UN Experts Focus On Garment Workers In Brazil

After 11 days' visit to Brazil in May of this year, the United Nations special investigator, Gulnara Shahinian, published the recruitment of smugglers from Brazil sweatshops to recruit Bolivia laborers, forcing them to wait.

The report revealed that slave workers in Bolivia were often confined to basement or windowless workshops, with narrow living space and sleeping mats beside their sewing machines.

During the meeting of the UN Human Right Council, which was held in Geneva earlier this month (9), Shahinian reported to the delegates the situation of slave labour in Brazil's garment industry. Victims were faced with violent physical and mental persecution, sometimes accompanied by sexual violence, low wages earned from hard work for a long time, or even no reward.

In the report, Shahinian pointed out that the persecuted Bolivia slave workers, who had been subjected to harsh work and living conditions, were not allowed to leave their posts without authorization, smuggled vendors or even withheld their identity documents, and threatened to report or expel them to the police.

The factory size of Shahinian is small, but it is worth noting that some of the products they manufacture are targeted at exports.

Shahinian also pointed out that the government of Brazil intended to solve this serious problem and put forward some countermeasures, such as announcing the blacklist of specific enterprises using slave labor, and jointly with private enterprises to jointly combat the problem of slavery in various supply chains.

The Maria Nazareth Farani Azevedo, Brazil's permanent ambassador to the United Nations Office in Geneva, said that the publication of the blacklist could refuse the use of slave labour enterprises for public financing.

The canal also stated that the eradication of slave labour is a permanent policy of the Brazil government, and stressed that the eradication of slave labour is of top priority.