---

More on Brazil from Disposable People.

Charcoal and Modern Slavery in Brazil
Modern slavery in Brazil began with a corrupt government scheme in the 1970s. Its origins and exact means are convoluted and somewhat unknown. Essentially, Brazil gave multinational companies rock-bottom prices for huge tracts of forest. If the companies (such as Nestle and Volkswagen) cleared the land, planted Eucalyptus trees, and then fed those tree to the government’s yet-to-be-built paper mill, the corporations could deduct the cost of clearing and planting the land from their taxes. However, the government never came through: the paper mill was never built, so the multinational companies began to contract their land to local companies to make charcoal.

The industrial boom in Brazil’s cities depends on charcoal to produce steel for cars, furniture, and other products. Once the areas near the cities were stripped of their capacity to make charcoal, work expanded to the region of Mato Grosso, far from the coast and the cities, to turn those native and corporation-planted eucalyptus forests into charcoal.

Vulnerability and Gatos
Recruiters, called gatos (cats), come to the abundant slums in eastern cities (the Minas Gerais region) to find workers for charcoal batterias (camps) in the west (Mato Grosso region). Here families of unemployed workers, mostly charcoal makers and other agricultural workers, comb the dumps for food. The gatos come with cattle trucks and false promises to entice workers. “They offer to provide transport of Mato Grosso, good food on site, a regular salary, tools, and free trips home to see the family.” Once the men agree, they climb on the trucks and ride across the country, enjoying the generous free meals at restaurants that the gato provides. Then once they’ve driven from city, to countryside, to small town, and deep into the wilderness the gato lets the men out in a forest camp surrounded by armed gaurds and says, “You each owe me a lot of money: there is the cost of the trip, and all that food you ate, and the money I gave you for your families—so don’t even think about leaving.” (This is taken directly from one slave’s testimony.)

As if the gatos don’t already have the upper hand, they take the slaves state identity and labor cards. Signing a person’s labor card creates a binding contract between employer and employee and holds the agreement accountable to government standards like minimum wage. Taking documents away, and likely never giving them back, makes the slaves noncitizens. Without these, they’ll have trouble attaining their full legal rights ever again. Workers are reluctant to attempt escape without their documents.

The long-distance recruiting also makes escape a less-than-viable option. They are too poor to get back home and too far from towns to seek work or help. Without a labor card work would be hard to come by, and locals in the closest towns to the camps fear the workers as outsiders. Additionally, they can be arrested for not having their identity cards.

They are generally only held in debt bondage for about 3 months to 2 years. In that time the forest in the area is depleted and the camp moves—workers almost never move with the camp—or the workers themselves are exhausted and sick. The pool of available workers is far too deep for it to be worthwhile to keep a sick slave. Most slaves who are let go from the batteria never make it back home.

---

---