Occupational hygiene in slave work as a potential indicator for typifying the neo-slavery

Abstract

Until the end of the 19th-century, the Brazilian economy was dependent on slaves’ work, particularly in rural areas. However, despite all international conventions and technological development that can replace advantageously human labour, slave work persists not only in Brazil but also in the most unsuspected places all over the world. This chapter aims to obtain, through a review of descriptive historical studies, a framework of the environmental conditions in which slaves performed their work and its implications in cases of accident or occupational disease. Electronic databases searched were Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, Criminal Justice, Ebsco, and Business Source Complete. Original historical documents were selected for their description of the rural work of slaves in colonial and imperial Brazil. Occupational hygiene, and environmental and climate conditions were compared with the neo-slaved worker´s conditions. The analysed studies pointed to the existence of diverse environmental conditions with similar exposure typologies among the slaves and neo-slaves across Brazil, even in distinct agricultural activities.