Domestic is rescued from pastor’s house after 32 years in a condition analogous to slavery

Paula (not her real name) was 12 years old when, still in the 4th grade, she would have started going to the teacher’s house with a mission: to look after her wife’s children, at the opposite time to classes.

The two lived on the same street. The girl, who was in vulnerable conditions where she lived, accepted a new invitation at the age of 15: she moved for good to “help with the care of children and housework”.

The setting was Mossoró, the second largest city in Rio Grande do Norte. And there, about 32 years ago, a story would begin that is currently framed by the Public Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security as “analogous to slavery”, with reports that also point to a decade of possible sexual abuse.

The suspicion of violence weighs against the teacher’s husband, the pastor of the Assembly of God, Geraldo Braga da Cunha. wanted by leafthe law firm representing him and his family denied the allegations.

Revealed this Tuesday (1st) by UOL columnist Leonardo Sakamoto, the case was confirmed to leaf by authorities who participated in the operation. The action took place last week and gained national repercussion this Tuesday.

The complaint arrived anonymously at the Instituto Trabalho Digno through the Instagram profile @trabalhoescravo, and was forwarded to the authorities.

Ministry of Labour, Public Ministry of Labour, Public Defender’s Office and Federal Police agents knocked on the door of the house last Wednesday (26). The day before, they had rescued another woman in Natal in conditions that are also under investigation.

The cases are the first to be pointed out as analogous to slavery involving domestic work, in 2022, in Brazil. They were also the first of their kind to date in Rio Grande do Norte, according to Maurício Krepsky, head of the Inspection Division for the Eradication of Slave Labor, at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

Ministry data show that between 2017 and 2021, 38 women described as domestic workers were rescued in the country in similar operations. In some of these cases, there were also signs of sexual abuse – “a very serious indicator of exploitation”, in the words of the auditor.

According to him, “there are many cases of urban housework that start with a ‘we take it to create’ story and where the person remains exploited for decades.”

In the house where she spent part of her adolescence and became an adult, in Mossoró, Paula arrived first to play, says Cecília Amália Cunha Santos, the prosecutor of the Public Ministry of Labor. “And then she stayed, started sleeping and being responsible for all the household chores. Her sisters say that the grooming took place when she was 12 years old,” she told leaf.

“The owner of the house, the pastor’s wife, saw that she was living in a vulnerable situation and took her home in her early teens. The teacher did not send the girl to study. She said she had no sense for studies, but her children her [da professora] they all studied and are now on their way through life,” he said.

Paula interrupted her studies and for 32 years, according to the authorities, she worked in the house without any labor rights. “The indignity” in the case, Cecília said, was not in the place where she slept or in the clothes she wore, which were not dirty or frayed.

“The indignity was at work without pay, without days off, in not being able to stay with the family on weekends, in having to be available morning, noon and night, in never having had a vacation, in not being able to study and the abuses he suffered,” said the prosecutor.

The situation in which both she and the other rescued woman were found, she added, was one of financial and emotional dependence on the families who sheltered them.

In the story discovered in Natal, labor tax auditors found that the domestic worker had been working at the residence for five years, from Monday to Sunday, being available to the employer 24 hours a day and resting only every 15 days.

According to official information released about the operation, she slept on a mattress on the floor in her employer’s bedroom. She was not registered in the work card, received R$500 per month and never had the FGTS (Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço) collected. “All her belongings were in a backpack on the closet floor,” she details in a note. According to the MPT prosecutor, she was also mistreated and threatened.

Today he is 52 years old. She would have been taken in her early teens, like Paula, to live with another family, who five years ago “passed on” her to the house where she lived until the date of her rescue.

“The worker is in a very disoriented situation when she is removed from the environment of exploitation. She has been there since she was a child, she was socialized in that family, she missed the stages of socialization that all teenagers go through, from dating, studying, getting married, having children, professionalize, get a job. None of that, of personality development, they passed, so they are very scared, because the reference of ‘affection’ they have are these families. They don’t see themselves as workers, working for free”, commented the prosecutor .

In Paula’s case, the situation returned to normal in the house where she lived, she told leaf. “They didn’t see her as a servant. They saw her as a part of the family, a less favored part of the family. They see themselves in that condition as if they were doing them a favor.”

The abuses he reported were treated by the boss’s family as “an extramarital affair”. But that was not how she saw it, according to the prosecutor. The woman is now 43 years old. According to Cecília, she is functionally illiterate. She only knows how to sign her name.

And would have suffered abuse from 30 to 40 years. He did not report it “out of fear and shame”.

The two women are now with family members. “Abaladas”, according to the prosecutor, could not grant an interview. “These women need psychological support to rebuild themselves as human beings. To understand their role within that family, which was not a person who was there to help, because they liked it. It was the role of a worker who was working there and deserved it. get paid for this work”, said Cecília.

“So, re-signifying this experience for them is very important and it is a process that will last a long time. The damage to these women’s existence is already very great, the emotional deficit for not having been able to experience all stages of life.”

Pastor is removed and defense denies accusations

In a published note, the Evangelical Assembly of God Church in Mossoró said that it received the news published in the press with surprise and that the pastor was preventively removed from his ecclesiastical duties.

“The institution determined, through its Board of Directors, the opening of an administrative disciplinary procedure, so that the facts are verified and applied, if applicable, according to the findings of the process, the penalties provided for in the statute and in the church’s bylaws”, inform the post.

The pastor’s defense, in turn, denied the accusations, and, in a statement, called the story reported by the authorities in the Mossoró operation a “PSEUDO case of domestic slavery and sexual abuse”. He also stated that he had his requests for full access to the proceedings in the proceedings denied. And he declined to comment on the facts reported about the pastor’s wife or the note released by the church.

The two cases discovered in the state will be referred to justice, with requests for back wages, severance pay, moral damages and investigation into criminal charges. Women will receive unemployment insurance for three months.