"'Fewer people will be freed': Brazil accused of easing anti-slavery rules-Critics say move cosies up to agribusiness lobby in a bid to build support for President Michel Temer before a crucial vote over making him face trial", 17 October 2017

The Brazilian government has been accused of reducing its ability to protect workers from slave-like labour conditions after abruptly changing the rules. Campaigners, commentators and prosecutors said the move was a "social regression" aimed at buying the support of a powerful agribusiness lobby ahead of a crucial vote in congress that could cost President Michel Temer his mandate. A government directive by the ministry of labour published on Monday redefined what the government defines as "slave-like work" – even though Brazil's efforts to stop abusive labour conditions were praised as recently as last year by the United Nations. The ministry will no longer automatically publish its "dirty list" of employers whose workers were kept under abusive conditions...Many of the employers on the list are farmers. "For us it will be a real regression in the battle against slave labour. It will make the definition harder and make inclusion on the 'dirty list' harder...It will be good for those who use slave labour...[said Maurício Brito, vice-coordinator for the eradication of slave labour for public prosecutors in Brasília]...Prosecutors plan to mount a legal challenge to the new rules...Before the new decree, four conditions were used to categorise "slave-like labour" – being forced to work; being obliged to work to pay off debts; degrading conditions that put workers' health or dignity at risk; an excessive workload that threatened workers' health. Now the last two conditions only apply if workers are also forcibly kept in place – and inspections will also need a completed police report to be accepted as evidence. Critics said the changes and increase in bureaucracy would make it harder to rescue workers..."...[F]ewer workers can be freed. There are workers in slave-labour conditions who will not be rescued," said Leonardo Sakamoto, founder of...Repórter Brasil and a member of the board of trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery..."Combating slave labour is a permanent public policy of the state," the ministry's statement said. Last week the ministry dismissed the chief of the division for the eradication of slave labour, André Roston. In August he had told a Senate commission that budget cuts meant it was impossible to carry out new inspections...