Brazil Company Fined $3 Million For Slave Labor

Brazilian firm in northern Brazil received $3 million fine from country’s Superior Labor Court over charges of slave labor.
Brazil Company Fined $3 Million For Slave Labor
8/19/2010
Updated:
7/30/2012
A Brazilian firm in northern Brazil received a $3 million fine from the country’s Superior Labor Court over charges of slave labor.

A total of 180 people, including minors, working in slave-like conditions were freed from the Lima Araujo Farm in 1998.

“This conviction serves as an example not only for the employer, but for all the cases involving such practice,” said Judge Luiz de Mello Filho on Wednesday, according to Malaysian Digest News.

Mello Filho said that the behavior of the firm was “absolutely reprehensible, a direct attack on and affront to people’s dignity,” according to BBC.

Some workers were deprived water and medical treatment, and sick employees were not able to give up their job because they had debts with the company.

At present, an estimated 25,000 people still work under slave-like conditions in Brazil.