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Left: When workers are offered jobs in faraway farms in the State of Para, they endure long trips in trucks. The trip is normally paid by the "gato" (farmer's assistant) who got them the job. If the trip isn't paid by the "gato" it is because the worker went on his own to take a chance in Para. But he often has very little money on him so by the time he arrives in Para he will hang around in cheap hotels until a "gato" offers him work, pays the hotel bill and takes him to the farm where he will start to work already indebted, creating the basic condition for slavery (debt-bondage).

Right: Guns confiscated by the Fedral Police during a raid at a farm in south Para.

Brazil made slavery officially illegal in 1888 (the last country in the Americas to stop trading African slaves). Over a century on, it hasn't yet disappeared. It's no longer directly associated with the colour of the skin as it happened during the colonial time, but to poverty and lack of opportunities. Workers from poor areas are enticed to take long trips to the distant farms with promises of good work and payment. When they arrive, they find terrible working and living conditions.

They are forced to buy everything they need, from tools to food, from a canteen with connections to the farmer. The prices are inflated and the wages are totally consumed. They are told they actually owe money and are impeded to leave until they pay back this fraudulent debt. They are lured to believe that by working hard they will clear the debt the following month, which never happens. They are, effectively, modern-day slaves.