Unfree Labour Relations in Brazil’s Amazon Region

Trabalho escravo, a form of unfree labour, has been considered a crime in Brazil since 1995. Historically, Pará, a state in the Brazilian Amazon region, has had the highest numbers of trabalho escravo, especially in the agricultural sector. This article examines the changes in the regime of trabalho escravo in Pará, from the time after the coup against Dilma Rousseff in 2016 until the end of the Bolsonaro government. Political and economic changes have had reciprocal effects on the organization of trabalho escravo as well as on the power dynamics in the Amazon region, on land conflicts and on the racialization of the labourers, which in turn influence trabalho escravo. To study all of these factors, two series of interviews with experts working in the field were conducted, one in 2014 and another in 2022. Apart from the secondary literature, this article also draws on statistics gathered by the state and those gathered by one of the most important NGOs fighting this labour regime. All these enable this work to shed light on a time frame that, to date, has barely been the subject of research, especially with regard to trabalho escravo.