Jurists call for expropriation of lands from those who exploit slave labor

After the rescue of more than 200 workers in a situation similar to slavery in wineries in the south of the country, the Brazilian Association of Jurists for Democracy wants the expropriation of these lands and the confiscation of the companies’ assets, as provided for in Article 243 of the Federal Constitution. The understanding is that, in addition to suffering in the pocket, those responsible – direct or indirect – must respond criminally for this. A public manifesto was released and has, so far, hundreds of signatures. For Ney Strozake, from the Association of Jurists for Democracy, it is necessary that Salton, Aurora and Garibaldi assume responsibility for having hired a third-party company to harvest the grapes. “You can’t say that the company that hired the outsourced company didn’t know. How could you not know? Who controls your property, who determines how the harvest will be done are the companies Santon, Garibaldi and Aurora. How could you not know? After all, I was doing service for you.” The idea is to take the signatures to the Minister of Agrarian Development, Paulo Teixeira, and to the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite. The Public Ministry of Labor proposed an agreement, which should be signed in the next few days. The three companies said they are cooperating with authorities. Even so, for Ney Strozake, the debate needs to be extended to society as a whole. “Outsourcing only increases the possibility of the existence of various situations of work analogous to slavery. And the case of Bento Gonçalves, in Serra Gaúcha, is just the tip of the iceberg”, she evaluated. The matter also ended up in the National Congress. At least seven projects have been filed in the Chamber since the end of February, when the case came to light. One of them rightly calls for the expropriation of these lands and the confiscation of assets and their allocation to non-governmental associations to combat slave labor. But there are also proposals asking for a ban on granting loans to companies that hire workers in conditions analogous to slavery and even asking for the sharing of responsibility in the case of hiring outsourced companies. But this is a discussion that could drag on in Congress. To give you an idea, some proposals on the subject have been going through the house for over 20 years. One of the oldest, from 2003, is being processed along with other similar proposals and awaits progress in the Chamber of Deputies.

Agência Brasil