The Clarion

Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Katie Mastroianni The slave labor industry in Brazil was outlined by British journalist and activist Binka Le Breton. Breton implicated inequality and environmental sustainability as major factors in the continuation of slave labor. [Click to enlarge]

British journalist Binka Le Breton discussed the causes and future of the slave labor industry in modern-day Brazil at the Graduate School of International Studies' Cyber Café last Tuesday.
The talk was given as part of the Center on Rights Development's lecture series, whose theme this academic year is human trafficking and forced labor. Just over 30 students attended the event.
Le Breton, an activist who now lives in Brazil's Amazon region and runs the Iracambi Rainforest Research Center, has written five books on human rights.
Her latest work, The Greatest Gift: The Courageous Life and Martyrdom of Sister Dorothy Stang, was released on Tuesday and discusses the life and death of an activist who aimed to protect the rights of family farmers threatened by illegal loggers in Brazil.
"What I do as a writer is try to find a story and tell it well to focus attention on the issue," Le Breton said.
During the lecture, Le Breton concentrated on exploring the causes of Brazil's slave labor industry while integrating the data with personal anecdotes and her understanding of local culture.
"In Brazil, I was looking at environmental rights and human rights, and guess what? You can't separate them," she said.
Some of the major factors Le Breton gave for the continuation of slave labor in Brazil include economic inequality and environmental sustainability, which are both significant problems in the Amazon.
"There are immense inequalities between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots," Le Breton said. "Three million two hundred thousand Brazilians are extremely poor."
This social disparity often causes issues when it comes to land use and ownership.

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