Landmark Ruling Ecuador: Agricultural Workers Seek Justice Against Furukawa for Decades of Slavery

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In Ecuador, courts are due to rule in landmark cases of labour exploitation and slavery. Agricultural workers say they suffered decades of abuse on plantations producing plant fibre for Japanese company Furukawa, who's representatives could face jail time.       #OIDW #DWVideos #Ecuador #LaborExploitation #Slavery #LandmarkCase #Furukawa #AgriculturalAbuse #PlantationWorkers #HumanRights #Justice #CourtRuling #DecadesOfAbuse #ForcedLabor #Exploitation #WorkerRights #JudicialSystem                 ~PR.152~ED.102~GR.124~

Transcript

00:00If you look at the extra bend in his leg, you can see that Jose Clemente Chavez lives

00:05in pain.

00:07He broke it while working on a plantation and says his employer didn't give him proper

00:12medical care.

00:13He was operating a machine like this when the upper calf fibers he was processing caught

00:17his leg.

00:19The injuries from that and other accidents left him disabled, but he says the Japan-based

00:24company Furukawa, which exported the product, never compensated him.

00:28He says there was little consideration for safety and no support for those who were injured.

00:34With my legs, I only feel like I'm half alive.

00:37When you're incapacitated, they pretend to not know you anymore, and they don't help

00:41at all because they don't know you.

00:43You're not worth anything if you say you're incapacitated.

00:47That's the thing about Furukawa.

00:49Chavez is from Ecuador's Santo Domingo region.

00:52He's just one of 338 workers from across the country who are suing the company in court.

00:58The accusations include negligence, lack of safe working conditions, health care and

01:03clean drinking water.

01:05It's a huge case, which also includes claims of child labor and modern slavery.

01:09Susana Quiñones says she started working here when she was just six years old and spent

01:15decades in inhumane conditions.

01:17She told us she gave birth to seven children on the plantation with no medical care.

01:23It was very tough because we had to work during pregnancy with our big bellies.

01:28When we got used to it, sometimes we would be working with the fiber right up until birth

01:31pain started.

01:34Lacking maternal leave, she and other women got back to work directly after birth.

01:38Former workers show us how they would harvest the abaca for turning into rope, paper and

01:44fibers.

01:46They claim not only was it dangerous, they usually had no breaks or days off.

01:52If they didn't work, they wouldn't be paid.

01:55Campaigners say more than 80 percent of the workers live in extreme poverty.

02:03Ecuador's government testified during the trial against Furukawa.

02:07This is what the labor minister told us.

02:11Previous governments, including the Ministry of Labor, didn't stop the situation that,

02:17from my point of view, is one of the most emblematic because here we are talking about

02:22slave labor.

02:24In the case of Furukawa, it was all there.

02:30Abaca exporter Furukawa's current manager insists the workers always had social security

02:36and medical care, but he says responsibility for those things was partly in the hands of

02:40local contractors until 2018.

02:46The company could have had a closer relationship with the contractors to find out if there

02:51were problems while processing the fiber.

02:55That is something that could have been improved.

02:59But to speak about slavery is very, very, very far-fetched.

03:05The workers say they lost childhoods, education and health.

03:12We indeed have suffered here at this company, so we demand justice and reparation.

03:15At the end of the day, the judges too are fathers and mothers.

03:20Those judges in the penal court and the constitutional court could make historic decisions, setting

03:25out responsibility and accountability for workers' rights in Ecuador.

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