Brazil courts convict farm owners for slave‑like labor conditions

A federal judge in Rio Grande do Sul sentenced a landowner in Manoel Viana to three years in prison—later converted to community service and a fine of 65 minimum wages—for subjecting nine workers, including an adolescent, to housing described as a "galinha‑e‑chiqueiro" and other degrading conditions while they harvested rice.

In Mato Grosso do Sul, a federal court sentenced four men, among them a farm owner, his son and two collaborators, for enslaving 44 workers—mostly Paraguayan migrants—on a mandioca farm. The defendants received prison terms ranging from one year and two months to 25 years and four months, were ordered to pay collective moral damages of R$ 200 000 and faced additional fines. Both cases highlighted severe violations of workers' rights, including lack of sanitation, exposure to hazardous chemicals, debt bondage and the absence of legal employment contracts.