An 84-year-old woman was found in conditions analogous to slavery in a house in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. According to the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, this is the longest period of time under slavery-like labor ever recorded by the Labor Inspectorate. She worked for 72 years for the same family.
The victim had been working since she was 12 years old, when she was taken by the family where her parents worked with the promise of studying in the capital. This family, however, ended up making her act as a domestic for more than seven decades.
During this period, she performed tasks such as cooking, washing and ironing clothes, sweeping the yard and shopping at the fair. Currently, even at an advanced age, she continued to carry out work activities, mainly as a caregiver for her employer, who is similar in age.
The rescue was carried out by labor inspectors from the Regional Labor Superintendence in Rio de Janeiro and began on March 15th. As it is a residence, a court order was needed for it to be carried out. The warrant was granted by the 30th Labor Court of Rio de Janeiro, in a lawsuit filed by the Public Ministry of Labor, which also participated in the operation.
considered part of the family
During the course of the tax action, the worker, the employers’ family nucleus, as well as the victim’s relatives, who reside in the interior of the state of Rio, and neighbors, were heard in formal depositions, who confirmed how the employment relationship began or developed. .
Work was considered analogous to slavery, among other factors, because there was an employment relationship with no payment of wages and no vacation for more than seventy years. The exhausting workday was carried out from Monday to Monday, without days off.
According to Labor inspector Alexandre Lyra, the employers claimed that the domestic worker was treated as a member of the family, which was not found during the inspection. She was found sleeping on a sofa, in an improvised space as a dormitory in a place of access to the employer’s room.
The domestic worker also could not keep in touch with her relatives. The team also verified that she had a pension, but the card and password were with the employer.
According to the Ministry of Labor, the tax auditors notified the employer, giving him formal knowledge of the need to remove the employee from the work environment; signature of the Work and Social Security Card through eSocial launch; payment of severance pay due within 10 days and other relevant measures. Salary and severance payments are approximately R$ 110 thousand. In addition, the receipt of three installments of unemployment insurance for rescued workers, of one minimum wage each, is guaranteed.
domestic slave labor
This year alone, according to data updated today (13) by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, five women were rescued from domestic slave labor in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Sul.
According to the ministry, other tax actions involving rescues of domestic workers are in progress. In 2021, 30 workers were rescued in this situation. THE highest number since 2017.
Work analogous to slavery
According to the Penal Code, a condition similar to slavery is defined when a person is subjected to forced labor, exhausting working hours or degrading working conditions. It also occurs when the person has restricted locomotion or the use of means of transport in order to be kept at the workplace. And also when there is ostensible surveillance or when documents or personal objects are withheld so that the person remains at work.
Lyra clarifies that for the configuration of the exhaustive journey, it is not necessary for the worker to be found with exhausted strength, but, rather, that he does not have days off or rest for the recovery of energy.
In Brazil, on May 13, 1888, the Golden Law was enacted, which formally ended legal slavery in the country. The law, however, did not put an end, in practice, to the situations analogous to slavery.
Data from the Ministry of Labor show that Brazil found 1,959 people in slavery in 2021, the highest number since the 2,808 workers in 2013.
In 2022, until this Friday, the completed actions to combat slave labor by the Labor Inspection rescued a total of 500 workers who were being exploited in conditions of contemporary slavery. In a single action in Minas Gerais, 273 workers were rescued.
Regarding activities, most of the rescues were in sugarcane cultivation (299), followed by charcoal production (54), garlic cultivation (25) and beef cattle (23).
The Ministry of Labor emphasizes that reports of slave labor can be made, remotely and confidentially, in the Ipê System, through the link ipe.sit.trabalho.gov.br.
*Collaborated with intern Marina Burck
