Accusation of slave labor: VW rejects agreement in Brazil

Volkswagen has rejected an agreement over alleged slave labor on a factory cattle farm in Brazil. A subsidiary is said to have exploited hundreds of workers there. Now the public prosecutor wants to sue.

The allegations against Volkswagen are serious: during the military dictatorship, a Brazilian subsidiary of the German car manufacturer Volkswagen is said to have imprisoned hundreds of people in slave-like conditions on a company-owned cattle farm in the Amazon.

There was a system of violence, says former worker José Perreira: “If someone tried to flee, the watchdogs would come after them and beat them up or shot them.”

Human trafficking, torture and murder are the allegations

The Brazilian judiciary speaks of human rights violations in hundreds of cases, it is about human trafficking, slave labor, torture and murder that are said to have happened on the farm in the 1970s and 1980s.

The crimes are said to have been committed by labor brokers who were hired by Volkswagen to do the clearing work and their armed minders. The car company founded the farm because it wanted to get into the meat business at the time.

Prosecutor sees overwhelming evidence

The public prosecutor’s office asked the carmaker to pay compensation a year ago. But after several hearings, the definitive rejection was given yesterday: Volkswagen do Brasil rejects an agreement, as the company responded to the request of the ARD informed in writing:

And this despite the fact that the public prosecutor’s office speaks of an overwhelming burden of proof. Rafael Garcia, the responsible lawyer for the authority in Rio de Janeiro, was disappointed: “We assumed that Volkswagen is acting in accordance with the values ​​it claims to have. This also includes the historic reparation of the human rights violations that are under their responsibility were committed.”

Parent company is silent

The parent company in Wolfsburg has not yet commented on the allegations. However, Volkswagen said it would take the allegations seriously.

However, five years ago, the historian Christopher Kopper, on behalf of VW, had worked through the allegations and confirmed them in detail: “Perhaps there is a certain shame and helplessness as to how to deal with it,” says Kopper. Already in 2017 he dealt with the complex of the farm in his studies. “And Volkswagen pointed out that at that time VW had also used foreign workers who were placed with VW by slave drivers.”

There was no reaction to the specially requested study. That left room for investigations – which is why the public prosecutor’s office now wants to go to court. In Brazil and if necessary also in Germany.