Zara settles to compensate black customer accused of shoplifting in Bahia

Zara, together with Shopping da Bahia, signed an out-of-court settlement with Luiz Fernandes Júnior, a black man who was accused of stealing a backpack worth R$329 that he had bought at the mall store, in Salvador, on the 29th of December 2021.

Because of a confidentiality clause, the amount of damages agreed in the agreement signed earlier this month was not disclosed. Initially, the amount demanded by the defense, represented by Educafro’s lawyer, Thiago Thobias, was around R$ 1 million.

Born in Guinea-Bissau, Luiz arrived in Brazil in 2014 to study at Unilab (University for the International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony), in São Francisco do Conde (BA), where he graduated in pedagogy and recently completed a master’s degree.

There were four months of negotiation between the parties, from the moment the case came to light, until the final agreement was reached. The meetings were held in a hybrid way (online and in person).

Neither the lawyer nor the victim can make statements about the agreement, but, according to the executive director of Educafro, Friar David Santos, despite the psychological damage suffered by Luiz, the victim recognized that this was the best way to avoid the slowness of justice. .

“He is a very conscientious person, because, as we know, if the process went ahead, it would take four to five years to be judged”, he calculates. “In addition, our Judiciary is contaminated by structural racism. When you are black, the sentence is insignificant”, he criticizes.

By note, Zara returned to regret the episode that occurred with Luiz, “which does not reflect the company’s values”. Likewise, Shopping da Bahia reiterated the fight against any type of discrimination, in addition to maintaining a continuous work on the re-education of all employees.

At the time, Luiz was approached inside a bathroom by a security guard at the mall, who was called by the store. Although he presented the invoice for the product, which he had already left the establishment, the employee demanded that he return the item.

“The way they approached me was inhumane. Taking someone out of the bathroom, a private space, to accuse them of something they didn’t do. It was defamation, slander, not to mention xenophobia and racism,” he said, in a published interview. through the Sheet on the 9th of January last.

Despite the result, the brand will still be the target of a civil class action proposed by Educafro, says Friar David Santos, for whom the NGO’s out-of-court settlement policy has achieved values ​​higher than those defined by Justice.

“We understand that the damage, apparently individual, also extends to the collective of the Afro-Brazilian community”, said the friar. “It is our mission not to allow any case of racism to go unpunished in Brazilian territory,” he added.

Zara has already been involved in other cases of discrimination against black customers, such as the approach to delegate Ana Paula Barroso, in September last year, in Fortaleza (CE). The investigation revealed that the store created a code to alert about the presence of black people in the establishment.

The friar says that Educafro has been working so that all agreements are used as a reference to sign a Term of Adjustment of Conduct. “Because the Brazilian justice system is very unfair, when it comes to black victims. It is shameful. Humiliating”, he condemns.

In this sense, he says, the results obtained reach levels 30 times higher than what the Justice system offers. “As in the Beto Freitas case, at Carrefour, whose class action was 50% more than the court wanted to arbitrate”, he revealed.