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Heartache and Suffering: Slavery in Brazil
By Matt Sandy
[1] There is a journey across the north of Brazil that few who make it ever forget. It goes from farms often without basic necessities of life
[2] and villages of the country’s northeast along disintegrating freeways and across the waters of the River Araguaia on rusting ferry boats.
[3] It arrives at the ruined periphery of the Amazon rainforest, where the voyage ends.
[4] This is the slavery road, along which thousands of poor workers are trafficked, threatened, beaten and made to work without pay on
[5] farms or down coalmines or deforesting the jungle. It has happened for decades and — despite efforts to combat it — is still commonplace
[6] in the world’s eighth-largest economy.
[7] [1]_______ 2003, the government has rescued 44,483 workers from what it calls conditions analogous to slavery. But the numbers of
[8] slaves is unknown.“It is an invisible crime,” said Luiz Machado of the International Labor Organization. “The victims are threatened and
[9] stay silent. It is impossible to say.”
[10] Globally, it is estimated there are as many as 36 million slaves, according to leading nongovernmental organizations. A 1956 U.N.
[11] convention defines “slavery” as “debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage and the delivery of a child for exploitation”. In Brazil, slavery is
[12] defined as forced labor, debt bondage, degrading conditions that violate human rights or overwork that threatens life or health. This wider
[13] definition, which is based on protecting dignity as well as freedom, is supported by the Human Rights Council of the UN and the
[14] International Labor Organization.
[15] Slavery is reported [2]_______ the country, [3]_______ farms in the wealthy south [4]_______ five-star hotels in Rio de Janeiro and
[16] factories in São Paulo. But for decades, the heart of the problem has been this repeated route. It leads from northeastern states such
[17] as Maranhão and Piauí, known for their poverty and political corruption, to Pará, a vast state in northern Brazil encompassing much of the
[18] Amazon rain forest.
[19] It is a problem that is entrenched into the feudal culture of many of Brazil’s remotest areas. It is estimated that as many as 4.9 million
[20] people, overwhelmingly African, were enslaved in Brazil after it was colonized in 1500. For more than two centuries, vast areas of the
[21] country were ruled by all-powerful captains appointed by Lisbon who had the right to exploit natural resources — and slaves — at will.
[22] Slavery was abolished in 1888, but land reforms forced the poor to continue to be exploited in terrible conditions on the same farms,
[23] historians say. It was only after the widespread exploitation of the Amazon began 40 years ago and Brazil’s return to democracy in 1988
[24] that the problem was acknowledged.
(Retrieved and adapted from http://www.mattsandy.net/?p=1999#comment-1474. Access on March 1st, 2018).
Answer the question according to Text 1.
Read the sentences.
I. Today's slavery is an inauspicious phenomenon that is present throughout the country.
II. Lots of impoverished laborers are still taken by force, beaten and get no payment for their work.
III. The Human Rights Council of the UN and the International Labor Organization are entities that have to protect the impoverished laborers, however, they are not doing their job properly.
IV. Drinking and over-spending contribute to the enslavement of workers because they do not have enough money to pay their expenses.
According to the text, it is correct what is said in the sentences:
