The Worker Empowerment in South America project seeks to improve respect for labor rights in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru by strengthening democratic, independent workers' organizations in the agricultural, platform (gig) economy, manufacturing, and mining sectors.

The Project to Increase Worker Voice and Address Forced Labor, Child Labor, and Other Labor Violations in Cattle Raising Areas of Brazil and Paraguay will help to increase collective action by workers organizations (WOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) to address forced labor, child labor, and other labor violations in cattle raising areas of Brazil and Paraguay, specifically in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul and in the Paraguayan Department of Boquerón in the Chaco region.

The United States is the leading importer of coffee, accounting for over 18 percent of total coffee imports in the world, with Brazil and Colombia as the top suppliers. But before that coffee reaches our cups, tens of millions of workers globally select, pick, and process the beans. Many of those workers are children – toiling in the fields rather than learning in school.

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  Interim Evaluation

The United States supports the goal of bringing meaningful change to the lives of the 152 million child laborers and the 25 million adults and children in forced labor around the world by eradicating child labor, forced labor and human trafficking.

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  Interim Evaluation

Vulnerable populations in rural and urban areas are victims of forced labor in Brazil and Peru. They endure abusive working conditions, debt bondage, deception, intimidation and threats, and restriction of movement, among other unlawful labor practices. Some victims of forced labor have been rescued from forced-labor conditions within agricultural supply chains or manufacturing businesses with domestic and global reach.

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  Midterm Evaluation
• RegionalBrazilPeru_ForcedLabor_feval.pdf (1.43 MB)

To contribute to the elimination of the worst forms of child labor among racially and socially excluded populations — primarily Afro-descendants and indigenous— through horizontal cooperation.