An 89-year-old woman was rescued by the Civil Police from an apartment in the Gonzaga neighborhood, an upscale region of the port city of Santos, in São Paulo, after reporting a situation of slavery .
According to the investigation, she worked for almost 50 years as a domestic servant for a family with no formal registration, no salary or any kind of payment; she could only leave the house for work-related tasks.
The complaint to the police was made by a neighbor, who recorded offenses against the elderly woman; since August 2020, the maid has been in the care of family members, including a granddaughter.
This month, the MPT (Ministry of Labor) sued the family that subjected her to the condition of slave, asking for the blocking of movable and immovable property worth R$ 1 million and the conviction for collective moral damages, also in R$ 1. million, which should be invested in actions to combat slave labor.
As the cases are carried out in secret, it was not possible to obtain the names of the accused or to contact their defense.
For labor prosecutor Alline Pedrosa Oishi Delena, who acted in another case of labor analogous to slavery in the capital of São Paulo, there is a stereotyped view of contemporary slave labor, that the person needs to be in prison, living in prison or tied.
“The slave situation is related to violated basic rights, with an unacceptable level of exploitation”, he says. “It’s no use for the gate to be open, if the person doesn’t have a penny and has nowhere to go.”
According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, in 2020 and 2021, 742 people were rescued from slave labor in 2020.
Family sues ex-employers for employment
Labor prosecutor Rodrigo Lestrade Pedroso says he did not ask for individual moral damages because the worker, with the help of her family, sued her former employers, from whom she asks for recognition of the employment relationship, payment of wages and other labor funds and compensation.
The amount requested by the worker’s family was not disclosed. The two processes run in secrecy of Justice.
In the labor lawsuit presented to the 2nd Labor Court in Santos, the worker said that she was hired as a domestic worker in the 1970s. Even at that time, she lost her identity card and received a promise from her employers that they would help her provide a new RG, but that never happened.
She also said that she was threatened every time she asked permission to look for her family — she had two daughters — and was told by her employers that she would lose the shelter and food she received. The woman said she also suffered constant humiliation. She heard curses from the employer’s three daughters and even got punched and slapped.
A situation in which insults were shouted at the maid was recorded by a neighbor and sent to the Police Station for the Protection of Elderly People.
The domestic worker has been receiving a pension in the amount of a minimum wage and the full cost of a health plan, both financed by the family that subjected her to the condition of slavery.
Prosecutor Rodrigo Lestrade Pedroso says the case was referred by the judge to the Labor MP, after the family refused to settle.
The former employer and one of the three daughters died in 2021, another died years earlier. For the MPT, they all benefited directly from the maid’s degraded situation, since they also managed the house and gave orders. They also had a person available to take care of the elderly mother without being paid for her work.
According to Pedroso, the maid’s two daughters have not heard from their mother for almost 50 years. They didn’t even know if she was alive. In the labor lawsuit, she says that her first daughter died “without realizing her dream of meeting again” her mother.
In the process initiated by the MPT, the prosecutor asks for the blocking of assets of the husband of one of the daughters of the employer, who is the administrator of the pension and the assets of the mother-in-law. Pedroso says that the action also provides for 13 obligations to the family in future commitments such as granting rest and paying salaries to employees.
For Pedroso, the case fits the concept of contemporary slavery, in which a person in extreme social vulnerability accepts a job in exchange for food or housing.
Justice sentenced former employers in case of prime area of São Paulo
In March of this year, the TRT-2 (Regional Labor Court) confirmed the conviction of three people for having subjected a woman to a situation similar to slavery in a house in Alto de Pinheiros, an upscale region of the capital of São Paulo.
According to the initial decision, the three former employers, Mariah Corazza Ustündag, Dora Üstündag and Sônia Corazza, will have to pay BRL 650,000 in the lawsuit, BRL 350,000 of which in compensation for the former maid, in addition to the recognition of a bond. of employment and collection of labor funds. The other R$ 300 thousand will be reverted to the FAT (Worker Support Fund). They appealed.
The defense of the former employers says that the condemnation is exaggerated and that there was no slave labor, as the former employee was free to leave, had no debts with the family and even provided services for other neighbors. In the criminal sphere, they were sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
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