RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil
is aiming to build a network of social workers nationwide to
support people rescued from modern slavery, and help prevent
would-be victims from being trafficked, a top prosecutor said.
The social workers would be primed to offer immediate
post-rescue care to victims, and provide follow-up assistance
such as ensuring that survivors are signed up to government aid
schemes and children are enrolled in school, said Lys Sobral
Cardoso.
"We (prosecutors) and labor inspectors are limited in our
scope, we can ... take all punitive measures against employers,"
said Cardoso, who was appointed the new head of anti-slavery
efforts of the country's Labor Prosecutor's Office last month.
"But we also need to support the workers," she told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
"And the support we can give is to trigger a network of
social workers, which will ... map out his life post-rescue."
Establishing such a system was a top priority for the Labor
Prosecutor's Office and would likely happen in 2020, she added.
More than 54 000 workers have been rescued from slavery-like
conditions by labor inspectors since 1995, when Brazil formally
acknowledged that slave labor existed in the country.
Yet victims do not often know their rights, and struggle to
find jobs after being rescued, said Livia Miraglia, coordinator
of Clinica de Escravo e Trafico de Pessoas, a program at Minas
Gerais Federal University that provides legal help to survivors.
"(They) need to be reinserted into society and the labor
market," she said. "They need to know that they have rights and
can have a new life. This is the most important thing."
What happens next?
Victims of slavery in Brazil would likely receive better
support if social workers were warned in advance of rescue
operations led by labor inspectors, and informed when people
were trafficked from one state to another, according to Cardoso.
The planned network of social workers would also be expected
to play a role in curbing trafficking in local communities, and
help prevent victims from being enslaved once again, she said.
When workers are rescued from slavery in Brazil, they
receive three months of unemployment benefit, severance and back
pay relating to the time that they labored without compensation.
But social workers would also ensure victims get further
support by joining social assistance programmes such as Bolsa
Familia, which gives impoverished families a monthly allowance.
"We realized over the years that the questions workers had
were: 'What happens to me after, where do I go, where will I
work, how will my life be?'" Cardoso said.
"We want to give possible answers," she added.
Yet some social workers do not understand what constitutes
slavery under Brazilian law, according to Cardoso, who said a
training course was underway to boost awareness on the issue.
Slavery in Brazil is defined as forced labor, but also
includes debt bondage, degrading work conditions, long hours
that pose a health risk or work that violates human dignity.
About 369 000 people are believed to modern slaves in Brazil
- representing 1 in 555 of its population - according to the
Global Slavery Index by human rights group Walk Free Foundation.