VZCZCXRO8087
PP RUEHRG
DE RUEHBR #0625/01 1391355
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 191355Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4322
INFO RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 9547
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 7749
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 4060

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRASILIA 000625 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
PLEASE PASS TO DEPARTMENT OF LABOR FOR ILAB 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR ECON ELAB SOCI BR
SUBJECT: CHILD LABOR IN BRAZIL - ADDITIONAL COMMENT ON DOL 
DRAFT LIST FOR TVPRA 
 
REF: A. STATE 3075 
     ¶B. BRASIIA 124 
     ¶C. BRASILIA 331 
 
This message is sensitive but unclassified and not for 
Internet distribution. Please handle accordingly. 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary.  The International Labor Organization (ILO) 
office in Brasilia (protect) told poloffs on May 7 week that 
the profile of child labor in Brazil has shifted in recent 
years and is now predominantly an urban phenomenon.  The ILO 
child labor expert stressed that Brazilian authorities have 
eradicated child labor from export crops grown on large 
plantations, such as corn, coffee and others.  The situation 
has improved so much that ILO Brazil focuses its efforts on 
the worst forms of child labor and expects that by 2011 
Brazil will have eliminated child labor.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Renato Mendes (strictly protect), chief technical 
adviser for Brazil in the International Program on the 
Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), told poloffs that child 
labor has been almost entirely eliminated from large export 
crops such as corn, soybeans, and coffee because of close 
controls all along the production chain.  He said the same is 
true for talcum and bananas.  He said child labor has been 
eliminated from the sugar cane industry except for occasional 
cases of underage boys who look over 18 and use that to 
voluntarily seek employment in that industry.  Mendes spoke 
on condition that the USG not publicly cite him or the ILO in 
reference to child labor in Brazil (except for publications). 
 According to Mendes, the turning point in the fight against 
child labor in Brazil, which resulted in the elimination of 
child labor in large export crops, came from a trade dispute 
in the 1990s over child labor in the Brazilian citrus fruit 
and footwear industries.  Those were the first industries to 
be purged of child labor, and others followed.  Moreover, the 
increasing mechanization of the planting, cultivation, and 
harvesting of crops such as soybeans and corn has contributed 
to the elimination of child labor in their production, Mendes 
said. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Because the situation has changed, data as recent 
as even five years ago may not be valid, Mendes said.  In 
response to poloff's question about the ILO's 2004 study by 
Ana Lucia Kassouf that DOL has cited to support a child labor 
finding with regard to several specific products, Mendes said 
Kassouf's findings no longer reflect the current situation. 
He said the best currently available data on child labor in 
specific crops are the microdata available only on the 2007 
PNAD CD-ROM.  (Note: This may be purchased directly from the 
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE).  End 
note.) 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Mendes differentiated between plantation 
cultivation of soybeans, corn, coffee, sisal, pineapples, and 
others, where child labor has been eliminated, and 
subsistence level, family-based agriculture where child labor 
exists as a part of the family economy.  Mendes explained 
that Brazilian agricultural production should be understood 
in three groupings: a) large-scale export crops, b) the 
informal sector for family subsistence, and c) the formal 
sector using salaried workers to produce crops for the 
internal Brazilian market.  Child labor has been eradicated 
from the first group, large-scale export farming.  In the 
subsistence sector, Mendes said, the ILO's view is that child 
labor in family subsistence agriculture is not a significant 
problem since children work only part time as part of their 
chores and the work relationship is different from the 
commercial sector.  Children have no supervisor but work 
alongside parents and siblings.  Mendes also pointed out that 
the inviolability of the family is protected by the Brazilian 
Constitution, which legally exempts family work units from 
inspection by Ministry of Labor officials or public labor 
prosecutors.  Finally, in the formal sector that produces for 
the internal Brazilian market, the situation depends on the 
product.  Child labor is found in the production of manioc 
and bricks, for example, but only in isolated instances in 
the production of tin and gold. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) With regard to talc, a non-agricultural product, 
Mendes noted that the problem denounced by CUT, a Brazilian 
labor confederation, in 2006 in Ouro Preto involved fewer 
than 50 children, and was completely resolved when DGB, the 
Federation of German Trade Unions "forced an agreement" on 
the two German firms implicated, Bosch and Faber Castell, 
which caused them to stop purchasing the talc.  Afterwards, 
Brazilian social services helped to correct the underlying 
 
BRASILIA 00000625  002 OF 002 
 
 
situation that led to child labor in that case.  Mendes 
stated that as far as ILO knows, there is now no child labor 
in talc production in Brazil, including in Ouro Preto. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) On bananas, Mendes said the Agriculture Ministry 
closely monitors the production of bananas, including checks 
for child labor.  He added that the Brazilian banana does not 
lend itself well to child labor since the plants are too tall 
for children to harvest the fruit, unlike the shorter banana 
plants of Ecuador and elsewhere.  He noted that he could not 
state that child labor was or was not involved in production 
for the internal market. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Mendes said the situation is improving at such a 
rate that the ILO expects Brazil will have eradicated child 
labor in both rural and urban settings by 2011. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Comment.  A determination by DOL that child labor 
is still used in crops for which the ILO's expert in Brazil 
states that it has been eliminated leaves the USG vulnerable 
to accusations of protectionism.  In the worst case scenario 
it could result in a WTO case.  It is critical that our list 
of products for the Trafficking Victims Protection 
Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) accurately reflect the current 
situation in Brazil.  Rather than depend on anecdotes, 
occasional press reports, or outdated statistics to draw 
broad conclusions, Mission urges DOL to use only recent data, 
such as the 2007 PNAD, in combination with the assessments of 
the ILO and other expert sources that accurately reflect the 
current status of child labor or lack thereof in various 
industrial and agricultural sectors. 
KUBISKE