VZCZCXRO6598
RR RUEHRG
DE RUEHBR #0252/01 0611114
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 021114Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3685
INFO RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 7342
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 9156
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 3626
RUEHLI/AMEMBASSY LISBON 0482
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RHEFHLC/HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHINGTON DC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 BRASILIA 000252 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP MARK TAYLOR AND BARBARA FLECK, WHA/PPC FOR 
SCOTT MILLER, WHA/BSC FOR CAROLINE CROFT AND BENJAMIN CHIANG, INL, 
DRL, AND PRM.  USAID. 
 
E.O 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: KTIP KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB BR
 
SUBJECT:  BRAZIL: NINTH ANNUAL TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS (TIP) REPORT, 
PART 1 OF 3 
 
REFS:  08 STATE 132759, 08 Brasilia 35, 08 Brasilia 56, 08  Brasilia 
471, 08 Brasilia 594, 08 Brasilia 760, 08 Brasilia 941, 08 Brasilia 
962, 08 Brasilia 1506, 08 Brasilia 1588, 08 Brasilia 1608, 08 
Brasilia 1686, Brasilia 79, Brasilia 102, 08 Recife 46, 08 Rio 172, 
08 Rio 347, 08 Sao Paulo 117, 08 Sao Paulo 276, 08 Sao Paulo 412, 08 
Sao Paulo 432, 08 Sao Paulo 620, 08 Sao Paulo 678, Sao Paulo 18. 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  Brazil continued to be a source country for 
internationally and domestically trafficked women, children, and 
men, and a destination country for forced factory labor in 
metropolitan cities.  Brazil was not a significant Trafficking in 
Persons (TIP) transit country.  Forced or slave laborers continued 
to be employed on cattle ranches, large farms, in logging, and in 
charcoal production for use in making pig iron.  The GOB supported 
efforts to combat trafficking and provide assistance to victims, 
including the initiation of a national anti-TIP work plan that 
assigned specific tasks and responsibilities to fifteen federal 
government ministries and agencies.   Implementation of that work 
plan is now underway under the overall leadership of the Ministry of 
Justice (MOJ) in coordination with the Special Secretariat for 
Women's Issues and the Special Secretariat for Human Rights.  The 
Labor Ministry's Mobile Inspection Groups, consisting of hundreds of 
labor inspectors, Federal Police agents, and prosecutors, represent 
a best practice in the combat against forced and child labor, and 
have freed over 32,000 workers from such conditions in the since 
they were created in 1995, and in some recent years have freed well 
over 5,000 workers a year.  In 2008, the government began 
implementing a national plan against trafficking in persons, and has 
successfully carried out criminal prosecutions against internal and 
international sex traffickers and has made attempts to convict labor 
traffickers as well.  The GOB exposes to public scrutiny employers 
who use forced labor by publishing a "Dirty List" on the Labor 
Ministry's Internet site, conducts broad information campaigns 
against sex trafficking, sex tourism, and forced labor, works with 
NGOs to aid trafficking victims, and has installed Posts to Confront 
Trafficking in Persons in high-risk areas to prevent and stop 
trafficking.   A group of federal prosecutors are working with 
Mission to improve the government's ability to refer TIP cases from 
investigative bodies to prosecutorial bodies in order to increase 
criminal prosecutions of trafficking in persons.   END SUMMARY. 
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
THE COUNTRY'S TIP SITUATION 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
(NOTE:  Answers correspond to questions in ref A, para. 23. END 
NOTE) 
 
Section A: 
---------- 
 
¶2.  (U) During 2008, the Government of Brazil was in the process of 
creating a central database to collect and analyze allegations of 
child exploitation and other crimes, including trafficking in 
persons, forced labor and child pornography.  The consolidated 
database is projected to be ready in October 2009.  Until then, 
various unintegrated databases must be consulted to gather TIP 
information.  All territories within Brazil's borders were under 
government control.  However, Brazil's geography and unmonitored 
borders in remote regions created difficulties for the government of 
Brazil in combating TIP. 
 
¶3. (U) Three significant studies on TIP will be released in 2009. 
In May 2009, the International Labor Organization (ILO) will release 
a Global Report on the situation of forced labor around the world. 
The ILO Brazil office will release another report on the "Brazilian 
case," addressing slavery in Brazil and responses to it. 
 
¶4.  (U) In the second semester of 2009, an academic study of the 
profile of actors involved in contemporary slavery will be released. 
 This study has been done in conjunction with the University of Rio 
de Janeiro, with a group of social scientists that work at GEPTEC 
(study group on contemporary rural slavery).  One hundred fifty 
workers, 10 recruiters and 20 farmers/farm owners were interviewed 
and profiled for the report.  The study summarizes the situation as 
better than it was 20 years ago, although the number of victims 
rescued from slave labor is higher.  It notes that in 2008, 5,000 
 
BRASILIA 00000252  002 OF 006 
 
 
were rescued.  It observes that now there comparatively more 
increased awareness, less violence, and living conditions are 
better.  It highlights that the changes to the penal code made in 
2003 make it stronger, with new articles that make it easier to 
characterize forced labor than under ILO Convention 29, the 1930 
Forced Labor Convention.  To be considered slave labor any of the 
following conditions will qualify: coercion and threat of 
punishment, long hours of work, degrading work, or debt bondage. 
 
¶5.  (U) Also in the second semester of 2009, ILO Brazil will release 
another academic study that has charted the situation of slave labor 
in the country.  The name of the study is "Atlas of Slave Labor" and 
it combines data regarding the places where forced labor is found in 
Brazil with social data such as the UN Human Development Index.  It 
is possible to see that forced workers are recruited in areas where 
people are socially vulnerable because they are poor and have little 
or no access to health services or education.  The same types of 
workers were rescued from slave labor conditions in border areas, 
precisely where the agricultural frontier is expanding towards the 
Amazon forest.  The researchers have also developed an index of 
probability of finding slave labor according to variables present in 
order to find other locations with the same indicators.  As a 
consequence, mobile inspection groups will be able to find similar 
at-risk areas more easily. 
 
Section B 
--------- 
 
¶6.  (U) Brazil continued to be a source country for internationally 
and domestically trafficked women, children, and men, and a 
destination country for forced factory labor in metropolitan cities. 
 Women and children from Brazil continued to be trafficked 
internationally for prostitution.  Trafficking also occurred within 
the country's borders.  Men and sometimes boys were trafficked into 
forced labor, while women and girls were trafficked for 
prostitution, although Federal and local police data for 2007 and 
2008 suggest a low incidence of internal sex trafficking.  National 
Secretariat of Justice (SNJ) officials note that Brazil, like all 
Mercosul member states, adheres to the definition of trafficking in 
Article 19 of the UN Palermo Convention.  According to a report by 
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), trafficking of 
women for the sex trade occurred in all of Brazil's states and the 
federal district. 
 
¶7.  (U) Authorities estimated that thousands of women and children 
were trafficked for commercial exploitation. Reliable statistics are 
not available. 
 
¶8. (SBU) UNODC country representative for Brazil Cintia Freitas 
stated in February 2009 on the occasion of the release of the UNODC 
Global TIP report that "Brazil is advancing in the right direction." 
 
 
Section C 
--------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Internal trafficking of rural workers into forced labor 
continued to be a significant problem.  According to the Ministry of 
Labor and Employment (MTE), the Ministry's Mobile Groups freed 
32,849 workers from conditions of slavery in the period from 
1995-February 2009.  Union leaders stated that nearly all persons 
working as forced laborers were trafficked by labor recruiters. 
Victims of internal labor trafficking were found working on cattle 
ranches, large farms producing sugar cane, corn, cotton and other 
crops, in logging, and in charcoal production for pig iron.  Victims 
of international labor trafficking worked in urban sweatshops, often 
in the garment industry.  Victims of internal and international sex 
trafficking were trafficked into work as commercial sex workers in 
brothels.  Brazilian authorities also acknowledge the problem of 
child prostitution practiced along highways, and have responded with 
training for the Federal Highway Police. 
 
Section D 
--------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Black and mulatto women and children from the poorest 
regions of Brazil are most vulnerable to exploitation and 
trafficking.  Children in regions most affected by poverty are much 
 
BRASILIA 00000252  003 OF 006 
 
 
more at risk for sexual exploitation, according to the Reference 
Center on Children and Adolescents (CECRIA; 2002 study). 
Specifically, children in the Amazon region were trafficked to 
brothels near mining settlements, while in large urban centers dire 
economic circumstances made street children vulnerable to resorting 
to prostitution in order to survive.  Sex tourism was prevalent in 
398 of 1,514 tourist destinations along the northeast coast of 
Brazil, according to a study by the University of Brasilia.  A 
network of travel industry agents, hotel workers, and others 
actively recruited children and trafficked them within and outside 
the country.  For this reason, the Ministry of Tourism together with 
the University of Brasilia implemented the Sustainable Tourism and 
Childhood Program (Programa Turismo Sustentavel e Infancia).  The 
main objective of this program was to sensitize the tourism industry 
to the problem and to combat sexual tourism.  In 2007, approximately 
4,752 people from 15 states received training.  The training 
methodology was also offered to municipalities with high incidences 
of sexual exploitation cases.  The Federal Police estimated that 
from 250,000 to 400,000 children were involved in prostitution in 
Brazil, noting that no more precise figures are available (NOTE: 
Some NGOs placed the number as high as 500,000, although without 
empirical data to support this assertion.  END NOTE.) 
 
Section E 
--------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) The 2004 UN report on the Sale of Children, Child 
Prostitution, and Child Pornography included the following 
statement: "Brazil is considered a supplier country for internal and 
international trafficking".  The Study on Trafficking in Women, 
Children and Adolescents for Commercial Sexual Exploitation in 
Brazil (PESTRAF, 2002, English version published 2003) pointed out 
that Brazilian TIP victims come from the coastal cities of Rio de 
Janeiro, Vitoria, Salvador, Recife and Fortaleza, although there 
were also considerable number of victims trafficked from the states 
of Goias, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Para.  The main destinations 
were Europe (notably Italy, Spain, and Portugal) and Latin American 
countries including Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the Dominican 
Republic.  PESTRAF also stated that victims from the states of Goias 
and Ceara were often recruited through different methods.  In Goias, 
recruitment occurred exclusively through transnational criminal 
networks that searched for Brazilian women to traffic to Europe for 
commercial sexual exploitation.  These victims were not usually 
engaged in commercial sex acts in Brazil, and were motivated by 
false promises of a job and better living conditions.  In Ceara, 
where the practice of sexual tourism was widespread, opportunistic 
"amateur" criminals worked with established criminal networks to 
find and recruit local women into prostitution, while also targeting 
women with some previous experience as prostitutes.  But according 
to SNJ officials, many findings of the PESTRAF study, conducted from 
1996-2002, are no longer valid, including the geography and 
methodology of trafficking.  For example, they said other Latin 
American countries are not destination countries, with the 
exceptions of Venezuela and Suriname.  Current Federal Police data 
suggest that Goias has become the largest source state for 
international sex trafficking of Brazilian women. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Several recent studies have documented the various 
recruitment methods for different types of victims. These studies 
include the three volumes (to date) of the Ministry of Justice's 
Portuguese-language series "Studies in the Trafficking in Persons": 
First Diagnosis on Trafficking in Human Beings: Sao Paulo, Rio de 
Janeiro, Ceara and Goias, by Marcos Colares (MOJ, 2004); Trafficking 
in Human Beings in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, by Jacqueline 
Oliveira Silva (MOJ, 2006); Indicators of trafficking in persons in 
the universe of deported and non-admitted persons who return to 
Brazil through Guarulhos airport, by SNJ (MOJ, 2006); and 
International Trafficking in persons and trafficking of migrants 
among deportees and non-admitted persons who return to Brazil 
through the Sao Paulo international airport, by anonymous (MOJ, 
2007).  In 2006, ILO Brazil published (in Portuguese) the second 
edition of Trafficking in Persons for Sexual Exploitation.   Colares 
(2004) found that in human trafficking cases involving the 
recruitment in Brazil of several victims simultaneously, there was 
usually no previous acquaintanceship between the victims and the 
accused traffickers, while in cases of individual recruitment, there 
was usually a personal acquaintance or even blood relationship. 
While Colares found in 2004 that most recruiters were men, current 
 
BRASILIA 00000252  004 OF 006 
 
 
police statistics (see below under prosecutions) show that now most 
international sex traffickers in Brazil are women. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Recent consolidated data on trafficking routes are 
unavailable.  The 2002 PESTRAF identified 241 international and 
national trafficking routes, but based on anecdotal evidence and 
unanalyzed data from their work, officials at the SNJ said some of 
the study's findings are now obsolete. 
 
¶14. (SBU) According to ICE, traffickers in Brazil tend to be 
Brazilians trafficking only Brazilians, often using a travel agency 
as a front operation for international sex trafficking.  In Brazil 
there is little or no evidence that traffickers are part of a larger 
organized crime network, although investigators have not reached 
that level of analysis.  Some victims of sex trafficking, 
particularly more mature women, go abroad knowingly and willingly to 
make money in prostitution, while traffickers lie to others about 
the real situation they will be entering overseas, ICE said.  In 
addition, an occasional feature of internal trafficking is that 
parents may knowingly turn their children over to labor traffickers. 
 False documents are commonly used to obtain genuine travel 
documents.  Some trafficked individuals are also subjected to debt 
bondage. 
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
SETTING THE SCENE FOR THE GOVERNMENT'S ANTI-TIP EFFORT 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
(NOTE:  Answers correspond to questions in ref A, para. 24. END 
NOTE) 
 
Sections A and B 
---------------- 
 
¶15.  (SBU) On October 26, 2006 President Lula signed a presidential 
decree entitled "The National Act to End Trafficking in Persons." 
The decree called for the establishment of policies and actions to 
prevent TIP, and committed all elements of the federal government to 
the fight against TIP.  Further, the decree called for the formation 
of a formal TIP working group made up of representatives from 14 
federal ministries and agencies and elements of civil society and 
tasked the group with creating a detailed and binding anti-TIP work 
plan.  The completed anti-TIP work plan was released in January 2008 
and is now being implemented under the overall leadership of the 
Ministry of Justice in coordination with the Special Secretariat of 
Women's Issues and the Special Secretariat of Human Rights.  Other 
GOB ministries and agencies tasked with anti-TIP responsibilities 
are:  the Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality, the 
President's Civil House, the MOJ, the Ministry of Social Development 
and Combating Hunger, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labor, 
the Ministry of Agrarian Development, the Ministry of Education, the 
Ministry of Exterior Relations, the Ministry of Tourism, the 
Ministry of Culture, and the Attorney General's Office.  Thus, there 
are now 15 GOB ministries and cabinet-level secretariats involved in 
the implementation of the national anti-TIP plan. 
 
Section C 
--------- 
 
¶16. (SBU) Brazil's vast size (8,511,965 square kms.; for comparison, 
the size of the 50 states and the District of Columbia is 9,862,630 
square kms.) and long land borders with ten neighboring states 
(16,885 km.; U.S. land boundaries are 12,034 km.), including 
extremely remote or hard to access areas, constitute a significant 
obstacle for authorities battling trafficking, who must make a great 
effort to coordinate responses to reports from remote areas, whether 
deep in the interior or along the borders.   As a result, Brazilian 
authorities have decided to focus on the worst TIP challenges, and 
are doing so.  Brazil's lack of financial resources and personnel 
dedicated to anti-TIP efforts impeded efforts to combat the problem. 
 However, the national anti-TIP work plan calls for increases in the 
number of GOB personnel and level of resources devoted to fighting 
TIP.  According to MOJ sources, there is no large, centralized 
anti-TIP fund to cover the work of all GOB ministries; rather each 
ministry or agency will receive additional money for TIP in its 
overall program budget.  The MOJ funds anti-TIP activities through 
UNODC, and through PRONASCI, the National Program of Public Safety 
with Citizenship.  PRONASCI has a broad public security mandate and 
 
BRASILIA 00000252  005 OF 006 
 
 
does not disaggregate TIP funding in its budget.  (See also refs B 
and C on PRONASCI.) 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Overall corruption is a problem in Brazil but there is no 
evidence of official corruption related to trafficking in persons, 
according to SNJ officials and ICE, and Mission Internet searches 
did not produce any reports of official corruption related to TIP in 
Brazil. 
 
Section D 
--------- 
 
¶18. (SBU) The assignment of 150 federal labor inspectors to key 
forced labor areas added to the ability to monitor labor conditions, 
and efforts are underway to recruit and hire more labor inspectors 
at the national and local levels.  (NOTE: Inspectors at the local 
level are federal employees of the Ministry of Labor who are 
recruited locally and continue to live and work in areas from which 
they were recruited.  END NOTE).  However, the fractured judicial 
system continued to hinder the ability of prosecutors to bring cases 
to trial and complete convictions. 
 
¶19. (SBU) According to SNJ, the Government of Brazil is implementing 
its National Anti-TIP work plan as mandated by the National Policy 
to Counter Trafficking in Persons.   This is greatly improving its 
ability to systematically monitor its anti-TIP efforts on all 
fronts.  The GOB has created a monitoring group composed of 15 
ministries and agencies to evaluate and publish information about 
TIP in Brazil.  The National Anti-TIP Policy is also intended to 
bring about more efficient administration of trafficking cases 
within the judiciary. 
 
¶20.  (U) The GOB has also created a working group including the 
Federal Public Ministry, the State Public Ministries, the Federal 
Police and others to study the best ways to improve the judiciary's 
administration of TIP issues.  The group will hold its first meeting 
in March 2009. 
 
¶22.  (U) The general guidelines of the National Policy to Counter 
Trafficking in Persons are as follows: 
 
I - strengthening Brazil's federative structure by means of joint 
and coordinated actions by all levels of government to prevent and 
combat trafficking in persons, as well as provide assistance to the 
victims and their reintegration into society; 
II - fostering bilateral or multilateral international cooperation; 
III - coordinating with national and international non-governmental 
organizations; 
IV - building a network infrastructure to counter trafficking in 
persons, involving all levels of government and organizations of 
civil society; 
V - strengthening action in border regions, ports, airports, 
highways, bus stations, train stations, and any other area where 
trafficking might take place; 
VII - checking the victims' condition and the corresponding 
protection and assistance to be provided, abroad or in the national 
territory, as well as their social reintegration; 
VIII - providing incentives and carrying out research, taking into 
consideration regional differences, organization and sharing of 
information; 
IX - promoting education and training of professionals to prevent 
and combat trafficking in persons, as well as checking the victims' 
condition, providing assistance, and their reintegration into 
society; 
X - harmonizing laws and administrative procedures on the subject 
area at the federal, state and municipal levels. 
XI - fostering the participation of civil society in public policies 
social control instances in the area of suppression of trafficking 
in persons; and 
XII - fostering the participation of working class bodies and 
professional councils in the discussion on the trafficking in 
persons; 
IV - reintegration into society with assurances of education, 
culture, work training and opportunities, for the victims of 
trafficking in persons; 
V - reintegration into the family and into the community of children 
and adolescents who were victims of trafficking in persons; 
VI - providing attention to the victims' specific needs, with 
 
BRASILIA 00000252  006 OF 006 
 
 
special attention being given to issues of gender, sexual 
orientation, ethnic or social origin, place of birth, nationality, 
race, religion, age generation, migration situation, professional 
activity or other status; 
VII - protection of the identity and privacy rights of the victims 
of trafficking in persons; 
VIII - surveying, researching, updating and disclosure of 
information on government and non-government institutions located 
both in Brazil and abroad which provide assistance to victims of 
trafficking in persons. 
SOBEL