On October 20, 166 people were rescued from a farm in Água Fria de Goiás, in the countryside of the central-western Brazilian state of Goiás. The group, which included children and teenagers, had been working under precarious conditions analogous to slavery, extracting straw from corn to be used in manufacturing cigarettes. For each kilogram of straw they extracted, workers would receive just BRL 5 (USD 0.90), from which was discounted the cost of their knives and uniforms.
None of the workers were registered and their labor rights were denied by their employer, who housed them in dirty lodgings without beds...
