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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.
According to the text, it is true to affirm:
