JBS among meat firms linked to slavery-tainted ranches in Brazil

Rio De Janeiro

BRAZILIAN meatpackers must clean up their supply chains, labour experts said on Tuesday, after an investigation showed that six firms bought cattle from ranches that used slave labour.

Brazil's JBS, one of the world's largest meat processing firms, bought cattle from two ranches that later ended up on Brazil's "dirty list" of companies that employed slave labour, the anti-slavery rights group Reporter Brasil said this week.

JBS said it banned the two firms once they were on the dirty list, but it was unfair to expect JBS to stop working with any ranches facing allegations of slave labour from inspectors as those companies also had the right to defend their actions.

"Reporter Brasil is demanding JBS . . . block producers based only on inspections (which) . . . would be a disregard for that producer's right of defence before public authorities", JBS told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a statement.

In Brazil, employers whose workers have been rescued by labour inspectors are allowed to defend themselves in front of a panel, which is part of the economy ministry, and to appeal against charges of slavery.

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

The firm is only added to the dirty list - one of Brazil's most powerful anti-slavery tools, currently with 114 names on it - if found guilty by the panel.

Brazil exports billions of dollars of beef every year and its meat processing industry has repeatedly come under fire for poor working conditions. Under Brazilian law, forced labour is defined as a form of modern-day slavery that includes degrading work conditions and long hours that pose a risk to workers' health or life and violate their dignity.

Blacklisted businesses cannot receive state loans and have restrictions placed on their sales. The list is also used by private banks to gauge credit risk and by international buyers concerned about their supply chains.

Meatpackers cannot rely only on the dirty list to ensure clean supply chains, said Xavier Plassat, who heads the Pastoral Land Commission anti-slavery campaign.

He said that the list only included the names of those "unlucky enough to get caught" by labour inspectors and that slavery in the meat industry was widespread.

Other firms named in the Reporter Brasil investigation were third parties to slavery - buying cattle from ranches that bought their cattle from blacklisted ranches.

"The monitoring by meatpackers . . . does not take into account those who supply their suppliers," said Mr Plassat. "Slave labour is still invisible." Legally it is difficult to make meatpackers responsible for buying cattle raised by slave labour, said Brazil's leading anti-slavery labour prosecutor, Lys Sobral Cardoso.

"We need to map the entire supply chain and then build a legal argument to make those at the top responsible," said Mr Cardoso. "It's still something we are discussing how to do." REUTERS