Contemporary slave labor in Brazil: discarded lives - modern-day barbarism in strange places

Abstract

This article contributes to reflections on contemporary slave labor, its concepts and the dilemmas of workers who are victims of this barbarity. It is based on quantitative data provided by the Pastoral Land Commission, which shows the number of slave workers identified, inspected and freed. In this sense, we seek to analyze these practices in the light of the primitive accumulation of capital, such as the overexploitation of labor, exhausting working hours, confinement in places, violence, the seizure of documents, humiliation and lack of wages. In this way, it is necessary to understand that the place to which the workers are taken creates a sense of estrangement among them, not only because of their geographical isolation, but also because of the mistreatment, whether through violence or the lack of adequate food, according to reports that are already well known in complaints to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT). In this sense, the place that was supposed to be a place of dignified work becomes a place of exploitation and humiliation - strange in the face of the promises of the enticers that are not kept. Nonetheless, contemporary slave labor makes citizens disposable after their service on the large farms. Therefore, it is these discussions, based on reports and primary sources, that we problematize, so that society becomes aware of the social ills that are still so present in this country.