MPT summons Volkswagen to a hearing on alleged slave labor during military dictatorship

The MPT (Ministry of Labor) confirmed this Monday (30) that it is investigating Volkswagen’s responsibility in the case of alleged slave labor on a farm owned by the automaker in the 1970s and 1980s, in Pará.

The MPT summoned Volkswagen’s Brazilian unit for an administrative hearing on June 14, 2 pm, in Brasília.

The call comes after publications in the German press on Sunday, with the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcaster NDR revealing that the automaker is being investigated in Brazil for alleged human rights violations on a farm during the period of military dictatorship.

Volkswagen also said on Sunday that it took the investigation seriously and would not give further details because of legal proceedings. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Reuters on Monday.

The charges, according to the MPT, include lack of medical treatment in cases of malaria, housing in unsanitary places, with poor food and no access to drinking water, in addition to being unable to leave the farm due to debts incurred, including the use of armed surveillance. .

“Labour prosecutor Rafael Garcia Rodrigues, who is coordinating the investigation into the case, explains that the working group concluded that Volkswagen was responsible for serious human rights violations that occurred within the farm owned by him,” the MPT said in a statement in its site.

The case would have taken place in a place known as the Volkswagen Farm, in Santana do Araguaia (PA). The 139,000-hectare plot would be owned by CVRC (Companhia Vale do Rio Cristalino Agropecuária Comércio e Indústria), a subsidiary of Volkswagen, the agency said, adding that the farm would have been subsidized by an entity linked to the military government.

The MPT stated that CRVC had 300 direct employees who worked as cowboys for inspection, but clearing and clearing of the forest services were performed by workers with no employment relationship.

“The complaints of human trafficking and slave labor refer, in particular, to these farmers recruited by contractors working for the CVRC to clear and clear the forest” on the farm, said the MPT.

That’s because the farm’s native vegetation, according to the statement, would have been transformed into a pasture area through fires and deforestation by contractors who recruited farmers in small villages, recruited especially in the interior of Mato Grosso, Maranhão and Goiás.

The MPT did not say how many people were victims of the acts. The agency began investigating the case in 2019, after receiving documentation from a priest who coordinated, at the time of the alleged events, the Pastoral Land Commission of the National Confederation of Bishops of Brazil for the region of Araguaia and Tocantins. Today, he coordinates a research group on slave labor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.