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Alyxandra Gomes Nunes (2009-02-07)

Pambazuka News’s Portuguese-language Editor Alyxandra Gomes considers the endurance of racial divisions in labour in her native Brazil. Taking off from the city of Belem's hosting of the 2009 World Social Forum, Gomes describes the persistence of slave labour practices, especially within the Amazon region, some 110 years after slavery's abolition in the country. With the overwhelming bulk of unsalaried and unofficial employees in the sugar-alcohol sector of African descent, the author argues that Brazil must overcome its vast disparities in labour practices, move towards genuine racial equality, and criminalise poverty to tackle broad socio-economic inequalities once and for all.