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Thursday, September 3, 2015
Brazilian firm Odebrecht Group has been convicted in a labor court in Brazil of holding workers in conditions similar to slavery. The charges were in regard to Brazilian workers the company had working in Angola on the construction of an ethanol refinery.
The Brazilian firm was ordered to pay $13 million in damages by the court.
According to court filings the workers were recruited out of a small town in Brazil and sent to Angola where they were forced to work in unsanitary work camps. The workers’ passports were confiscated upon arrival in Angola and were kept under guard at the camps so they were unable to leave.
The contractors’ actions and efforts to illegally import the Brazilian workers to Angola and restrict their movement was akin to the practices of human traffickers, the court said, according to a statement from prosecutors.
While the abuses were carried out by third parties, the court ruled that ultimately Oderbrecht was responsible for the entire project and benefitted from the abuses.
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