Brazil rescues six indigenous Guarani workers from slave‑like conditions

Six Guarani indigenous men, aged 20 to 30, were rescued on 30 June 2026 from a vegetable farm in Glorinha, part of the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre, Brazil. The rescue resulted from a joint inspection by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the Public Labor Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Police. The workers lived in a dilapidated wooden shack without proper sanitation and had no signed employment contracts. One of the men was an Argentine immigrant, two were from Santa Catarina and the remaining three from Rio Grande do Sul.

The labor prosecutor Bernardo Mata Schuch said the situation highlighted "the absolute precariousness of rural housing and the vulnerability of indigenous people, whose basic rights were being trampled." The employer was arrested, placed in flagrante, and signed an emergency Conduct Adjustment Term committing to pay indemnities, cover travel back to their places of origin and provide unemployment insurance. A civil inquiry has been opened, with the first hearing scheduled for later this month.