Nestled in the lush northeast of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, Bento Gonçalves is the wine capital of Brazil. It’s a city that prides itself on the traditions of its Italian migrants, many of whom arrived in 1875. But as a February raid by labor authorities showed, some traditions are better left in the past.
Labor inspectors found more than 200 workers trapped in slave-like working conditions. They were employed by Fênix, a company that provides outsourced labor for Salton, Aurora, and Garibaldi — three flagship Brazilian wine brands.
Unlike historical definitions of slavery, when people were held as legal property, modern slavery is generally defined as human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, or commercial sexual exploitation.
The case of Bento Gonçalves was a textbook example of slavery through debt bondage, the most common form of forced labor worldwide, according to a UN report. The workers, mostly from the northeastern state of Bahia, were forced to buy provisions from a company store that charged extortionate prices — trapping them in a cycle of debt that they had to pay off through their labor.
A few days after the raid, authorities found and rescued 200 workers living in precarious conditions in sugarcane fields in the countryside of Goiás, a central-western state. They had to pay for...
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