Slave Labor And Work Analogous To Slavery Are Different Things
In recent months, denunciations of slave labor and work similar to slavery have gained space in the media, exposing subhuman conditions for the development of the activity of countless workers. According to a report by the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE), more than 2,500 people in situations similar to slavery were rescued in 2022. In addition to the indignation that, even in 2022, people find themselves in these conditions of work and existence, Doubts arise as to why the term “analogous to slavery” is sometimes used and at other times just “slavery”. Would it be a way to minimize the situations experienced by these people?
According to article 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code, work analogous to slavery is characterized by the submission of someone to forced labor or to exhausting hours, either subjecting them to degrading working conditions or restricting, by any means, their locomotion due to debt contracted with the employer or his representative. Unlike him, slavery is not typified in the Penal Code because it was abolished by the Federal Constitution of 1988 and, to guarantee this, the Magna Carta guarantees, based on articles 5 and 7, several individual and social freedoms, such as:
Maria Hemília Fonseca, professor at the Faculty of Law of Ribeirão Preto (FDRP) at USP, explains the differences between these two terminologies. “Slave labor is when a person is subjected to a work regime in which he is deprived of any and all rights, whether civil, social or labor. On the other hand, work similar to slavery broadens these definitions, such as forced labor due to debt, exhausting working hours, with or without restrictions on the worker’s movement.”
inspection instruments
According to the Radar of the Undersecretariat for Labor Inspection (SIT), around 55,000 people were rescued from working conditions similar to slavery between 1995 and 2020. The rescued workers are mostly internal or external migrants, who left their homes for the region of agricultural expansion or for large urban centers, in search of new opportunities or attracted by false promises.
Despite the numbers, Brazil was one of the pioneers in creating a commission to monitor working conditions before the International Labor Organization (ILO). Since 1995, inspectors, labor prosecutors and the Federal Police have responded to complaints of working conditions analogous to slavery.
Penalties provided by law
According to Vera Lúcia Navarro, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP) at USP, the cases of people in working conditions analogous to slavery are not isolated cases, but rather the perpetuation of conditions established centuries ago. “The history of Brazilian workers is marked by this type of situation, the country has not broken with its slave-owning past. Debating this topic is very important.”
Maria Hemília completes by saying that the Constitution provides for punishments for those who put another human being in conditions of work analogous to slavery. “The penalty can be seclusion, from two to eight years in prison, in addition to fines and the expropriation of land, whether rural or urban, used by the criminal, without the right to compensation. In addition to, of course, compensation for damages caused to the worker.”