Trabalho escravo contemporâneo na Amazônia: a atuação das instituições trabalhistas no combate à escravidão no Acre

Abstract

With the aim of examining the role of labour institutions in combating slave labour in the Amazon, this research analyses the measures adopted by labour inspection authorities, the Labour Prosecution Service, and the Labour Courts in the state of Acre between 2003 and 2023, highlighting actions to defend decent work and to remedy the harm caused by enslavement. The Amazon region remains a frontier of economic expansion, with Acre as one of its historical boundaries — formerly marked by rubber extraction and now by the advance of agribusiness — where the pressures of capital directly bear upon the unlimited exploitation of both the environment and the workforce. The analysis reveals the persistence of historical mechanisms of subjugation, such as the barracão system, which generates debt bondage, and the violent intermediation of gatos in labour relations. The socio-legal critical method is adopted to develop an interpretation of the concept of contemporary slavery, based on its institutionalised understanding in Brazil, consolidated in the legal notion of “reduction to a condition analogous to slavery”, the foundation of the national eradication policy. Through the empirical examination of slave labour rescue inspection reports, terms of adjustment of conduct, and judicial proceedings, it was possible to understand how labour institutions have acted in tackling persistent practices of enslavement in Acre. The findings suggest that overcoming labour analogous to slavery requires reconfiguring the economic development model and the production practices of regional supply chains, given the insufficiency of existing state measures of inspection and repression.