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Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
- juggert8 3mo ago[flagged]
- amunozo 3mo agoIt is not anti-White racist, but facts. It is white abusing black, not the other way around. How can you have the skin so thin with something like this? For fuck sake.
- juggert8 3mo agoSelective capitalisation of different races (white cf. Black) is a common dog whistle employed by anti-Whites. Are you sure you want to start using statistical assumptions as "facts" in crime reports? That is going to backfire very badly for your disproportionately black offenders...
- Hnrobert42 3mo agoYou mean like how you wrote "anti-White" and "black"? Ignorance and strong opinions is a bad combination.
- juggert8 3mo agoYes, exactly. It's racist when I do it, and it's racist when she does it too.
- owebmaster 3mo agoWhat an evil person. You sound so sad and desperate.
- owebmaster 3mo agoYou are not in a healthy state of mind.
- juggert8 3mo agoYou would be the first to cry foul if an article included the following: >The boy who had his bike stolen was White >Statistics suggest that the thief was undoubtedly poor and, most likely, black
- anonym29 3mo ago>Statistics suggest >facts Statistical inference is not established fact. I'm not defending parent comment above, but to be clear, it's not actually established as a fact that "Maria" was black, right? "Maria" isn't even her real name.
- assimpleaspossi 3mo agoCorrection as stated below: "Statistics suggest that Maria was undoubtedly poor and, most likely, Black."
- anonym29 3mo agoIt very explicitly guesses that she is black, based solely on statistical inference. From TFA: "Statistics suggest that Maria was undoubtedly poor and, most likely, Black." To read this as established fact is analogous to asserting as established fact that if you roll a six-sided die, you will certainly get a number <= 4. Probable, but not fact. A careful read also reveals that none of the woman's actual identifying information was revealed, including her name, for her own privacy: "We’ll call her Maria, the most common female name in Brazil, because authorities have not disclosed her real name in order to protect her identity." Follow-up edit: thank you for your correction, I appreciate the epistemic humility and good-faith dialogue.
- amunozo 3mo agoThe family exploiting the woman was, in fact, white, independent of her skin colour.
- Razengan 3mo ago> Although the family has agreed to compensate her, Maria, who lived in near-total isolation and without contact with her relatives, will remain with her employers What the fuck? Why did the law need the family's "agreement"?? Why is nobody going to jail for imprisoning someone for 55 years??
- MichaelZuo 3mo agoIn Brazil there are so many laws, I heard that nearly 100% of the population treats laws like strongly worded suggestions, at best. Idk how the prosecution system even functions without credibility.
- mcdonje 3mo agoIf it operates like most corrupt systems, it binds the have-nots, but not the haves.
- MichaelZuo 3mo agoHow can this be true? Probably the entire adult population gets away with hundreds of offenses per annum on average (judging by the total amount on the books). Even the most law abiding and most humble decile of Brazilian adults probably still get away with dozens of offenses per annum. That nobody cares to enforce at all.
- manarth 3mo ago> "That nobody cares to enforce at all" That's the point. When everyone is "committing crimes", you can select who you wish to enforce against. It enables corruption.
- MichaelZuo 3mo agoHuh? Did you not understand what it means for even the most humble adult to be getting away with dozens of offenses per annum? It clearly is not binding on the “have-nots” either. Of course there is selective enforcement of some % of laws on the books, that’s true in every country on Earth.
- leoc 3mo agoSee also the late Alex Tizon's "My Family's Slave" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-s... , with a 2017 HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14350059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14350059 .
- ryukoposting 3mo agoOh wow, I didn't realize this was already 9 years old. One of the essays of all time. Certainly provides some perspective on why Brazil might let that woman stay with the family that enslaved her. Granted, Lola's case is unique because she was taken halfway around the world and was an undocumented immigrant for decades. It sounds like that's not the case for this woman in Brazil, but there's a lot we don't know. I've seen what might be a similar social dynamic in very long, but abusive marriages in the US. A person can understand intellectually that they could have a better life elsewhere, but this has been their life for so long that conceiving of what that life might be like is impossible, or terrifying at best. I resent the abuser no less, but it's hard to know what to make of all of it.
- metadat 3mo agoThanks for unearthing this, it was immediately what came to mind when I saw this headline and read some of the discussion.
- zaik 3mo ago$40k compensation for 55 years of service...
- threethirtytwo 3mo agoThe crime done here is nearly death penalty levels. Nearly. Jail time for the entire family or stripped of all wealth. Maybe public humiliation is better, release names and address.
- cindyllm 3mo ago[dead]
- rglullis 3mo agoYou are acting like the case is that the girl was kidnapped or taken from their family against their will. Barring extraordinary circumstances, this is far from the truth here. More likely than not, this is the case of some poor family that couldn't take care of the girl and gave her away. It is a horrible arrangement, and she should be given a lot more than what she is getting (at the very least, she should be given backpay + pension equivalent to the market rate of her work for all these years), but to treat this case as some sadistic family keeping someone in captivity is overreacting.
- threethirtytwo 3mo agomaybe.. but it's very close to "sadistic family". It's very very close. It wasn't slavery, but excruciating close to slavery. And definitely the punishment given is a complete under-reaction and your attempt here to lighten the situation lightens it way too much.
- rglullis 3mo agoIf it was as bad as you are claiming it to be, she wouldn't stay with the family before the investigation, yet everyone deemed better to let her stay with the family even after the sentence was given.
- forinti 3mo agoIts a common occurrence for families to take in poor girls to do house work in exchange for food and lodging. And with the insidious nature of Brazilian racism, they will pretend that she is part of the family. They might even take her on vacations (to work, of course). If you grow up with this mentality it might even be hard for you to see the injustice. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, the last country in the Americas to do so, decades after its neighbours. The slaves never got compensation but their owners did.
- petcat 3mo agoI was shocked to read how late even several prominent European countries abolished it. Most northern US states abolished slavery even before Britain, France, Portugal, and (especially) Spain did.
- wahern 3mo agoSerfdom wasn't legally abolished in Russia until 1861. Slavery was technically abolished in the late 1700s, but in some areas serfs were still bought and sold like chattel until the end of serfdom. The Ottoman Empire legally abolished slavery in the 1880s, but there was still illicit yet tolerated slavery in Turkey into the 1930s. I think in some areas of the Sahel chattel slavery may still exist as a practical matter. Mauritania didn't legally abolish chattel slavery until 1981, for example, but as in other areas it can take decades for reality to match the law, given the laws were often changed under international pressure rather than reflecting any change to the domestic social order.
- hylaride 3mo agoSerfdom continued in practice in Russia for decades and often serfs became indebted to the landowners in a form of financial bondage that pretty much lasted until the Russian revolution, where...well things didn't get much better for them. The fact that serfdom de-facto remained is one of the primary reasons Russia's industrialization lagged the rest of Europe for so long as factories didn't get the initial cheap labour. It was only finally fully picking up steam (pun not intended) when WW1 broke out.
- hobo_in_library 3mo agoHot take: As bad as this is, I wonder if it would be kinder to leave her with the family for the rest of her life. This lady is in her 60s, does she even know any other way to even live? Life with that family may be better than whatever Brazil's equivalent of welfare shelters are. Seems like that may have been why the case workers left her with that family for now.
- geraneum 3mo agoIf they pay her what she’s owed and the damages. She can get her place, hire people and pay them to care of her or help her.
- singpolyma3 3mo agoIf she hires people doesn't that just perpetuate the problem?
- geraneum 3mo agoHire not enslave! Like how you might hire a driver, or housemaid, or anyone to do a salaried or contract job? How does that perpetuates the problem?
- singpolyma3 3mo agoI'm pretty sure there's a reason we frown on people hiring servants in general, such as a driver or a housemaid. It's far too similar to slavery for anyone's comfort
- geraneum 3mo agoDo also frown upon people working in nursing homes? Or your uber driver? No one frowns upon the people who work/help people who need it.
- benjiro29 3mo ago
- t1234s 3mo agoI was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of the floorplans for condos or houses include a servants quarters. They were telling me theirs cost around $12 USD a day which is not a bad deal.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3mo ago>$12 USD a day which is not a bad deal For the owner or the servant?
- t1234s 3mo agoprobably for both.. don't forget it includes an air conditioned place to live, food and internet plus a salary. In exchange they take care of domestic needs (cooking, shopping, house keeping)
- elygre 3mo agoNot a bad deal for who?
- pelagicAustral 3mo agoThis used to be quite common in Chile as well. I don't think it's that prevalent anymore, but it was very interesting to see the synergy some families built after decades of cohabiting with a "service person" (don't really know what word to use). I met a lot of people that widely regarded their service lady as a mother, they were pretty much raised with them around, so the bonds run deep. I have no doubt some times the compensation might not exactly be the best, but I have met quite a lot of people that are well happy with this arrangement.
- forinti 3mo agoIf you pay minimum wage (about US$300) it would be about that per working day. Increasingly, cleaners are working per diem because they earn a lot more (about US$40 a day, but this varies a lot by region). The downside is that they get no benefits.
- zkmon 3mo agoI hoped the article would mention whether the woman desires to be "rescued" or wants changes in the way she lives now.
- mcphage 3mo ago> whether the woman desires to be "rescued" or wants changes in the way she lives now Here’s the thing: you can’t keep someone isolated for 55 years, working them without pay—regardless of whether the victim thinks that they want it or not.
- Loughla 3mo agoSomething, something, Plato's allegory of the cave.
- comrade1234 3mo agoMy wife's family were wealthy Chinese near Hong Kong. Her grandmother took in a poor girl as a servant. She was part of the family but also basically a slave. The grandmother arranged her marriage when the girl was older. We met the girls granddaughter when we visited china - she was a new college student. The two families still think of themselves as related.
- BloondAndDoom 3mo agoAlmost same story (except china), my grandmother lost her parents very young. A family took her in and she worked for them until 20 years old or something then she got married.
- scottconover 3mo agoI’m new to HN. How does this relate to the theme of Hacker News?
- girvo 3mo agoAnything that is interesting. It’s not all just tech here.
- tomrod 3mo agoThose of us that soldered wires, wrote custom drivers for esoteric hardware, and played with crazy things in the garage recognize that social systems are hackable too.
- adolfoabegg 3mo agoRead this https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mcphage 3mo agoWelcome to HN! You’ll find that a lot of the readers and commenters here don’t view technology as an isolated field, that it interconnects with all sorts of other systems—sociology, politics, entertainment, manufacturing, business, and so on.
- mhb 3mo agoDespite the other comments attempting to expand the scope of "hacking" or general interest to pretty much anything, it doesn't.
- xboxnolifes 3mo agoOn-topic is described as anything that is interesting. And off-topic is described as typical news that doesnt have interesting implications.
- froh 3mo agoat the bottom of the page there is guidelines and FAQ they also give good indication on how to handle topics that don't tickle your personal preferences (for "interesting" or "curious"): silently ignore them especially if interest is the guidance on downvoting and flagging. the sorting is not according to your personal preferences, as in "social media", but according to the hn hive think. thus negative voting indicates "anti-curious", "anti-conversation", not dislike.
- carlosjobim 3mo ago"Statistics suggest that Maria was undoubtedly poor and, most likely, Black." That is a new way of reporting news, that journalist Gortázar seems to have invented here. When you don't know anything about the victim, just make something up from "statistics". Where else can we apply this technique? "Maria entered their lives around 1971 — the year Henry Kissinger visited China, John Lennon wrote Imagine, and Mexico hosted the first Women’s World Cup." Good to know. "The traditional maid’s room is gradually disappearing in Brazil, but buildings with separate social and service elevators — for domestic workers, visiting technicians, neighbors with dogs, or residents carrying groceries — remain commonplace." Those are for separating workers carrying broken dusty floor tiles or ladders or a bunch of fiber cables from the other people using the building. Anyway, ignoring the lacking quality of the journalism, more countries should do like Brazil and call slavery for what it is in legislation, instead of using euphemisms like "human trafficking".
- diego_moita 3mo agoAt first I found interesting how you nitpick in irrelevant details while ignoring the bigger picture. The point of the whole article is to use a single case to illustrate a bigger picture that you seem to deliberately oversee: abuse and exploitation of manual and unqualified workers. But, then, I saw your Brazilian name and understood. Brazilian jingoism freaks out when Brazil "looks bad" to the world. It is a very common reaction among 3rd world countries. Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, etc are just like that too.
- carlosjobim 3mo agoDear Diego, Senhor Jobim had to leave hastily for the horse race track, and has asked me to briefly tend to his hacker messages and Kubernetes before I prepare his afternoon coffee. He regrets that you found his commentary as being picking of the nits, but says that the article itself didn't invite any much broader reflection on the subject matter. He also mentions that no amount of bad publicity could ever make Brazil look worse than their neighbours, meaning Argentina - as he has understood from your hacker name is your home country. Further, the journalists exploits a crime in her agenda to ignite hatred between the races, instead of focusing on facts or trying to broaden the picture. A bigger picture could for example be that Brazilian law classifies as slavery such crimes as lawmakers and reporters in other countries are afraid to. Which has later been mentioned by other senhores hackers in this thread, for example regarding berry pickers in Sweden and Finland. He sends you his latest composition, for your enjoyment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGO44D-hMmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGO44D-hMmQ
- iluvcommunism 3mo ago[dead]
- iluvcommunism 3mo ago[dead]
- diego_moita 3mo agoA similar history, in the U.S.: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-s...
- tom86150 3mo agoWhat disgusting subhumans. They should rot in jail until they close their eyes. Nobody can tell me that such a life is not exploiting and slavery. They dont need to play stupid and pay a laughable amount of money for a destroyed life. But thats how some people got rich...pretty disgusting.
- atum47 3mo agoYup, my mom and her sisters were all sent off to work on family houses when they were about 10 - 12. They were born in the country side, and my grandpa didn't care for them at all.
- OrvalWintermute 3mo agoI’m not quite how this relates to tech, hackernews or startups
- la64710 3mo agoOh the caste system of the west
- timedude 3mo agoI see a lot of comments claiming that slavery was abolished. It was not, we just made the transition to another form of slavery, one where most people think they are free. In reality, they work every day while most of their earnings are taken from them by force every month ('taxation'). The well known slave Frederik Douglas was one of the first examples of this. Douglas made a deal with his master to do whatever he liked as long as he gave his master a cut. The same dynamic is now implemented worldwide. Watch the movie Jones Plantation. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26964727/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26964727/
- anon7000 3mo agoWell, taxation is not “most of your earnings.” Not even remotely close. If we’re talking theft, maybe look at the companies reaping profits off your labor without sharing it. I think your definition of slavery is highly insulting. Slavery is bad not because two people agree to have this profit sharing scheme as you seem to be implying. Slavery is evil because one person is nearly fully and entirely controlling another person’s entire life, usually for the “owner’s” gain, without the other person’s consent.
- timedude 3mo agoIsnt taxation evetually more than half of your earnings? Eventually close to 70 or 80 percent. Depending on what plantation you live
- AnimalMuppet 3mo agoClaiming (twice) that taxation takes most of your earnings is not the same as proving it. We didn't believe you the first time, and we don't believe you the second. Got any actual evidence?
- tasuki 3mo agoI dunno about proving, but 20% income tax + 20% vat + property taxes + estate tax + the various extra taxed thing like gas etc, and you're easily over half.
- motbus3 3mo agoShe will re receive a compensation of 50.000 reais. Which on every, with current exchange rate should be about 3 USD per week of work. One can't get a better bargain for a slave!