During the week this text was being written, the labor rights community learned of yet another unfortunate report of labor exploitation in Brazil's largest city and the world's fourth-largest metropolis. Two Bolivians were found at a street market in São Paulo being treated as "goods," and the "seller" was also a Bolivian citizen based in Brazil as a businessman, according to the information obtained.
The recruitment of foreign workers to work in Brazilian cities is, unfortunately, a common phenomenon that deserves to be addressed by the entire state apparatus, just as other well-known social problems, such as child labor and the degrading conditions of Brazilian men and women.
Brazil is currently considered by the International Labor Organization as "the best international benchmark" for combating slave labor in its report "A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor," released in May 2005.
However, there is still much to be done in combating the extreme exploitation of our fellow human beings.
The absurd idea that human beings can be treated as mere cogs in the capitalist machine persists, subtly (or even evidently in some cases). Treated like objects, hired without rights, victims of accidents and illnesses due to companies' lack of proper prevention measures, and ultimately left to their own devices when they can no longer produce, they retire with a meager pension, if they can prove they worked formally for long enough.
Yes, most of the time, the State itself "turns its back" on the exploited worker—except when they are rescued by Ministry of Labor and Employment task forces caught engaging in slave labor. It's worth noting that the rescued Bolivians didn't even file a police report, for fear of reprisals.
On the other hand, episodes like this demonstrate how far we are from living in a society that doesn't require state coercive power to ensure minimum social rights and guarantees.
In other words, contrary to those who advocate the deconstitutionalization of social rights, especially labor rights, and the relaxation of the rules governing employment relationships and their nuances: there's no way to believe that Brazilian society (and the Latin American bloc, for that matter) can self-regulate without state intervention, precisely to curb abuses of this nature.
The ILO itself, in its document entitled "Slave Labor in 21st-Century Brazil," highlights the need for "state governments in whose territories the most serious cases of slave labor are detected to act effectively, in conjunction with all institutions involved in combating this scourge, to control labor trafficking."
And the Brazilian Labor Court, within its jurisdiction, is responsible for remaining alert and ready to respond appropriately when the vilification of workers treated as mere commercial goods reaches its judicial units. All indications are that other authorities responsible for preventing these crimes remain mere spectators of the barbarity. However, the firm actions of the Labor Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Police in episodes like this deserve due credit.
The Editorial Board