Pará, Mato Grosso e Minas Gerais lideram resgates por trabalho escravo Inacreditável isso acontecer, a maldade e crueldade.

Pará, Mato Grosso e Minas Gerais lideram resgates por trabalho escravo

POR JOELMA PEREIRA | 30/01/2018 15:45

Reprodução

A prática do trabalho escravo foi encontrada tanto no ambiente rural quanto no ambiente urbano

Em 2017 foram realizadas 184 ações de fiscalização e combate ao trabalho análogo ao de escravo no país, que resultaram no resgate de 407 trabalhadores. Entre os estados, o Pará é o primeiro colocado no ranking de ações de fiscalização e trabalhadores resgatados.  No estado, foram realizadas 31 inspeções, que resultaram em 72 trabalhadores resgatados. Em seguida vem Mato Grosso, com 27 inspeções e 78 resgatados, e Minas Gerais, com 15 ações e 68 resgatados. Desde 1998, o auge dos resgates foi em 2007, com 5.999 pessoas libertadas.

De acordo com os dados do Ministério do Trabalho, a exploração do trabalho escravo foi encontrada tanto no ambiente rural quanto no ambiente urbano em 2017. Do total de trabalhadores regatados, 107 se encontravam em regiões metropolitanas, com maior incidência no setor de construção civil e na atividade têxtil. Já no campo, os setores que apresentam maior número de trabalhadores resgatados foram a agricultura, a pecuária e a produção florestal.

<< Operações contra o trabalho escravo caem e número de resgatados é o menor desde 1998

Os trabalhadores foram retirados dos locais onde estavam e encaminhados ao Programa de Seguro-Desemprego Especial por três meses, no valor de um salário mínimo vigente. As equipes de fiscalização também lavraram autos de infração e notificaram os empregadores para que pagassem as verbas rescisórias correspondentes ao período trabalhado. Em todo o ano passado, foram pagos a título de verbas rescisórias o montante de R$ 2,28 milhões, mais R$ 945,43 mil correspondentes a parcelas do Seguro-Desemprego.

Pela legislação, são enquadrados como trabalho escravo o trabalho forçado; a jornada exaustiva; a condição degradante de trabalho; a restrição, por qualquer meio, de locomoção em razão de dívida contraída com empregador ou preposto, no momento da contratação ou no curso do contrato de trabalho; a retenção no local de trabalho em razão de cerceamento do uso de qualquer meio de transporte; a manutenção de vigilância ostensiva e o apoderamento de documentos ou objetos pessoais.

Operações de resgate

A Secretaria de Inspeção do Trabalho conta atualmente com duas frentes para fiscalizações de combate ao trabalho análogo ao de escravo. Uma é feita pelo Grupo Especial de Fiscalização Móvel (GEFM), que possui quatro grupos formados por auditores fiscais do Trabalho, procurador do Trabalho, defensor público e integrantes das polícias Federal e Rodoviária Federal. Eles foram responsáveis por 108 inspeções.

Em outra frente estão as Superintendências Regionais de Trabalho. Em 12 delas existem equipes de combate permanente ao trabalho escravo (Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, Ceará, Piauí, Goiás, Tocantins e Bahia). As Superintendências Regionais do Trabalho realizaram, no total, 76 ações de inspeção em 2017.

Números de fiscalizações nos estados:

Estado	Fiscalizações	Trabalhadores Resgatados	Pagamento de Indenização
PA	31	72	R$ 203.241,92
MT	27	78	R$ 503.247,00
CE	15	18	R$ 24.935,50
MG	15	68	R$ 494.559,38
TO	13	19	R$ 90.291,76
PR	12	15	R$ 104.146,27
MA	10	26	R$ 1.863,47
SP	8	30	R$ 190.143,42
BA	8	10	R$ 0,00
RO	7	8	R$ 30.929,61
RJ	7	2	R$ 0,00
PI	5	4	R$ 10.039,00
ES	5	3	R$ 9.000,00
RS	4	6	R$ 15.296,58
MS	4	19	R$ 158.614,13
AC	4	0	R$ 0,00
GO	3	20	R$ 420.933,37
RR	1	6	R$ 28.674,90
AM	3	0	R$ 0,00
DF	1	0	R$ 0,00
PB	1	0	R$ 0,00

Nova portaria

Em outubro do ano passado, o Ministério do Trabalho publicou portaria, assinada pelo ministro Ronaldo Nogueira, que alterava conceitos de trabalho forçado, jornada exaustiva e condições análogas de escravo, com o objetivo de disciplinar a concessão de seguro-desemprego a pessoas libertadas.

Além de acrescentar a necessidade de restrição da liberdade de ir e vir para a caracterização da jornada exaustiva, a portaria também aumentava a burocracia da fiscalização e condicionava à aprovação do ministro do Trabalho a publicação da chamada lista suja, com os nomes dos empregadores flagrados reduzindo funcionários a condição análoga à escravidão.

O tema gerou reações contrárias de entidades como a Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT), do Ministério Público Federal (MPF) e do Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente (Conanda), além dos próprios fiscais do trabalho. Em seguida, a ministra Rosa Weber, do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF), atendeu pedido de uma ação protocolada na Corte e suspendeu a portaria. Em dezembro, o governo recuou da medida e uma nova portaria foi publicada mantendo válidas as regras em vigor há quase 15 anos no país.

<< Portaria do trabalho escravo tem rejeição crescente no Congresso

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Hawaii fires warning officer who sent missile alert

Hawaii fires warning officer who sent missile alert

AFP/File / Eugene TannerHonolulu and the rest of Hawaii was sent into a panic with a false alert of an imminent ballistic missile attack

The administrator of Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency has resigned and an officer with a track record of "poor performance" has been fired after triggering mass panic with a false alert of a ballistic missile headed for the Pacific islands, officials said Tuesday.

The Pacific archipelago, already on edge over the threat posed by North Korea, was terrorized by the erroneous alert, which was sent out by phone to residents and tourists and remained uncorrected for nearly 40 minutes.

Another employee of the state agency, which is responsible for notifying the public of threats to their safety, has been suspended, Major General Joe Logan, the state adjutant general, told reporters in Hawaii.

HEMA administrator Vern Miyagi resigned on Tuesday to take responsibility for the January 13 incident, Logan said, and the emergency warning officer who sent out the alert of an imminent ballistic missile attack was fired on Friday.

A state investigative report released on Tuesday said that the fired employee had been a "source of concern" for 10 years because of his "poor performance."

"He is unable to comprehend the situation at hand and has confused real life events and drills on at least two separate occasions," the report said.

AFP/File / Eugene TannerPhoto illustration screenshot of a cell phone shows emergency alert messages

In a separate report, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said the officer claimed he believed the threat was real and had not heard a phrase stating that it was an exercise.

At the same time, the report said, the sentence "This is not a drill" was included in the recorded message which prompted the officer to issue the alert.

Mobile phones across the Pacific islands received the emergency alert around 8:07 am and it was also transmitted by television and radio stations.

"In the minutes that followed, panic-stricken citizens called their families to say what they believed were their last words, and some even resorted to jumping into manholes to find shelter," FCC chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement accompanying the report.

The erroneous message came amid tensions with North Korea, which has tested rockets powerful enough to reach the United States, though it is unclear whether they are yet able to deliver nuclear payloads.

- 'Exercise, exercise, exercise' -

It took the authorities 38 minutes to send out a message cancelling the false alert and the FCC also looked into why it took so long to do so.

AFP /Hawaii 'missile alert'

The FCC and state investigators blamed the mistake on a combination of human error, insufficient management controls and poor computer software.

It began, the FCC report said, with a decision by the overnight-shift supervisor to conduct an unannounced drill when the day shift arrived at 8:00 am.

The overnight-shift supervisor informed the day-shift supervisor of the plan but the day-shift supervisor understood the drill was for the overnight workers ending their shift not for his arriving staff.

"As a result, the day shift supervisor was not in the proper location to supervise the day shift warning officers when the ballistic missile defense drill was initiated," the FCC report said.

It said the overnight-shift supervisor called the day-shift warning officers at 8:05 am pretending to be from US Pacific Command.

A recorded message was played over the phone which began and ended with the words "exercise, exercise, exercise."

The message, however, also included the phrase "This is not a drill" used for an actual live ballistic missile alert, the report said.

Three day-shift warning officers listened to the recording on speakerphone and one of them "believed that the missile threat was real" and issued a live alert at 8:07 am after hearing the sentence "This is not a drill," it said.

The officer declined to be interviewed by the FCC but said in a written statement to HEMA that he did not hear the phrase "exercise, exercise, exercise."

"Other warning officers who heard the recording in the watch center report that they knew that the erroneous incoming message did not indicate a real missile threat, but was supposed to indicate the beginning of an exercise," the report said.

"Because we've not been able to interview the day shift warning officer who transmitted the false alert, we're not in a position to fully evaluate the credibility of their assertion that they believed there was an actual missile threat and intentionally sent the live alert (as opposed to believing that it was a drill and accidentally sending out the live alert)," it added.

The FCC was also critical of HEMA's failure to develop "standard procedures" to cancel a false alert and said "the error was worsened by the delay in authoritatively correcting the misinformation."

In the future, the FCC said, supervisors will receive advance notice of all drills and two warning officers will validate alerts instead of one.

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Russia's showpiece Syria congress marked by boycotts, little progress

Russia's showpiece Syria congress marked by boycotts, little progress

AFP / Alexander NEMENOVUN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura delivers a speech at the end of the talks in Sochi

Russia's showpiece Syria congress aimed to bring seven years of war closer to an end Tuesday, but closed without a significant breakthrough after a string of boycotts and last-minute cancellations.

Around 1,400 delegates attended the meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, as part of a broader push by regime-backer Moscow to consolidate its influence in the Middle East and start hammering out a political solution to the conflict.

But expectations for the event were dramatically lowered over the weekend after the Syrian Negotiations Committee (SNC), the main opposition group, and the country's Kurdish minority said they would boycott the talks.

The conference suffered a further setback on Tuesday morning when rebel representatives, who had flown in from Turkey the previous night, said they would not go further than Sochi airport because the conference logo featured only regime flags.

In closing remarks, UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said delegates had agreed to the formation of a committee to discuss the country's post-war constitution, including government delegates and representatives of the SNC, among others.

He said the UN would lead efforts to form the committee, but did not specify how this would happen. A ninth round of UN-backed talks ended in Vienna last week without the warring sides having met face to face.

A copy of the final statement, seen by AFP in Arabic, did not mention the fate of Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad.

- An 'embarrassment' -

AFP / OZAN KOSETurkish-backed Syrian rebel fighters drive toward the Turkish-Syrian border on Tuesday as part of operation "Olive Branch" against Kurdish forces

"We are going from theory to practice," de Mistura told reporters at UN headquarters by telephone from Sochi.

"We never had the government side and the opposition actually getting involved in a discussion of a new constitution, because they were not in agreement.

"I think we have reached that point."

Under the plan, the UN envoy will choose some 45 to 50 delegates who will be part of the committee from the government, the opposition and independent groups.

The SNC accused Assad and his Russian backers of continuing to rely on military might and showing no willingness to enter into honest negotiations as it announced it would not attend Sochi.

De Mistura, an Italian-Swedish diplomat who has led UN peace efforts in Syria since 2014, sounded a cautious note over whether the committee could take shape and achieve its goal of drafting a constitution.

"The devils are in the details. It's going to be uphill," he said.

Authorities from Syria's Kurdish autonomous region said at the weekend they would also boycott the event because of the ongoing offensive on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin by Turkey, which was co-sponsoring the Sochi congress along with Iran.

Moscow had said Syrian society would be fully represented at the meeting -- the first of its kind held in Russia -- but almost all those confirmed as attending were from either Assad's Baath Party, allied movements or the regime's "tolerated opposition."

The hosts did not provide a full list of delegates.

Neil Hauer, an independent analyst focused on Russia and Syria who was in Sochi for the congress, told AFP bringing the Kurds to their first major international Syria summit would have been one of Moscow's primary goals.

"They put a lot of political capital into this and negotiated for months, and it has been a flop," Hauer said, describing the no-shows at the talks as an "embarrassment".

- Heckling -

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would "not make a tragedy" of the fact "two or three groups" could not take part.

Lavrov's opening remarks at the events, which were delayed by two hours because of ongoing negotiations, were interrupted both by cries of "Long live Russia!" and angry heckling from Syrian delegates.

Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart spoke twice on the phone in a bid to resolve the rebel issue, but after more than 14 hours of negotiations, they returned to Turkey without coming to the congress.

Russia, which has spearheaded several rounds of talks from the start of last year in Kazakhstan's Astana, initially hoped to convene the congress in Sochi in November, but those efforts collapsed following a lack of agreement among co-sponsors.

Moscow's decision to launch a bombing campaign to support Assad in September 2015 -- Russia's first major military operation abroad since Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 -- is widely seen as a turning point in the multi-front conflict that helped shore up the Syrian president.

The Syrian war, in which more than 340,000 people have died and millions more been displaced, began in 2011 as the regime crushed anti-government protests.

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Trump seeks 'unity' in State of the Union address

Trump seeks 'unity' in State of the Union address

AFP/File / Fabrice COFFRINIUS President Donald Trump will defend his economic record in his State of the Union address

US President Donald Trump delivers his biggest speech of the year Tuesday, a State of the Union address designed to sell his economic record to skeptics and unite a deeply polarized America.

The primetime address, watched by as many as 40 million Americans, is a once-in-a-year opportunity to speak to the nation and mend his sunken approval ratings.

"I want to see our country united. I want to bring our country back from a tremendous divisiveness," Trump said hours before delivering his keynote speech to a joint session of Congress, at 9:00 pm (0200 GMT).

Over the years, the State of the Union address has lost some of its influence, but it can still shape public debate for weeks to come.

The White House hopes it can also improve Trump's political fortunes.

During his first year, Trump has proven to be one of the most divisive political figures in modern American history, defying norms and sticking to a base-first approach with little attempt to widen his appeal.

But with legislative elections scheduled for November and the probe into his campaign's ties with Russia intensifying, Tuesday's speech may see something of a change in strategy.

"I would love, I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity," Trump said at the White House, previewing his remarks.

AFP / Brendan SmialowskiA view of the US Capitol a day before Trump's State of the Union address

That softer tone may be borne from political necessity. Trump's approval rating is languishing around 40 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average, and opposition to his presidency is intense.

At a donor retreat in California this week, Republican strategists warned that an unpopular president and strong enthusiasm among Democrats could spell electoral doom.

If the Republican-controlled Congress were to change hands in November, whispers calling for Trump's impeachment would undoubtedly become screams.

Adding to Republican woes is a steady stream of revelations about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, which is accused of trying to tilt the 2016 election in Trump's favor.

The eve of Trump's remarks were dominated by the departure of a key figure in that probe, the deputy head of the FBI Andrew McCabe, who had come under sustained public criticism from the president.

The White House also faced blowback for slow-walking lawmakers' demands for sanctions against Russia and welcoming into the country a top Russian spymaker who is under sanction.

- The state of the union is... -

In 94 previous addresses, American presidents have described the state of the union as "good," "strong," "sound" or in the case of a glum Gerald Ford, "not good."

Expect no such moderation from the 71-year-old real estate mogul and reality TV star.

The state of the union is "incredible," said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, outlining a speech that will be long on claims of achievement.

Trump is expected to tout a long bull run on Wall Street and improving growth rates, something the White House is calling a "Trump bump" linked directly to the recent "Trump tax cut."

That narrative suffered a setback when stocks suffered their biggest drop in eight months on Tuesday, amid fears of a bubble. But expect Trump to plow on.

Since Trump came to office a year ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by almost 33 percent. The unemployment rate is at a 17-year low.

- 'America First' -

Tuesday's speech is also expected to touch on the highly charged issue of migration, where Trump continues to play firmly to his base.

Two couples whose daughters were murdered by MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, are among those the White House invited to attend the address in Washington.

His remarks are being crafted in part by aide Stephen Miller, who is known in Washington as a hardliner on immigration and has been pressing for an uncompromising stance.

AFP / Brendan SmialowskiImmigrants brought to the United States as children took part in a press conference with Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address

"For many, many years, they've been talking immigration, they never got anything done. We're going to get something done, we hope," Trump said on the eve of the speech.

Trump can also be expected to lift his gaze beyond the United States to what Washington sees as Iran's troublesome activities across the Middle East, as well as North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

And trade is expected to be a strong focus, with Trump repeating claims that the current terms of global business are unfair to the world's largest economy.

"The world has taken advantage of us on trade for many years, and as you probably noticed we're stopping that, and we're stopping it cold," Trump said.copy https://www.afp.com