1,700 Brazilian sugarcane workers rescued from slavery or forced labor, Amnesty says; UNICA says these are isolated cases

May 29, 2008

In Brazil, Amnesty International pointed to four cases where more than 1,700 sugar cane workers were rescued from forced labor and slavery conditions. The human rights group said that 288 workers were rescued from six plantations in Sao Paulo state, 409 workers from an ethanol plant in Mato Grosso do Sul state, while over 1,000 people “in conditions analogous to slavery” were released in June from a sugar plantation in Para state. In addition, 831 indigenous cane workers were reported to be working in poor conditions in Mato Grosso do Sul.

UNICA, the Brazilian cane industry association, said that Amnesty had spotlighted isolated cases and strongly defended the industry against accusations of slave labor.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) issued a stinging response in January to “Deadly Brew,” a documentary on the Brazilian sugar cane industry and ethanol which aired on Bloomberg Television. UNICA said that the producers did not substantiate their contention that worker conditions were deteriorating, did not report that sugar cane workers are paid more than twice the minimum wage, that cane cutters do not have minimum daily quotas, and used outdated injury and death reports without reporting falling accident rates.

The Bloomberg documentary, titled “Deadly Brew: The Human Toll of Ethanol,” investigated 82,000 injuries and 300 deaths reported in the sugar cane industry in the past 3 years, and profiled a group of migrant workers who were jailed for more than a month after striking for better conditions.

Questions have circulated for months, even years, about the scalability of the Brazilian ethanol “miracle” owing to the low wages, long hours, health problems and squalid conditions associated with sugar cane field workers. Brazil, the world’s leading exporter of ethanol (900 million gallons per year, depends on sugar cane cutters who earn $430 per month at the top end, for cutting 10-12 tons of cane per day.

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Written by Jim Lane · Filed Under International, Producer News