VZCZCXRO8216
RR RUEHRG
DE RUEHBR #0807/01 1752053
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 242053Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4565
INFO RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 9697
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 7914
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 4258

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRASILIA 000807 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
PLEASE PASS TO DEPARTMENT OF LABOR FOR ILAB 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB ECON EAGR SOCI KCRM BR
SUBJECT: CHILD LABOR IN BRAZIL - ADDITIONAL COMMENT ON DOL 
LIST OF GOODS FOR TVPRA 
 
REF: A. STATE 3075 
     ¶B. BRASILIA 124 
     ¶C. BRASILIA 231 
     ¶D. BRASILIA 331 
     ¶E. BRASILIA 625 
 
This message is sensitive but unclassified and not for 
Internet distribution. Please handle accordingly. 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary.  Child labor specialist Renato Mendes 
(strictly protect) at the ILO Brazil office said child labor 
continues to be a problem in the footwear and pineapple 
industries, has largely been eliminated from sisal and 
cotton, and the situation in the rice industry is unclear.  A 
significant obstacle to the elimination of child labor in the 
footwear industry is the recent shift from factory production 
to outsourced production in private homes, which prevents 
government inspection.  Local programs under the 
International Program to Eliminate Child Labor (IPEC) have 
made significant achievements in Brazil.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) In a meeting with poloff on June 17, Renato Mendes, 
child labor specialist at the ILO Brazil office, discussed 
some products that will be included in the forthcoming 
Department of Labor List of Goods associated with child and 
forced labor (ref A).  The following paragraphs summarize his 
views on child labor in specific industries. 
 
Footwear 
 
¶3.   (SBU) The footwear industry, Mendes explained, had at 
one point in recent years become largly free of child labor, 
but a significant shift in the industry allowed the practice 
to reappear in such a form that it is now difficult to 
control through direct intervention (inspections).  A large 
percentage of Brazilian footwear is now produced through 
subcontracting that may involve several intermediate levels 
between the producer and the wholesaler.  At the end of this 
chain, one often finds a small-scale home production that 
involves child labor.  Under Brazilian law, the home is 
inviolable, and labor inspectors may not enter, resulting in 
misleading official data about the involvement of children in 
the footwear industry. 
 
Pineapples 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Important progress has been made toward eliminating 
child labor from the pineapple industry in Brazil, but one 
cannot say it has been eliminated, Mendes said.  In 2006, 
pineapple growers in 40 towns in Paraiba, the top 
pineapple-producing state, signed an agreement that was 
coordinated by ILO Brazil, under the auspices of the 
International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor 
(IPEC), with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. 
(Note. Mendes is responsible for IPEC in Brazil.  End note.) 
As a result, child labor has been greatly reduced in the 
industry, but not yet eliminated.  Mendes noted that an 
ongoing problem that inspectors face in the industry is that 
while they may enter a farm without notice to conduct an 
inspection, they may not enter a private, family-run lot. 
Some pineapple producers in Paraiba have avoided inspections 
by subdividing their property into parcels farmed by 
families, which government inspectors may not enter. 
 
Sisal 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Brazil's chief sisal producing region is in Bahia, 
where a large-scale program to eliminate child labor has been 
very successful, according to Mendes.  The program was the 
first IPEC program in Brazil, and ensures full-time school 
attendance for at-risk children. The conditions have now been 
established that are needed for the complete elimination of 
child labor from the sisal growing region.  He noted that the 
region is extensive, and some isolated cases of child labor 
could still exist.  He also cautioned that because the total 
sisal crop is small, the data sample is also small, and as a 
result the margin of error in the data is great and therefore 
the PNAD (Pesquisa de Amostra por Domicilio) data 
specifically on sisal are not reliable, unlike data for large 
crops such as tobacco and sugar cane. 
 
Cotton 
 
¶6.  (SBU) The case of cotton is less clear than other 
products.  Mendes noted that cotton production in the largest 
cotton-growing state, Mato Grosso, is now thoroughly 
mechanized.  During the meeting with poloff, he phoned a 
 
BRASILIA 00000807  002 OF 002 
 
 
senior Mato Grosso state government labor official, who told 
Mendes there has not been a case of child labor in cotton in 
Mato Grosso in several years.  He suggested that PNAD data 
may provide additional insight into possible child labor in 
cotton production. 
 
Rice 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Mendes noted that it is not clear to him whether 
child labor exists in commercial rice production in Brazil. 
He said the largest Brazilian producers are mechanized. 
(Note: According to 2009 Brazilian Agriculture Ministry 
statistics, 70 percent of the rice crop is produced in the 
southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, 20 
percent in the north and northeast region, and 10 percent in 
the center-west region.  Most of Brazil's rice exports come 
from the south.  End note.) 
 
Soy and Castor Beans should be monitored 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Soy beans and castor beans -- not now associated 
with child labor -- should be monitored because some 
conditions exist that could favor the appearance of child 
labor in their cultivation, according to Mendes.  The 
Government of Brazil, in connection with its promotion of 
biofuels, has established a goal that 30 percent of the total 
crop yield of soy beans and castor beans should be produced 
by family farms.  Family-produced soy and castor beans can be 
expected to go entirely toward the production of biofuels, 
Mendes said.  A government financing body, the BNDES 
(National Bank for Social and Economic Development), through 
PRONAF (National Program to Strengthen Family Farming), which 
is jointly administered by the Ministry for Agricultural 
Development and the Ministry for Social Development, offers 
some safeguard against child labor because a lending 
condition prohibits the use of child or forced labor.  But 
this may not be sufficient to keep child labor out of family 
production of soy and castor beans, and Mendes suggested that 
another important indicator to watch is the absence or 
presence of full-time schooling for at-risk children. 
 
Comment 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  While child labor is increasingly an urban 
phenomenon in Brazil, as Mendes pointed out (ref E), there 
appears to be a positive correlation between child labor and 
less developed, non-mechanized forms of agriculture and 
simple manufacturing, which in Brazil situates much child 
labor in the northeast.  This is evident with pineapples, 
sugar cane, manioc, ceramics, bricks, and tiles.  As Mendes 
also pointed out, child labor can also be expected at the 
frontier, where new areas are being opened to exploitation, 
such as with cattle ranching.  The exceptions are footwear 
and tobacco, where child labor is found in the more developed 
south.  The northeast and the north have the highest 
percentages of families receiving benefits from government 
social programs such as Bolsa Familia (Family Stipend). 
Bolsa Familia alone may be insufficient to reduce child 
labor, while a series of factors such as full-time school 
attendance, inspections, labor-management-government 
agreements, corporate social responsibility actions, and 
others, can create the necessary conditions to eliminate 
child labor even in an impoverished area with less developed 
forms of agriculture.  Finally, the government's promotion of 
family farming could inadvertently cause an increase in child 
labor if the factors that help to prevent it are absent. 
SOBEL