Woman Rescued in Brazil After 55 Years of Slavery by Three Generations
Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
Maria, a woman enslaved since age seven, was finally rescued in Fortaleza after 55 years of unpaid labor by three generations of the Brasil family. Despite receiving compensation, she remains with her former captors while authorities locate her relatives, highlighting the extreme isolation and psychological control inherent in domestic slavery in Brazil.
She lived in a kind of prison, afraid of the violence outside, and because she was given clothes, food, and shelter, she felt she was being paid for her work.
- forinti
Its a common occurrence for families to take in poor girls to do house work in exchange for food and lodging. And with the insidious nature of Brazilian racism, they will pretend that she is part of the family. They might even take her on vacations (to work, of course). If you grow up with this mentality it might even be hard for you to see the injustice. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, the last country in the Americas to do so, decades after its neighbours. The slaves never got compensation but their owners did.
- t1234s
I was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of the floorplans for condos or houses include a servants quarters. They were telling me theirs cost around $12 USD a day which is not a bad deal.
- comrade1234
My wife's family were wealthy Chinese near Hong Kong. Her grandmother took in a poor girl as a servant. She was part of the family but also basically a slave. The grandmother arranged her marriage when the girl was older. We met the girls granddaughter when we visited china - she was a new college student. The two families still think of themselves as related.
- zaik
$40k compensation for 55 years of service...
- leoc
See also the late Alex Tizon's "My Family's Slave" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-s... , with a 2017 HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14350059 .
- scottconover
I’m new to HN. How does this relate to the theme of Hacker News?
- atum47
Yup, my mom and her sisters were all sent off to work on family houses when they were about 10 - 12. They were born in the country side, and my grandpa didn't care for them at all.
- diego_moita
A similar history, in the U.S.: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-s...