BRAZIL: NINTH ANNUAL TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS (TIP) REPORT,

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 BRASILIA 000252 SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP MARK TAYLOR AND BARBARA FLECK, WHA/PPC FOR SCOTT MILLER, WHA/BSC FOR CAROLINE CROFT AND BENJAMIN CHIANG, INL, DRL, AND PRM. USAID. E.O 12958: N/A TAGS: KTIP KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB BR SUBJECT: BRAZIL: NINTH ANNUAL TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS (TIP) REPORT, PART 1 OF 3 REFS: 08 STATE 132759, 08 Brasilia 35, 08 Brasilia 56, 08 Brasilia 471, 08 Brasilia 594, 08 Brasilia 760, 08 Brasilia 941, 08 Brasilia 962, 08 Brasilia 1506, 08 Brasilia 1588, 08 Brasilia 1608, 08 Brasilia 1686, Brasilia 79, Brasilia 102, 08 Recife 46, 08 Rio 172, 08 Rio 347, 08 Sao Paulo 117, 08 Sao Paulo 276, 08 Sao Paulo 412, 08 Sao Paulo 432, 08 Sao Paulo 620, 08 Sao Paulo 678, Sao Paulo 18. ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Brazil continued to be a source country for internationally and domestically trafficked women, children, and men, and a destination country for forced factory labor in metropolitan cities. Brazil was not a significant Trafficking in Persons (TIP) transit country. Forced or slave laborers continued to be employed on cattle ranches, large farms, in logging, and in charcoal production for use in making pig iron. The GOB supported efforts to combat trafficking and provide assistance to victims, including the initiation of a national anti-TIP work plan that assigned specific tasks and responsibilities to fifteen federal government ministries and agencies. Implementation of that work plan is now underway under the overall leadership of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in coordination with the Special Secretariat for Women's Issues and the Special Secretariat for Human Rights. The Labor Ministry's Mobile Inspection Groups, consisting of hundreds of labor inspectors, Federal Police agents, and prosecutors, represent a best practice in the combat against forced and child labor, and have freed over 32,000 workers from such conditions in the since they were created in 1995, and in some recent years have freed well over 5,000 workers a year. In 2008, the government began implementing a national plan against trafficking in persons, and has successfully carried out criminal prosecutions against internal and international sex traffickers and has made attempts to convict labor traffickers as well. The GOB exposes to public scrutiny employers who use forced labor by publishing a "Dirty List" on the Labor Ministry's Internet site, conducts broad information campaigns against sex trafficking, sex tourism, and forced labor, works with NGOs to aid trafficking victims, and has installed Posts to Confront Trafficking in Persons in high-risk areas to prevent and stop trafficking. A group of federal prosecutors are working with Mission to improve the government's ability to refer TIP cases from investigative bodies to prosecutorial bodies in order to increase criminal prosecutions of trafficking in persons. END SUMMARY. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE COUNTRY'S TIP SITUATION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (NOTE: Answers correspond to questions in ref A, para. 23. END NOTE) Section A: -------------- ¶2. (U) During 2008, the Government of Brazil was in the process of creating a central database to collect and analyze allegations of child exploitation and other crimes, including trafficking in persons, forced labor and child pornography. The consolidated database is projected to be ready in October 2009. Until then, various unintegrated databases must be consulted to gather TIP information. All territories within Brazil's borders were under government control. However, Brazil's geography and unmonitored borders in remote regions created difficulties for the government of Brazil in combating TIP. ¶3. (U) Three significant studies on TIP will be released in 2009. In May 2009, the International Labor Organization (ILO) will release a Global Report on the situation of forced labor around the world. The ILO Brazil office will release another report on the "Brazilian case," addressing slavery in Brazil and responses to it. ¶4. (U) In the second semester of 2009, an academic study of the profile of actors involved in contemporary slavery will be released. This study has been done in conjunction with the University of Rio de Janeiro, with a group of social scientists that work at GEPTEC (study group on contemporary rural slavery). One hundred fifty workers, 10 recruiters and 20 farmers/farm owners were interviewed and profiled for the report. The study summarizes the situation as better than it was 20 years ago, although the number of victims rescued from slave labor is higher. It notes that in 2008, 5,000 BRASILIA 00000252 002 OF 006 were rescued. It observes that now there comparatively more increased awareness, less violence, and living conditions are better. It highlights that the changes to the penal code made in 2003 make it stronger, with new articles that make it easier to characterize forced labor than under ILO Convention 29, the 1930 Forced Labor Convention. To be considered slave labor any of the following conditions will qualify: coercion and threat of punishment, long hours of work, degrading work, or debt bondage. ¶5. (U) Also in the second semester of 2009, ILO Brazil will release another academic study that has charted the situation of slave labor in the country. The name of the study is "Atlas of Slave Labor" and it combines data regarding the places where forced labor is found in Brazil with social data such as the UN Human Development Index. It is possible to see that forced workers are recruited in areas where people are socially vulnerable because they are poor and have little or no access to health services or education. The same types of workers were rescued from slave labor conditions in border areas, precisely where the agricultural frontier is expanding towards the Amazon forest. The researchers have also developed an index of probability of finding slave labor according to variables present in order to find other locations with the same indicators. As a consequence, mobile inspection groups will be able to find similar at-risk areas more easily. Section B -------------- ¶6. (U) Brazil continued to be a source country for internationally and domestically trafficked women, children, and men, and a destination country for forced factory labor in metropolitan cities. Women and children from Brazil continued to be trafficked internationally for prostitution. Trafficking also occurred within the country's borders. Men and sometimes boys were trafficked into forced labor, while women and girls were trafficked for prostitution, although Federal and local police data for 2007 and 2008 suggest a low incidence of internal sex trafficking. National Secretariat of Justice (SNJ) officials note that Brazil, like all Mercosul member states, adheres to the definition of trafficking in Article 19 of the UN Palermo Convention. According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),trafficking of women for the sex trade occurred in all of Brazil's states and the federal district. ¶7. (U) Authorities estimated that thousands of women and children were trafficked for commercial exploitation. Reliable statistics are not available. ¶8. (SBU) UNODC country representative for Brazil Cintia Freitas stated in February 2009 on the occasion of the release of the UNODC Global TIP report that "Brazil is advancing in the right direction." Section C -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Internal trafficking of rural workers into forced labor continued to be a significant problem. According to the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE),the Ministry's Mobile Groups freed 32,849 workers from conditions of slavery in the period from 1995-February 2009. Union leaders stated that nearly all persons working as forced laborers were trafficked by labor recruiters. Victims of internal labor trafficking were found working on cattle ranches, large farms producing sugar cane, corn, cotton and other crops, in logging, and in charcoal production for pig iron. Victims of international labor trafficking worked in urban sweatshops, often in the garment industry. Victims of internal and international sex trafficking were trafficked into work as commercial sex workers in brothels. Brazilian authorities also acknowledge the problem of child prostitution practiced along highways, and have responded with training for the Federal Highway Police. Section D -------------- ¶10. (SBU) Black and mulatto women and children from the poorest regions of Brazil are most vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. Children in regions most affected by poverty are much BRASILIA 00000252 003 OF 006 more at risk for sexual exploitation, according to the Reference Center on Children and Adolescents (CECRIA; 2002 study). Specifically, children in the Amazon region were trafficked to brothels near mining settlements, while in large urban centers dire economic circumstances made street children vulnerable to resorting to prostitution in order to survive. Sex tourism was prevalent in 398 of 1,514 tourist destinations along the northeast coast of Brazil, according to a study by the University of Brasilia. A network of travel industry agents, hotel workers, and others actively recruited children and trafficked them within and outside the country. For this reason, the Ministry of Tourism together with the University of Brasilia implemented the Sustainable Tourism and Childhood Program (Programa Turismo Sustentavel e Infancia). The main objective of this program was to sensitize the tourism industry to the problem and to combat sexual tourism. In 2007, approximately 4,752 people from 15 states received training. The training methodology was also offered to municipalities with high incidences of sexual exploitation cases. The Federal Police estimated that from 250,000 to 400,000 children were involved in prostitution in Brazil, noting that no more precise figures are available (NOTE: Some NGOs placed the number as high as 500,000, although without empirical data to support this assertion. END NOTE.) Section E -------------- ¶11. (SBU) The 2004 UN report on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography included the following statement: "Brazil is considered a supplier country for internal and international trafficking". The Study on Trafficking in Women, Children and Adolescents for Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Brazil (PESTRAF, 2002, English version published 2003) pointed out that Brazilian TIP victims come from the coastal cities of Rio de Janeiro, Vitoria, Salvador, Recife and Fortaleza, although there were also considerable number of victims trafficked from the states of Goias, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Para. The main destinations were Europe (notably Italy, Spain, and Portugal) and Latin American countries including Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic. PESTRAF also stated that victims from the states of Goias and Ceara were often recruited through different methods. In Goias, recruitment occurred exclusively through transnational criminal networks that searched for Brazilian women to traffic to Europe for commercial sexual exploitation. These victims were not usually engaged in commercial sex acts in Brazil, and were motivated by false promises of a job and better living conditions. In Ceara, where the practice of sexual tourism was widespread, opportunistic "amateur" criminals worked with established criminal networks to find and recruit local women into prostitution, while also targeting women with some previous experience as prostitutes. But according to SNJ officials, many findings of the PESTRAF study, conducted from 1996-2002, are no longer valid, including the geography and methodology of trafficking. For example, they said other Latin American countries are not destination countries, with the exceptions of Venezuela and Suriname. Current Federal Police data suggest that Goias has become the largest source state for international sex trafficking of Brazilian women. ¶12. (SBU) Several recent studies have documented the various recruitment methods for different types of victims. These studies include the three volumes (to date) of the Ministry of Justice's Portuguese-language series "Studies in the Trafficking in Persons": First Diagnosis on Trafficking in Human Beings: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Ceara and Goias, by Marcos Colares (MOJ, 2004); Trafficking in Human Beings in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, by Jacqueline Oliveira Silva (MOJ, 2006); Indicators of trafficking in persons in the universe of deported and non-admitted persons who return to Brazil through Guarulhos airport, by SNJ (MOJ, 2006); and International Trafficking in persons and trafficking of migrants among deportees and non-admitted persons who return to Brazil through the Sao Paulo international airport, by anonymous (MOJ, 2007). In 2006, ILO Brazil published (in Portuguese) the second edition of Trafficking in Persons for Sexual Exploitation. Colares (2004) found that in human trafficking cases involving the recruitment in Brazil of several victims simultaneously, there was usually no previous acquaintanceship between the victims and the accused traffickers, while in cases of individual recruitment, there was usually a personal acquaintance or even blood relationship. While Colares found in 2004 that most recruiters were men, current BRASILIA 00000252 004 OF 006 police statistics (see below under prosecutions) show that now most international sex traffickers in Brazil are women. ¶13. (SBU) Recent consolidated data on trafficking routes are unavailable. The 2002 PESTRAF identified 241 international and national trafficking routes, but based on anecdotal evidence and unanalyzed data from their work, officials at the SNJ said some of the study's findings are now obsolete. ¶14. (SBU) According to ICE, traffickers in Brazil tend to be Brazilians trafficking only Brazilians, often using a travel agency as a front operation for international sex trafficking. In Brazil there is little or no evidence that traffickers are part of a larger organized crime network, although investigators have not reached that level of analysis. Some victims of sex trafficking, particularly more mature women, go abroad knowingly and willingly to make money in prostitution, while traffickers lie to others about the real situation they will be entering overseas, ICE said. In addition, an occasional feature of internal trafficking is that parents may knowingly turn their children over to labor traffickers. False documents are commonly used to obtain genuine travel documents. Some trafficked individuals are also subjected to debt bondage. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SETTING THE SCENE FOR THE GOVERNMENT'S ANTI-TIP EFFORT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (NOTE: Answers correspond to questions in ref A, para. 24. END NOTE) Sections A and B -------------- ¶15. (SBU) On October 26, 2006 President Lula signed a presidential decree entitled "The National Act to End Trafficking in Persons." The decree called for the establishment of policies and actions to prevent TIP, and committed all elements of the federal government to the fight against TIP. Further, the decree called for the formation of a formal TIP working group made up of representatives from 14 federal ministries and agencies and elements of civil society and tasked the group with creating a detailed and binding anti-TIP work plan. The completed anti-TIP work plan was released in January 2008 and is now being implemented under the overall leadership of the Ministry of Justice in coordination with the Special Secretariat of Women's Issues and the Special Secretariat of Human Rights. Other GOB ministries and agencies tasked with anti-TIP responsibilities are: the Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality, the President's Civil House, the MOJ, the Ministry of Social Development and Combating Hunger, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Agrarian Development, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Exterior Relations, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Culture, and the Attorney General's Office. Thus, there are now 15 GOB ministries and cabinet-level secretariats involved in the implementation of the national anti-TIP plan. Section C -------------- ¶16. (SBU) Brazil's vast size (8,511,965 square kms.; for comparison, the size of the 50 states and the District of Columbia is 9,862,630 square kms.) and long land borders with ten neighboring states (16,885 km.; U.S. land boundaries are 12,034 km.),including extremely remote or hard to access areas, constitute a significant obstacle for authorities battling trafficking, who must make a great effort to coordinate responses to reports from remote areas, whether deep in the interior or along the borders. As a result, Brazilian authorities have decided to focus on the worst TIP challenges, and are doing so. Brazil's lack of financial resources and personnel dedicated to anti-TIP efforts impeded efforts to combat the problem. However, the national anti-TIP work plan calls for increases in the number of GOB personnel and level of resources devoted to fighting TIP. According to MOJ sources, there is no large, centralized anti-TIP fund to cover the work of all GOB ministries; rather each ministry or agency will receive additional money for TIP in its overall program budget. The MOJ funds anti-TIP activities through UNODC, and through PRONASCI, the National Program of Public Safety with Citizenship. PRONASCI has a broad public security mandate and BRASILIA 00000252 005 OF 006 does not disaggregate TIP funding in its budget. (See also refs B and C on PRONASCI.) ¶17. (SBU) Overall corruption is a problem in Brazil but there is no evidence of official corruption related to trafficking in persons, according to SNJ officials and ICE, and Mission Internet searches did not produce any reports of official corruption related to TIP in Brazil. Section D -------------- ¶18. (SBU) The assignment of 150 federal labor inspectors to key forced labor areas added to the ability to monitor labor conditions, and efforts are underway to recruit and hire more labor inspectors at the national and local levels. (NOTE: Inspectors at the local level are federal employees of the Ministry of Labor who are recruited locally and continue to live and work in areas from which they were recruited. END NOTE). However, the fractured judicial system continued to hinder the ability of prosecutors to bring cases to trial and complete convictions. ¶19. (SBU) According to SNJ, the Government of Brazil is implementing its National Anti-TIP work plan as mandated by the National Policy to Counter Trafficking in Persons. This is greatly improving its ability to systematically monitor its anti-TIP efforts on all fronts. The GOB has created a monitoring group composed of 15 ministries and agencies to evaluate and publish information about TIP in Brazil. The National Anti-TIP Policy is also intended to bring about more efficient administration of trafficking cases within the judiciary. ¶20. (U) The GOB has also created a working group including the Federal Public Ministry, the State Public Ministries, the Federal Police and others to study the best ways to improve the judiciary's administration of TIP issues. The group will hold its first meeting in March 2009. ¶22. (U) The general guidelines of the National Policy to Counter Trafficking in Persons are as follows: I - strengthening Brazil's federative structure by means of joint and coordinated actions by all levels of government to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, as well as provide assistance to the victims and their reintegration into society; II - fostering bilateral or multilateral international cooperation; III - coordinating with national and international non-governmental organizations; IV - building a network infrastructure to counter trafficking in persons, involving all levels of government and organizations of civil society; V - strengthening action in border regions, ports, airports, highways, bus stations, train stations, and any other area where trafficking might take place; VII - checking the victims' condition and the corresponding protection and assistance to be provided, abroad or in the national territory, as well as their social reintegration; VIII - providing incentives and carrying out research, taking into consideration regional differences, organization and sharing of information; IX - promoting education and training of professionals to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, as well as checking the victims' condition, providing assistance, and their reintegration into society; X - harmonizing laws and administrative procedures on the subject area at the federal, state and municipal levels. XI - fostering the participation of civil society in public policies social control instances in the area of suppression of trafficking in persons; and XII - fostering the participation of working class bodies and professional councils in the discussion on the trafficking in persons; IV - reintegration into society with assurances of education, culture, work training and opportunities, for the victims of trafficking in persons; V - reintegration into the family and into the community of children and adolescents who were victims of trafficking in persons; VI - providing attention to the victims' specific needs, with BRASILIA 00000252 006 OF 006 special attention being given to issues of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic or social origin, place of birth, nationality, race, religion, age generation, migration situation, professional activity or other status; VII - protection of the identity and privacy rights of the victims of trafficking in persons; VIII - surveying, researching, updating and disclosure of information on government and non-government institutions located both in Brazil and abroad which provide assistance to victims of trafficking in persons. SOBEL