Abstract
The Brazilian economy was, until the end of the 19th Century, based on slave labour. However, in this first quarter of the 21st Century, the problem persists. These situations tend to be mistaken with “simple” violations of labour laws. This work aims to establish Occupational Health and Safety parameters, focusing on energy needs, to distinguish between the breach of labour legislation and modern rural slavery in the 21st Century in Brazil. In response to this challenge, bibliographical research was carried out on the feeding and energy replenishment conditions of Brazilian slaves in the 19th Century. Obtained data were compared with a sample where 392 cases of neo-slavery in Brazil are described. The energy spent and the energy supplied was calculated to identify the enslaved workers’ general feeding conditions in the two historical periods. The general conditions of food and water supply were analysed. It was possible to identify three comparable parameters: food quality, food quantity, and water supply. It was concluded that there is a parallelism of energy replenishment conditions between Brazilian slaves and neo-slaves of the 19th and 21st centuries, respectively, different from that of free workers. This difference can help authorities identify and punish instances of modern slavery.
Highlights
It was concluded that there is a parallelism of energy replenishment conditions between Brazilian slaves and neo-slaves of the 19th and 21st centuries, respectively, different from that of free workers
Agreements, declarations, and conventions concerning the conditions under which slave labour develops, slavery is characterised as a severe form of human rights violation (Ramos Filho 2008)
The sample consists of 42 reports characterising Labour Analogous to Slavery produced between 2007 and 2017 in rural activities in different geographic regions of Brazil (Trabalho 2017). 1545 inspections were carried out during this period to combat slave labour (Brasil 2016; G1 2018)
Summary
Working conditions that constitute “Labour Analogous to Slavery”, remains a reality in many countries, including Brazil. Agreements, declarations, and conventions concerning the conditions under which slave labour develops, slavery is characterised as a severe form of human rights violation (Ramos Filho 2008). Organization (ILO) estimated in 2016 that around 40.3 million people were subjected to some form of contemporary slavery, of which 24.9 million were in forced labour conditions (ILO 2017). It is less overt than classic slavery (Dando et al 2016; Soares 2017), and the largest concentration of this group is in the southern hemisphere (PioVesan 2006)
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