Live data from Hacker News

Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

english.elpais.com

231–240 of 278 posts

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was as bad as you are claiming it to be, she wouldn't stay with the family before the investigation, yet everyone deemed better to let her stay with the family even after the sentence was given.

It's the same reason why a lot of wives who have spent years being abused and beaten by husbands end up still staying with their husband.

Maybe this is a sensitive topic for you, but try not reading more into the article than it's there. The decision was recommended by the social workers.

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#232
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I talk to don’t know that 80% of Russians were slaves until their emancipation in 1861, as well as a significant amount of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Latvians and Estonians. There were no reparations paid, in fact they had to continue working for free for generations to pay bankers for the same land they have been enslaved for. Then just after the former serfs finally paid their “debt” the Bolsheviks came a…

They took the slavery / serf distinction seriously in the Slavic world. While the distinctions might have mattered in the 1800s, by any modern-slavery standard the serfs were slaves, as you rightly say. Whatever we might now think with hindsight of the communist revolution in Russia, if ever there was a country primed for the peasants to rise up against the ruling class, it was Russia. Russia might have been a land o…

Not just Russia, the Kingdom of Hungary (which contained large parts of Central Europe) abolished serfdom only in 1848 (the Serfdom Patent of 1781 was not really respected in the hungarian part of Austrian Empire until then).

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#233
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In cases like this, it’s likely the victim defended the family, and it made it impossible to classify the crime as slavery if she said she was free to leave but “was afraid of the violence outside”, which the article mentioned. It sounds ridiculous but in any court, if you can’t prove something beyond doubt, you cannot punish, which I think is why they ended up with that arrangement.

If you ever been to or lived in Fortaleza, "being afraid of the violence outside" is not ridiculous at all.

But being so afraid that you have never been outside unless accompanied by your bosses would be pathological in any other case. Also, what I said was "ridiculous" was the jury's conclusion, not going outside.

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#234
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes! which is _the_ driving factor behind the US prison system with its private prison labor facilities. there is zero financial motivation for the state for prevention or rehab or any other activities to reduce imprisonment rates did I mention disenfranchisement of the imprisoned?

Are you suggesting that the state turns a net profit on prisoners, making more from their labor than the full cost of their incarceration? That seems…unlikely.

I get how you could read it that way, and of course the state as the thing that is collecting taxes and paying whatever does not profit.

and the state as all citizens, including those affected by gang and drug related violence also would benefit from dong things differently.

it's those who benefit off the current prison labor system who lobby to keep it running, and they make it seem "natural" and "without alternatives"...

and "the state" (as the tax collecting entity) pays for the prisons and the inmates while the labor "providing" companies benefit off the labor.

it's a very very clever system.

enslavement without being called such.

and I agree, no, "the state" (as the totality of citizens) doesn't benefit.

only "the state" as the entity that's controlled by lobbyists and _pretends_ being by the people, for the people, that has no motivation to change this.

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#235
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever been to or lived in Fortaleza, "being afraid of the violence outside" is not ridiculous at all.

But being so afraid that you have never been outside unless accompanied by your bosses would be pathological in any other case. Also, what I said was "ridiculous" was the jury's conclusion, not going outside.

Pathological, yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean that this fear was instilled by the family as a way to keep her trapped.

Most people in Brazil are so used with the precautions that they have to take to deal with urban violence, they don't get to realize that they are the ones living in their own prisons. I have family members in Rio de Janeiro who get panic attacks at the thought of going anywhere by themselves. I've met grown-up, educated, independent people in college who wouldn't dare to do anything outside of the home campus itinerary on their own.

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#236
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but the current NK regime and the Kim family consolidating power is in large part due to American aggression indochina. The Korean War was more or less genocide on the part of the Americans and history would be different without Douglas MacArthur…

That's just fake history. The US didn't start the Korean war, they helped SK stand free of the oppression of the seriously evil NK government. China then interfered because they didn't want a US aligned country at their border. However there have been decades since the affair settled - and I stand by my opinion that if the US and by extension NATO cares whatsoever, they'd have just told China "we won't interfere as l…

That's also somewhat fake history. The half of Korea under Syngman Rhee was almost as bad as the other half under Kim Il Sung, it's just that Rhee was "our son of a bitch" to quote Roosevelt while Kim was Stalin's son of a bitch. Rhee was just as keen to unite Korea using American blood as Kim was using Chinese blood.

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's real. Every year, there are several news articles about berry pickers being abused, at least here in Sweden (not sure about the other Scandinavian countries). Here's [0] just ONE of the myriad of articles I could find, but there are so, so, so many more (and even worse ones) [1]. [0]: (In Swedish) Berry entrepreneurs suspected of trafficking Thai nationals, (2025). https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasternor…

The difference is that in Sweden it happens but at least it's illegal. In Dubai there's nothing illegal about it and therefore much more widespread.

  > "In Dubai there's nothing illegal about it"
It's illegal in Dubai too.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=435f366f-4279...

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#238
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you say USA is a developed country I'm not saying anything (directly). We have definitions for these things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country According to any way we currently categorize developed countries, the US is one of them.

Acording to what you say: - "The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere." - "they go together" (poverty and inequality). - The US is a developed country. - The US has a great wealth inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we... What you say implies contradictions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884765

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very common for the worker to not get paid. A place to sleep and food is not payment, enslaved people also got it.

"Very common" ? No. You make it sound like you can find literally enslaved people in random brazilian households.

Not anymore, since the 2002 this changed and it wasn't easy.

It was very, very common before that tho. We shouldn't forget so to not repeat.

Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family

#240
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just fake history. The US didn't start the Korean war, they helped SK stand free of the oppression of the seriously evil NK government. China then interfered because they didn't want a US aligned country at their border. However there have been decades since the affair settled - and I stand by my opinion that if the US and by extension NATO cares whatsoever, they'd have just told China "we won't interfere as l…

That's also somewhat fake history. The half of Korea under Syngman Rhee was almost as bad as the other half under Kim Il Sung, it's just that Rhee was "our son of a bitch" to quote Roosevelt while Kim was Stalin's son of a bitch. Rhee was just as keen to unite Korea using American blood as Kim was using Chinese blood.

And the American terror bombings of the north were the heaviest in history.
Post reply on HN