Brazil’s Ministry of Labor and Employment has reported the rescue of 24 Venezuelan workers who were being held in slave-like conditions in the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. The workers were holding two newborn babies.
The workers were «in degrading conditions» in construction and were housed in industrial buildings in Chapecó and Itapiranga, according to an official statement from the Ministry.
The operation is based on a job offer posted on a portal for Venezuelans that offered a salary of up to 3,000 reais a month –537 euros– to Venezuelan refugees in Brazil with room and board included. Up to 39 people traveled to the site accompanied by their families, including a woman pregnant with twins.
«Upon arrival, the workers were installed in improvised dwellings without beds or bathrooms and worked on the construction of the lodging itself. In one of the rooms, two four-day-old babies were found,» said a Brazilian spokesman, Joel Darcie. None of them had a work contract.
The Ministry’s Labor Inspectorate has released these workers in coordination with the Public Ministry of Labor, the Public Defender’s Office of the Union and the Federal Highway Police and transferred them to hotels in the city of Rio do Sul.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
