WITNESS Fights Forced Labor

WITNESS uses video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. WITNESS empowers people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change. Bound by Promises, their recent film about contemporary slavery in rural Brazil was created with partners The Commissão Pastoral da Terra and The Center for Justice and International Law. Witness estimates that there are at least 25,000 workers enslaved every year in rural Brazil, predominantly in the Amazon region. Mostly men between the ages of 18 and 35 years, these workers are trafficked routinely by middlemen who recruit throughout the north and northeastern states, where poverty and unemployment offer no other choices to make ends meet. Through detailed accounts and interviews by survivors and family members of the enslaved, Bound by Promises tells the stories of these men. Without other opportunities for work, the men are lured into working for isolated ranches far from their homes they become indentured slaves. With minimal pay, they are trapped and forced to work to buy their way out. Many of these farms produce charcoal used for steel. In Brazil, 18% of ranches produced charcoal, which is especially relevant because the charcoal is used to produce pig iron, which is used to produce steel. Brazil produces the highest quality pig iron in the world, most of which feeds into the U.S. steel industry and represents a market worth over 400 million USD a year.

Witness and their Brazilian partners identify their target audience, set goals for the film and create a distribution plan. For Bound by Promises, they attempted to reach and audience of decision makers, business executives and those individuals who could potentially be at risk for enslavement. Their goal was to completely eradicate slavery in Brazil. The film was screened for lawmakers, multinational corporate executives working in Brazil and even in the U.S. The Automotive Industry Action Group, an organization affiliated with Business for Social Responsibility, screened the film to help promote awareness of slave labor in automotive supply chains. The twelve-minute film continues to be screened in Brazil and is available to watch online through the WITNESS VIDEO HUB which is the world's first online digital video hub dedicated to human rights.

All photos courtesy of WWW.WITNESS.ORG