Eduardo Martino, Brazil
Prisoners of Hope: Modern-day Slavery in Brazil

Even though 2007 was the 200th anniversary of a fundamental landmark in the abolition of slavery (the slave trade was banned by the British parliament in 1807), slavery has never been as intensively practicised as it is in present times.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are currently at least 25,000 slaves in Brazil. Even though the efforts made in Brazil to eradicate it have been praised by the ILO in 2005, there is still a long way to go to effectively rid the country of this plague.

Slavery in Brazil is now no longer directly associated with the colour of a person’s skin as it was during the colonial times, but to poverty and lack of opportunities. It is done via imposing fraudulent debt, used as an excuse to keep workers in the farm because they "owe" money to the farmer.

They are forced to buy everything, from tools to food, from the farmer’s shop at inflated prices. The debt is never cleared and the workers are trapped. Intimidation and violence are commonplace. The distance between these remote farms and the nearest human settlement also works as a real barrier against free movement.

When the Ministry of Labour's inspectors and the Federal Police raid such farms, the workers are freed and the farmers are forced to pay their wages. But those powerful farmers often get away with it, while thousands of destitute workers are being deprived of their basic rights. Their families never know their whereabouts as they are locked in cycles of debt-bondage and misery.

My work documents this problem in Brazil right now, mainly in the Amazon and its agricultural frontier. I chose this theme for Chobi Mela V because one way to represent a subject is via its antithesis, and slavery is the worse possible annihilation of freedom.