Danwatch travelled to Brazil’s largest coffee-producing state, Minas Gerais, where half of Brazil’s coffee is grown. We visited coffee plantations, interviewed coffee workers, trade unions, experts and local authorities. Danwatch accompanied the police and the Brazilian Ministry of Labour and Employment on an inspection of a Brazilian coffee plantation where seventeen men, women and children were found to be victims of human trafficking and were freed from conditions analogous to slavery. Two children, ages 14 and 15, had also worked picking coffee on the plantation.
Julie Hjerl Hansen