Slaves rescued from coffee farm
Published: September 3, 2003
Brazilian authorities have freed about 800 slaves at a coffee farm in Bahia state, the largest discovery since a clampdown on the practice began in the 1990s.
Another 200 workers were found at a separate farm without proper housing, food and sanitary conditions. Marcelo Campos, an adviser at the Labor Ministry’s special unit to monitor slavery in Brazil’s vast interior, said the farm owners had not yet been charged. But ministry officials said they would try the owners for keeping workers in slave-like conditions. If convicted, they could face up to four years in prison. Mr Campos said the farmers would also have to pay the workers decent wages retroactively. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pledged to end the practice. An estimated 25,000 people still live in slave-like conditions in Brazil.
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