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

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

#131

Post by motbus3 »

forinti wrote: post #11

Its a common occurrence for families to take in poor girls to do house work in exchange for food and lodging. And with the insidious nature of Brazilian racism, they will pretend that she is part of the family. They might even take her on vacations (to work, of course). If you grow up with this mentality it might even be hard for you to see the injustice. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, the last country in the Amer…

"It is" is a bit misleading.

I will say it was common up to the end of 70s and somewhat into the 80s. Common here I don't mean that every single person would have a "slave child" at home but you'd know someone or someone that knew someone who did it.

I am not saying it justify this horrible behaviour, but mostly as to say how much worse it could get. Some would just be "Cinderella" style abuse, but other would be physically and sexually abused.

Some reform of policies around de 90s cleared much of the evil practice.

I think by today standards, 99% of people knowing this would have denounced this much earlier. The fact it did not happen in this case is because this family is related to a powerful politician of the region.

Compensation they offer is too little and too disrespectful. It is basically 3 USD a week for the past half decade of forced work relationship. First, it would need to be at least 100x more than that and it would need to put this rubbish in form of people into jail for the rest of their lives.

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

#132

Post by tedggh »

iammrpayments wrote: post #34
forinti wrote: post #11

Its a common occurrence for families to take in poor girls to do house work in exchange for food and lodging. And with the insidious nature of Brazilian racism, they will pretend that she is part of the family. They might even take her on vacations (to work, of course). If you grow up with this mentality it might even be hard for you to see the injustice. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, the last country in the Amer…

I was repeatedly told in school that Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery, only to find out recently that places like UAE had not abolished slavery until 1967.

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 and took it

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

#133

Post by rglullis »

brabel wrote: post #19
zaik wrote: post #6

$40k compensation for 55 years of service...

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.

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

#134

Post by argentinian »

aetimmes wrote: post #110
argentinian wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you see inequality as the problem, instead of poverty?

Because exploitation is a two-actor system and poverty is a unary operator.

That two actor system needs an poor person to exploit. You are confirming my statement that poverty is the main problem.

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

#135

Post by none2585 »

sokoloff wrote: post #85
froh wrote: 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.

Not the state but the companies that run the prisons and those that contract the workers to work at an extremely low wage.

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

#136

Post by none2585 »

encom wrote: post #81
phyzome wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: The US still has not abolished slavery. It is still legal in the case of prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

Prisoners are not slaves, because they are not the property of the prison or any other entity. It's called involuntary servitude. I'm sure the people affected do not care about the distinction, but words matter. It's also trivially easy to not end up in involuntary servitude.

You should read The New Jim Crow

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

#137

Post by noisy_boy »

wahern wrote: post #43
t1234s wrote: post #25

I was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of the floorplans for condos or houses include a servants quarters. They were telling me theirs cost around $12 USD a day which is not a bad deal.

This is true in Singapore and Malaysia, as well, where Filipino or Indonesian cooks and housekeepers are extremely common, as are separate entrances--typically into the kitchen. In Malaysia there's an odd situation, the reverse of the dynamic in the US, where Indonesian servant immigration is encouraged as a way to grow the Muslim population and help diminish the political power of Chinese-Malaysians and Indian-Malay…

> This is true in Singapore and Malaysia, as well, where Filipino or Indonesian cooks and housekeepers are extremely common, as are separate entrances--typically into the kitchen.

Live in housekeepers are very common indeed in Singapore. However, majority of Singapore lives in Housing Development Board flats that do not have any separate entrance into kitchen.

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

#138

Post by voakbasda »

elmer2 wrote: post #90
phyzome wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: The US still has not abolished slavery. It is still legal in the case of prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

I suppose using this logic, murder is legal, because of self defense. Theft is legal because of tax laws. Prisoners aren't 'slaves'. They are being punished for crimes they committed. Very dofferent than being born into it and bought/sold to the highest bidder.

Read the Constitution. The 13th amendment that “abolished” slavery also explicitly reserved the right for the government to keep prisoners as slaves:

AMENDMENT XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

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

#139

Post by matheusmoreira »

t1234s wrote: post #25

I was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of the floorplans for condos or houses include a servants quarters. They were telling me theirs cost around $12 USD a day which is not a bad deal.

I am a brazilian doctor. Yeah, richer people are very likely to hire staff to manage their homes. It's not a rule, but it's not rare for them to live in the house they work at. This is common enough to show up as a trope in popular telenovelas.

I've yet to uncover a case of literal slavery like TFA though. One could argue the workers aren't getting paid enough and I'd agree, but the workers are getting paid.

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

#140

Post by froh »

scottconover wrote: post #49

I’m new to HN. How does this relate to the theme of Hacker News?

at the bottom of the page there is guidelines and FAQ

they also give good indication on how to handle topics that don't tickle your personal preferences (for "interesting" or "curious"): silently ignore them

especially if interest is the guidance on downvoting and flagging. the sorting is not according to your personal preferences, as in "social media", but according to the hn hive think. thus negative voting indicates "anti-curious", "anti-conversation", not dislike.

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