story Source:
www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/country_reports/br.html At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 24 January 2011] [scroll down to Jobless and hungry, the Rocha
family followed the promise of the gato (recruiter)
and traveled by truck to the Minas Gerais region
hoping for a better life. After arriving at the batteria
(work camp), the gato informed the Rochas - at gunpoint - that they would be charged for
travel, tools, food, and shelter. The family suddenly found itself trapped in
forced labor, working 18-hour days to pay off an ever-accruing debt. While at
the batteria, Marta Rocha, eight years old, inhaled
smoke on a regular basis. She began to cough blood and now can no longer
work. The Rochas are underfed and their debt
continues to amass with no end in sight. Marta's medical needs further
increase the debt, and without her work, the debt climbs even higher.
Hundreds of miles from their native village, the Rochas
are isolated and enslaved in their own country. 'Slaves' found on Brazilian ranch BBC News, 13 February, 2004 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3486657.stm [accessed 24 January 2011] Officials said they discovered 32
slave-workers on the ranch of right-wing Senator Joao Ribeiro
in the northern state of Trapped: Modern-Day Slavery in the Brazilian Amazon Binka Le Breton, Trapped: Modern-day slavery in the Brazilian Amazon, Latin
America Bureau, 24 April 2003 www.antislavery.org/archive/press/pressRelease2003-Brazil.htm At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
“Despite the clammy heat, I feel a cold
shiver down my back as I sense something of Albertino's
pain and terror. Lured into the jungle by false promises, treated with casual
brutality, he was worked to the limits of endurance, forcibly held prisoner,
and discarded as one might stamp on a cockroach” - from Trapped: Modern-day slavery in the Brazilian Amazon, by Binka Le Breton Larry Rohter, New York Times, query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DE153BF936A15750C0A9649C8B63 [accessed 24 January 2011] The recruiters gather at the bus
station here in this grimy Amazon frontier town, waiting for the weary and
the desperate to disembark. When they spot a target, they promise him a
steady job, good pay, free housing and plenty of food. A quick handshake
seals the deal. But for thousands of peasants, that
handshake ensures a slide into slavery. No sooner do they board the battered
trucks that take them to work felling trees and tending cattle deep in the
jungle than they find themselves mired in debt, under armed guard and unable
to leave their new workplace. ''It was 12 years before I was
finally able to escape and make my way back home,'' said Bernardo Gomes da Silva, 42. ''We were forced to start work at 6 in the
morning and to continue sometimes until 11 at night, but I was never paid
during that entire time because they always claimed that I owed them money.'' Mother courage New Internationalist 337 August 2001 -- Interview conducted by Mario Osava/ Inter Press Service News Agency IPS www.newint.org/features/2001/08/05/wanted/#mother [accessed 24 January 2011] Loyola lives in the town of Child Labour Persists Around The World: More Than 13
Percent Of Children 10-14 Are Employed International Labour Organisation (ILO) News, www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr/96-18.htm At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] "Today's child worker will be
tomorrow's uneducated and untrained adult, forever trapped in grinding
poverty. No effort should be spared to break that vicious circle", says
ILO Director-General Michel Hansenne. Among the countries with a high
percentage of their children from 10-14 years in the work force are: Mali,
54.5 percent; Burkina Faso, 51; Niger and Uganda, both 45; Kenya, 41.3;
Senegal, 31.4; Bangladesh, 30.1; Nigeria, 25.8; Haiti, 25; Turkey, 24; Côte
d'Ivoire, 20.5; Pakistan, 17.7; Brazil,
16.1; India, 14.4; China, 11.6; and Egypt, 11.2. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking
& Modern-day Slavery - |
Human Trafficking in [Brazil Street Children in [Brazil] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Brazil] [other countries]