THE INVISIBILITY OF THE BLACK POPULATION IN MODERN SLAVERY : EVIDENCE BASED ON CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL VULNERABILITY

The aim of this article is to identify the associations between the social conditions of vulnerability and the racial profile of modern slavery. It presents findings from qualitative research developed between 2011 and 2016 on the institutional and organizational mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of modern slavery in Brazil, based on the theoretical framework of Crane (2013), Bales (2004) and Datta and Bales (2013; 2014). From a methodological point of view, this study makes use of socioeconomic, geographic, sociocultural and social vulnerability indicators produced mainly by the reports published by members of the National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor Institute (Instituto Pacto Nacional pela Erradicação do Trabalho Escravo InPACTO) and the public sector. The article’s contribution centers on the incorporation of the variable race and color, indicating its relation to modern slavery, in addition to showing how contemporary slave labor coexists with the economically representative productive chains in Brazil, some of which are members of InPACTO.

of those involved, even though governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are working to combat this issue (BALES, 2004). Another dilemma of contemporary slave labor is related to the low amount of recognizable debate in the social sciences, as shown by the incipient publication of works on the theme and the fact that it remains virtually absent in the field of organizational studies (BALES, 2004;2011 3 ;COOKE, 2003;CRANE, 2013;BALES;WILLIAMSON, 2009).
For Crane (2013) and Bales (2004;2001), conditions of socioeconomic, sociocultural and geographic vulnerability and the ineffectiveness of the State form a structural inertia, since they are used by informal and criminal work networks to sustain slavery practices in the present day, through the so-called 'hidden mechanisms. ' Bourdieu (1989, p. 8) provides the means to understand the 'invisibility' of these 'hidden mechanisms,' when he attributes their effectiveness to the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to them or even that they operate them. Bourdieu (1989) refers to symbolic power, indicating that it is a form of establishing a logical order that in some form regulates a social reality. In the context of this article, the field as defined by Bourdieu (1989) is understood as the social space shared by the different actors involved in contemporary slavery, which possesses its own structure (habitus) and is relatively autonomous visà-vis other social spaces with specific objectives that guarantee a particular logic of operation and structuration. Bourdieu (1989, p. 9-10) proceeds to argue that structured and structuring mechanisms of the symbolic system act as "means of communication and knowledge production", but also perform political functions, as it helps to ensure that one class dominates another (symbolic violence). For now, it is crucial to emphasize that it is not a question of analyzing the relations of force within the field of power of contemporary slavery, but of establishing a relationship between the variables of the phenomenon and the racial profile, based on the identification of the elements that structure the field. This article presents findings from a study developed between 2011 and 2016 on the institutional and organizational mechanisms responsible for sustaining contemporary slavery in Brazil. The aim is to identify the associations between social conditions of vulnerability and the racial profile of contemporary slavery. Until very recently, the official data in Brazil did not include the racial issue as one of the elements contributing to contemporary slavery.
From the methodological viewpoint, this study makes use of socioeconomic, geographic, sociocultural and social vulnerability indicators produced mainly in the reports published by 3 Verbal information at the 4 th International Seminar of the National Pact to Eradicate Slave Labor held in Brasilia. members of InPACTO (The National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor Institute ) 4 and public authorities. It also presents results from the observation of the events promoted by InPACTO and semi-structured interviews conducted from 2011 to 2016. The object of study was InPACTO itself, which establishes commercial rules among the associated signatories that voluntarily assume responsibility for fulfilling the agreements and contractual clauses with their suppliers throughout the production chain.
The text is structured in six sections, including the present introduction. The second section is dedicated to an overview of contemporary slavery, describing its main characteristics and conceptual background. This description includes the main studies to have explored the issue, as well as a set of data and assumptions designed to show the configuration of contemporary slavery in Brazil. The third section describes the methodological approach used in the research, indicating the data sources and the procedures used for their analysis. The fourth section presents and discusses the research findings, demonstrating the relationship between the predictor variables of contemporary slavery and the main sociodemographic data. The fifth section details propositions that organize the data in accordance with the constructed theoretical arguments. The last section outlines some final reflections on the theme under discussion, pointing to challenges and proposals for future research.

Contemporary slaveryconcepts and configuration
From the 1990s, Bales (2004) initiated his study of the configuration of the 'new slavery' in five countries, using the multiple case study as a methodology: Brazil, Mauritania, India, Thailand and Pakistan. Kevin Bales is considered one of the leading authors on the theme worldwide (OIT, 2009). His research has been grounded in Conventions 29 and 105 of the International Labor Organization, seeking to discuss the introduction of legal regulations in the diverse countries attempting to deal with the problem. A number of victims, slave recruiters, business owners, NGOs, governments and local communities were interviewed. The researchers concealed the objective of the research from some interviewees, since the issue of slave labor could not be openly debated by the companies, small businesses or recruiters.
The patterns discovered in Brazil, Mauritania, India, Thailand and Pakistan led to the identification of three key factors in the new slavery: the intense population growth; the globalization and modernization of world agriculture; and the ease with which social rules are violated.
The first factor, the dramatic growth in the global population, becomes clear when we observe that over the last 50 years a demographic explosion has taken place with the world population rising from 2 billion to 7 billion people. This fact has driven down the value of labor on the world market, oriented towards the generation of value and optimization of costs in production chains, principally in activities related to raw material extraction (BALLOU, 2007;BALES;ROBBINS, 2001;GOLD;TRAUTRIMS;TRODD, 2015;SAKAMOTO, 2008). The second key factorthe globalization and modernization of world agricultureforced small farmers without capital resources to search for other means of survival (MARTINS, 2008;LUXEMBURGO, 1984).
Peasants and small producers adapted their tasks and routines to meet the demands of big rural producers and, in situations where they lacked the conditions to sustain themselves, also showed a strong trend towards migration to cities (MARTINS, 2008;LUXEMBURGO, 1984;BALES, 2004). 5 Finally, the third key factor is based on the violation of social rules and traditional relations of legal work as an outcome of greed, corruption and violence, especially in developing countries (BALES, 2004).
Later, Datta and Bales (2013) estimated the incidence of slave labor through the results of a survey and secondary data from the pioneering research of Pennington et al. (2009). The information used included data on national population sizes, average family size, estimated number of families in the country, and the number of families cited in reports on trafficked and enslaved human beings. Human trafficking was used since it comprises the first stage before a condition of modern slavery (CRANE, 2013). Datta and Bales (2013) argue that, based on the estimated number of trafficking victims/enslaved individuals per country, it is possible to calculate the proportion of enslaved victims. According to the Walk Free Foundation (2014), the number of workers in conditions analogous to slavery in Brazil was 209,622 in 2015, with an interval below 200,000 and above 220,000. Worldwide, modern slavery directly affects 45.8 million people employed for both sexual and economic purposes.
The conditions of population growth, globalization and modernization of agriculture, associated with the opportunity to exploit workers, resulted in what was termed as 'hidden mechanism' (BALES, 2004;CRANE, 2013;AGUINIS;GLAVAS 2012). 6 Hidden mechanisms are the outcome of institutional and organizational articulations that maintain and sustain slavery (BALES, 2004;CRANE, 2013). Pursuing the same line of argument, Linstead,Maréchal and 5 The same pattern was seen in Brazil: in 1960 the urban population was 41 million, rising to more than 170 million in 2015. This population increase ended up generating opportunities for exploiting workers lacking the most basic resources and became a fertile field for slavery practices in both rural and urban environments. 6 The term 'hidden mechanism' was discussed by Aguinis and Glavas (2012, p. 953)  Griffin (2014) use the term 'dysfunctional conformity' to describe a practice commonly found in management, the logic of which is to constantly search for the cheapest available labor, reducing resources to a minimum in order to diminish unit production costs.
As recently as 2013, Andrew Crane presented the theoretical model of contemporary slavery as a management practice. The theoretical structure of this model was elaborated with the following elements: human trafficking, economics of crime, informal business ventures and organized crime (BECKER, 1968;DICK, 1995;UNITED NATIONS, 2001;WEBB et al., 2009;SALT;STEIN, 2002;BALES, 2004). Crane (2013) divides the model into three parts: the conditions for slavery to occur, the capacities of organizations to exploit these conditions, and, finally, the support and adaptation of criminal networks that maintain and protect themselves from punishment for criminal practices in the face of multiple external pressures. The author examines the conditions for slavery in an industrial, socioeconomic, geographical, cultural and regulatory context. Crane (2013) discusses the capacity of business ventures to exploit the conditions and, at the same time, annul the critical views of the victims of modern slavery. The latter generally fail to recognize that they are subject to slavery practices. Finally, the author speaks of the reproduction of these practices and the adaptation of the responses of criminal networks to institutional pressures. This dynamic is very similar to what Bourdieu (1990) identifies as the set of forces within the field that keep the 'game' functioning among the actorsin this context, the symbolic power exerted by mechanisms that conceal domination and make it acceptable and even desirable for victims of modern slavery. Crane (2013) shows that multinational companies and small businesses exploit institutional niches at the same time as they develop the capacities to isolate, sustain and shape slavery routines and tasks to gain competitive advantages. As a result, they occupy a double position in the field: legitimate and illegitimate simultaneously, since they need careful positioning in order to take advantage of institutional spaces that can also be strategically exploited to support unlawful practices (LINDSAY, 2010;CRANE, 2013). Crane (2013) argues that certain institutional and organizational characteristics and contexts can contribute to the successful management of these informal or illegal organizations. Sometimes the institutional environment fails to attain the ideal form for complying with the rules and norms of conduct. In such cases where there is insufficient adaptation to norms, an institutional deformity arises since the norm is ineffectively institutionalized and thus unable to fulfil its function (DIMAGGIO;POWELL, 1983;SCOTT, 1995).
Based on the bibliographic survey conducted in this research, we argue that the basic premise of modern slavery is related not just to the social psychological condition, but above all to relations of economic-political power (BALES; ROBBINS, 2001;BALES, 2004;BALES, 2014;GOLD;TRAUTRAMS;TRODD, 2015;CRANE, 2013). This perhaps comprises one of the repertoires of meaning re-elaborated in response to the contemporary capitalist context involving a globalized and competitive scenario in diverse production chains (GOLD; TRAUTRAMS;TRODD, 2015). Along these lines, the set of variables that constitute the economic-political panorama of modern slavery, what we call predictor variables, were used in the analysis of the data, as Table 1 shows.  Bourdieu (1989; Socioeconomic context The exploitation of slave labor, which occurs in contexts of high unemployment, chronic poverty and low schooling, stimulates the adoption of slave labor by business ventures.

Geographic context
The geographic isolation of the business, combined with the psychological, political and physical isolation of workers, stimulates the adoption of slave labor by business ventures.

Geographic isolation and people trafficking
Sociodemographic context Inequality naturalizes coercive labor relations, and thus stimulates the adoption of slave labor by business ventures.
Race and color

Regulatory context
The absence of an effective regulatory context capable of imposing sanctions on the exploitation of labor under slavery-like conditions stimulates the adoption of slave labor by business ventures.

Inspections and corruption
Source: Elaborated by the authors The predictor variables are thus called in this article since they help explain the probability of slavery occurrence. We have based the propositions that articulate these variables as predictors on the seminal studies of Pennington et al. (2009), which measured the number of modern slaves in Europe using data on the number of people trafficked, and the research carried out by Datta and Bales (2013;. Geographic isolation and the lack of contact with family were important psychological factors in the study, besides the need to obtain employment and income. Other factors include: unemployment, poverty, education and the limited awareness of enslaved victims (CRANE, 2013;FIGUEIRA, 2008). Studies by Bales (2004) in Brazil, Mauritania, India, Thailand and Pakistan indicated the relation between poverty, HDI, vulnerability, corruption and the isolation of enslaved people. Later, Datta and Bales (2013; used research criteria from Pennington et al. (2009) to apply a multiple regression analysis and argue that poverty, social dissatisfaction, corruption, population density and the perception of opportunity, or its absence, can be taken as factors that induce modern slavery. Datta and Bales (2014) presented the significant model for the risk of State instability, freedom of expression, access to financial services, geography and age. The predictor variables indicated a significant result for the transnational variation of slavery throughout Europe (DATTA; BALES, 2014).

The concept of slave labor in Brazil
The concept of contemporary slave labor in Brazil advanced in the fight against slavery practices following the changes made to Law 10803/2003 through Article 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code. Article 149 criminalizes the practice of reducing someone "to a condition analogous to a slave," presenting four elements that, combined or in isolation, characterize the crime: a) submission of the worker to forced labor; b) submission to exhausting working hours; c) submission to degrading work conditions; d) restrictions on their locomotion (MTE, 2016;. The term 'analogous' is used in the Law due to the fact that the Brazilian State does not recognize any human being as a 'slave' in the present-day context.
The first paragraph of Article 149 also details that slave labor is characterized by: curbing the use of any means of transport by the worker, maintaining ostensive surveillance in the workplace, or seizing possession of the worker's documents and/or personal objects in order to retain him or her in the workplace. The penalty for the crime is imprisonment for two to eight years and a fine, as well as the penalty corresponding to the violence used. The penalty may also be increased if the crime was committed against a child or adolescent, or for reasons of racial, color, ethnic, religious or any other type of discrimination.
Conceptual differences exist in the definitions of modern slavery used in Brazil and the rest of the world (ILO), both in the terms used and in the elements implied by the termsin other words, their characteristics. The form in which the concept is delimited has a direct impact on the regulatory process and dynamic. The Table 2 below shows the differences in how the topic is treated in the respective legal frameworks:  OIT (2009; form of encouraging other judges to endeavor to protect human rights through the social purpose of work (CNJ, 2017). 7 Even so, a long path still remains ahead. Article 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code on slave labor, introduced in 2003 (BRASIL, 2003), presents a text with a certain amount of conceptual elasticity. Parliamentarians, politicians and some business sectors allege that it is impossible to refer to slavery because the legal ownership of another person is prohibited (CAZETTA, 2007;SÃO PAULO, 2015). Based on this argument, auditors and prosecutors from the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) 8 and the Ministry of Labor (MPT) 9 (MTE, 2011; argue that the term 'slave labor' refers to "work in conditions analogous to slavery." The expression slave labor allows the interpreter to potentially associate the term 'slavery' with the colonial system of the past.
This elasticity of the concept generates complaints to the Brazilian government and NGOs.
Debates surrounding the issue claim that Brazil drifted away from the international concept adopted by ILO. For the latter (OIT 2004, p. 11), "[…] every form of slave labor is degrading work but the reverse is not always true. What differentiates one concept from the other is freedom." Indeed, ILO Convention 29 establishes the illegality of forced labor, defined as "[…] all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily" (OIT 2004, p. 27). However, the border between coercive and noncoercive exploitation is subtle. ILO itself calls attention to the involuntary action of workers faced with the need to find employment. For example, involuntary consciousness can be associated with the lack of employment opportunities combined with a situation of extreme poverty and low levels of education. They have no alternative, therefore, save to accept terrible working conditions. For Bales, Trodd and Williamson (2009) the ideal would be to have a definition of modern slavery that encompasses all its elements. This could be an ideal solution for the attempts to delegitimize business organizations opposed to the inspection of production chains. In the meantime, these loopholes allow other regulations or laws to be used to redefine slavery practices as less harmful and more acceptable, which to some extent also contribute to rendering the phenomenon invisible.

Methodological trajectory
Through a qualitative approach, the research triangulated and analyzed primary and secondary data from 2011 to 2016. The decision was taken to utilize the testimonies from real cases 7 This news was retrieved from: <http://www.conjur.com.br/2017-fev-14/cnj-premia-juizes-decisoes-favor-mulheresidosos-indios>. 8  of the Brazilian Penal Code. In addition to the real cases of the workers, the research compiled secondary data and a bibliography on the theme. The main researchers also participated in three seminars about modern slavery in Brazil, held in São Paulo and Brasilia, in order to collectdata from conferences and presentations (a total of 26 sources of data)., Also, 12 interviews were held with academics, NGO professionals, civil servants and business representatives. All the interviews, presentations and seminars'conferences were recorded and transcribed using the NVivo software to manage the data. Primary data were collected, such as the observation diary, semi-structured interviews and photo and video records, as well as secondary data such as diverse documents and reports produced by members responsible for coordinating InPACTO.
InPACTO was chosen as a research object due to its internationally recognized work in combatting slave labor and the close liaisons between the signatories (OIT, 2009;InPACTO, 2015).
Around 380 companies and institutions are signatories of InPACTO and together these represent more than 22% of the entire productive business wealth in the country (REPÓRTER BRASIL, 2011;OIT 2004). Members of InPACTO range from civil society institutions, NGOs and, principally, companies from sectors such as agriculture, cattle-raising and the textile industry, as well as private banks and a law firm. In the context of InPACTO, discussion focuses on themes concerning institutional measures, some of them informed by the discourse of social responsibility, with the objective of preventing and eradicating slave labor in production chains.
In 2004, the Special Secretariat of Human Rights (Secretaria Especial de Direitos Humanos: SEDH) requested ILO Brazil to fund a study on production chains in order to identify economic sectors affected by slave labor. Through this study, ILO, the Ethos Institute of Business and Social Responsibility, 10 the NGO Repórter Brasil and the Social Observatory Institute (IOS) 11 revealed a network of national and multinational companies that reduced workers to labor conditions analogous to slavery: in other words, 200 national and international companies that sell products and services deriving from enslaved employees (InPACTO, 2015). Provided with this information, ILO supported the Ethos Institute to arrange meetings with the companies identified in the study.  The NVivo software assisted in the selection and counting of the sections representing each theoretical category and in the construction of the correlation matrix, used to examine the consistency of the responses between peers with the objective of verifying the saturation of respondents (HOWE; EISENHART, 1990). The data were analyzed using the content analysis technique (BARDIN, 1977). The initial analyses were conducted simultaneously with the data collection in order to confirm that data saturation had been reached. Over the course of the analytic procedure, multiple sources of evidence were used, as well as input from specialists who provided critical reading of the versions, and triangulation of qualitative techniques supported by software designed to organize and categorize data around the empirical and theoretical categories. Over the course of data collection and analysis, the decision was taken to focus on understanding the relationship between the racial, social and cultural patterns and the victims of work analogous to modern slavery in Brazil. Consequently, the data relating to race and color were explored in more depth in the theoretical subcategories. In terms of research procedures, a multicenter approach was adopted given the number of actors involved in confronting the problem and the fact that these actors coordinated certain actions through networks (SECCHI, 2010). On this point, the institutional actors identified in this study connected to this issue are: (i) public authorities; (ii) organized civil society; (iii) the private sector.

Analysis and discussion of results
This section presents a systemization of the main sociodemographic data on modern slavery in Brazil, setting out from the premise that this data function as a set of predictor variables for this phenomenon (BALES, 2004, DATTA;BALES, 2013;CRANE, 2013). Consequently, given the existence of these predictor variables acting concomitantly as a symbolic normative set (habitus), the cycle of modern slavery cannot be modified. The notion of habitus can be understood through the writings of Bourdieu (1989; and his definition of a social field. For the author, social spaces can only be understood through the dual relation involving the interiorization of exteriority and the exteriorization of interiority. The first elementthe interiorization of exteriority relates to the notion of habitus, in which individuals, in the everyday production and reproduction of their practices, embody rules, symbols and concepts of the social reality to which they belong and which constitute them. In this dynamic, the structure of social relations and their conducts are articulated in a process that mixes the subjective and objective dimensions. Secondly, these same practices are the result of the historical evolution of the group and guide social practicethe exteriorization of interiority. Once the schemas of thought, perception and action are embodied, it is possible to ensure compliance with practices and rules, forms of control and patterns based on past experiences. An unconscious and cognitive component exists, but rather than being limited to this dimension, it assumes a multitude of meanings. Applying these concepts, habitus, in the context of contemporary slavery, is also manifested through the structural inertia exploited by the 'gatos,' the workforce recruiters who promise employment and income and fail to deliver either (MTE, 2016;OIT, 2009;InPACTO, 2015). Here it is worth recalling Bourdieu's (1990) definition that fields possess general laws of operation: all fields possess their own rules, with each actor occupying a consolidated position and possessing specific interests in accordance with this position and, in this sense, they organize a game that possesses inherently political traits. Bales (2004;2006) and Crane (2013) associate modern slavery with economic-political power in the form of hidden mechanisms. Table 1 shows this relational structure of contemporary slavery in Brazil through the analysis of data from the Brazilian states with the highest incidence of freed workers between 1995 and 2015. The data were evaluated vis-à-vis the Municipal Human Development Index (MHDI) and the number/percentage of workers from each state who declared their race or color: white, black, brown, indigenous and yellow. The MHDI measures: educationliteracy and school enrolment rates; lifespan and life expectancy at birth; and income per capita in relation to GDP. The use of the MHDI aims to provide greater precision and strength to the localized data from each state. The MHDI is considered high above 0.700 and low between the range of 0.500 and 0.599. Source: Authors, elaborated using MTE (2016a) and PNUD/IPEA/FJP (2016) Three questions emerge from the data presented. The third question concerns an opposite situation observed in the literature (Bales 2004) where the states of Minas Gerais, Goiás, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo present the highest levels of MHDI General and Income, but the number of workers freed by GEFM/MTE is also high.
The high levels of MHDI, representing favorable socioeconomic conditions, should reduce the incidence of slave workers, yet this was not verified by the data. Only the MHDI Education of these states presents levels below the national average. Three possible explanations exist for this apparent contradiction: the first is the fact that the information on the number of rescued workers is incomplete, since the information system had yet to become fully effective. Hence fewer denunciations may exist in those states with a more precarious information system than the states of When data on the place of origin and residential status of the enslaved workers is observed, this configuration is confirmed. Figure 1 shows, from left to right, the municipalities where workers were rescued and their origin and residence.  and South. Since the activity with the highest incidence of slave labor is cattle farming and agriculture, it seems that the region on the fringe of Amazonia is a fertile area for luring workers into slave labor and for the re-occurrence of the practice. Vulnerability is characterized by the gap between the availability of material resources and the person's access to the structure of social opportunities (ABRAMOVAY, 2002;MOSER, 1998). This difference can result in disadvantages both for the worker's performance and for the risk of his or her social mobility 12 (RODRÍGUEZ-VIGNOLI, 2001).
In the case of modern slavery it can be observed that social (im)mobility is a direct result of the social conditions of vulnerability to which the potential victims are subjected and, consequently, could also be a predictor of re-occurrence in the dynamic of the game of slavery. The panorama of vulnerability is shown in Figure 2, based on three graphs produced from data taken from the Atlas   However, the new database confirms that slave labor in Brazil has a definite race/color identity, as can be seen in Figure 3. variables of slave labor. In relation to gender, around 95% are men and 5% women. Compiling and combining this data with the indices presented previously, it is possible to observe that slavery practice in Brazil shows a definitive identity based on these variables. It is important to note that men are associated with rural work and women are more associated with activities related to sexual purposes. Within this panorama, it should be emphasized that as a 'general rule,' enslaved workers present a profile of vulnerability associated with their socioeconomic condition and, as a consequence of a habitus consolidated by the different fields. This situation remains unchanged as long as there are no changes in this profile. In this sense, progress has been slow, despite all the efforts of actors in this field. The question of race/color does not appear in isolation since, historically speaking, in Brazil this variable has been connected to the person`s sociocultural condition (MARTINS, 2008;FIGUEIRA, 2008). Bourdieu (1990, p. 136) argues that "the structure of the field is a state of the power relations among the agents or institutions engaged in the struggle." In the configuration assumed by modern slavery, this structure is also composed by this same profile, perpetuated in Brazilian society as one of the 'strategies' underlying the dynamic of the field of power. One example of this is perhaps the case of the maintenance of the state and the position of the actors: the consolidated position of the slave.
In a survey conducted by ILO in 2011, in conjunction with GEFM/MTE, interviews made with 121 rescued workers were systemized. 14 An underlying factor in the results was the question of social (im)mobility when the level of schooling of freed workers was compared to their parents'.
Although 63% of rescued workers were illiterate or functionally illiterate, the percentage of parents who were in the same situation was higher. The data appears to show an improvement in access to formal education, indicated in the decline in the number of illiterate and functionally illiterate individuals to 18% and 45% respectively. However, even with an improvement in schooling, no social mobility occurred for these workers, demonstrating that this social structure may be sustaining contemporary slavery (FIGUEIRA, 2008). In summary, all the indications are that slave labor, in its modern form, presents a structure characterized by preferably luring black/brown individuals with low level of schooling, living in regions and states with low levels of development in health, education and income. The index of vulnerability can explain the higher probability of human beings experiencing the eminence of becoming the targets of 'recruters' who lure them into degrading work that ends up enslaving them.
The ILO study (OIT, 2011) includes an important datum that has not been considered in the MTE's surveys, namely re-occurrence. The result shows that among the 121 interviewees, 59% had already been a victim of slavery in the past. This corroborates the reduced social mobility of individuals with low levels of education and income, principally for those declaring themselves black or brown.
On the other hand, the companies or organizations that promote the activities also constitute the field and reveal a "specific capital accumulated in past struggles," in the words of Bourdieu (1990, p. 136). Data from the MTE (2016) and MPT (2017)  Bribing, trading of influence to the benefit of third-parties and frauds may precede the slave labor practices themselves. In an interview, the auditor of GEFM/MTE (2011)  Assuming the probable occurrence of modern slavery along with factors such as poverty, vulnerability, race/color and very low levels of education can form a starting point for deepening the discussion. Management systems work to promote a dynamic of modern slavery, with responsibility falling on the private sector, civil society and public authorities to elaborate public policies articulated with the institutional structure.

Discussion of the theoretical propositions
The  The global population has tripled over the last 50 years thanks to rural migration to the cities in Brazil and the rest of the world, intensifying the supply of people seeking work and income, and lowering wages in rural areas and urban centers. The urbanization rate in the 1960s was 57% in the Southeast region, reaching more than 92% in 2010. The states of Maranhão, Piauí and Pará present the lowest rates of urbanization in the country: 59%, 67% and 70%. Population density Production chains seek to lower production costs through the reduction of labor costs, without investing in decent working conditions. Formation and organization of cheap labor with mechanisms of substitution, cheap production costs and cheap sales prices -formed an institutionalized system combined simultaneously with low remuneration: outsourcing. Denunciation to CADE for unfair pricing in the cattle farming chain. School attendance, lack of employment and income, as well as the lack of resources for health are related MHDI to the incidence of slave labor in Brazil. Brazilian slaves tend to originate from states with the country's lowest MHDI indices. The state of poverty places individuals in direct line of fire with the luring mechanisms used by 'gatos.' Begging, hunger, malnutrition, earthquakes and migration can intensify the vulnerability of Brazilian and foreign workers. Certain vulnerable regions (N and NE) coincide with slave labor.

Vulnerability
Geographic context [...] "I'm a Northeasterner, I was born in a small town. There it is rare to find good job opportunities. So it was normal to see family and friends leave for other states in search of opportunities. In 2011 it was my turn to head south. A man appeared in my town to recruit people, it was a project for a leading construction firm, he said, good work, good wages, and travel costs, accommodation and meals were covered. I needed [the work] and accepted it. After two days in a coach, I arrived in São Paulo. And there the conversation changed. we're about to host two major events in Brazil, the World Cup and the Olympic Games, which are already attracting [workers], including… coming from there in Mato Grosso, and there are already reports of people arriving here in Brazil from outside the country, and even migrating internally to work in these construction projects" (ILO COORDINATOR, 2013).

Human trafficking
Cultural context [...] "there is a lot of resistance in the Brazilian congress, a lot of resistance in various sectors of Brazilian society, to deepening affirmative action policies, but clearly, a dividing line needs to be drawn between public policies and State and civil society actions against slavery. It needs to be recognized that slaves in Brazil are mostly black. Denying this fact is to fly in the face of reality" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2011). Verbal information [...] "look, we cannot accept that a load of blacks and Africans board an overcrowded boat to try to reach Sicily and there the boat sinks and they drown, so it's a human rights issue, what we have to do to solve the problem is close the border" (COORDINATOR OF REPÓRTER BRASIL, 2014).

Race and color
Regulatory context [...] "in an operation in Goiás, GEFM released 128 workers in two farms. The coordinator recounts that the inspection met with resistance despite the presence of the Federal Police. The farm managers did not reply to the questions, ignored them and addressed them aggressively. They mocked the inspection. Two civil police officers went to the location and even started interfering in the inspection work until they were removed by the team from the Federal Police. The mobile group confirms that the 'gato' has two brothers in the Civil Police (COSTA, 2010, p.132).

Corruption and inspection
Source: Elaboration by the authors.

Proposition 1 -Socioeconomic context: contexts of high vulnerability such as unemployment, chronic poverty and low schooling stimulate the adoption of slave labor by some business ventures.
For Crane (2013), the hidden mechanism exploits vulnerable inert niches that become active due to the coordinated action of informal business ventures. The hidden mechanism refers to the operational logic of inert and vulnerable population niches that become active due to the coordinated action of informal ventures which use slave labor. These inert niches are characterized by the state of vulnerability and are associated with color/race in diverse regions of Brazil: in effect, they are black and brown. The hidden mechanisms are also associated with unsustainable management practices that the slavery-based network does not seem to deem necessary to explain or even defend when they reduce human beings to the condition of modern slaves.
The characteristics of slave labor are revealed in the degrading work conditions such as the lack of bathrooms, inadequate meals, exhausting working hours and unsafe work environments.
Sugarcane harvesting is known to be arduous work that causes various health problems. Extreme physical and psychological violence and the phenomenon of poverty need to be understood in more depth. This is what Crane (2013) found in his study of the independent variablespoverty, vulnerability and educationsince they need to undergo rigorous statistical testing in order for us to Theoretically these states should present a lower number of enslaved workers due to their higher level of MHDI. Comparing, for example, the states of Piauí and Alagoas, both present a MHDI below these higher wealth-generating states, but also present a lower number of freed workers. The incidence of Piauí and Alagoas is higher in relation to workers born and rescued from slave labor in these states. Data show that the number of operations from 1995 to 2016 was higher in Pará, Mato Grosso and Minas Gerais. It seems that MHDI may be another condition for slave labor, but a double effect can be observed, which is similar to the one observed in relation to poverty The state of vulnerability also helps explain the problems some farmers face in obtaining agricultural loans (IBGE, 2016). It is extremely difficult for families living under the impacts of vulnerability to prove their income and capacity to pay as a requirement for obtaining these loans.
The voluntary acceptance of a dangerous and undignified job appears in diverse testimonies from rescued workers and, it seems, may be associated with the vulnerable state of the individual concerned (LE BRETON, 2002;MTE, 2016).

Proposition 3 -Sociocultural and sociodemographic context: Inequality naturalizes coercive work relations, which stimulates the adoption of slave labor by some business ventures.
Data show that the Brazilian culture of acceptance is linked to the repertoire of coronelista traditions that implanted arduous and oppressive work routines over time (LE BRETON, 2002).
The interaction of this repertoire with the spirit of honor of certain workers shows that modern slavery can be explained by the commitment of enslaved but honest workers to pay unlawful debts:  ARANHA 2016, p. 2). The degrading conditions include the physical effort to sew without ever pausing to rest since the targets were inhumane, while meals had to be eaten at speed.
Physical violence is characterized here through excessive work leading to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
The time cards can be considered a hidden mechanism of degrading work that institutionalizes control and curbs the freedom of the workers who are required to meet inhumane targets. According to Campos and Aranha (2016), the legal action against Guararapes Confecçõesa clothing factory from the Riachuelo groupresulted in the requirement to pay a lifetime pension to the seamstress injured because of the work activities performed for the company. The company had decided to utilize a cost reduction strategy via outsourcing from 2013 and, because of the regulatory inefficiency of the public authorities in the inspection of subcontractors, the company failed to apply basic rules of the Consolidation of Labor Laws (Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho -CLT).
According to Campos and Aranha (2016, p. 2), due to an agreement with 40 clauses that the Eliminado: still deficient company signed with the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the factory paid fines and had problems maintaining its competitiveness due to the reformulation of its costs.

Final considerations
The aim of this article has been to identify the associations between the social conditions of vulnerability and the racial profile of contemporary slavery. Based on the results obtained in the research, the proposal of this study was to incorporate the race and color variable into the theoretical model conceptualized by Bales (2002;), Crane (2013 and Datta and Bales (2013; for its application in Brazil, proposing secondary data and primary sociodemographic and vulnerability indictors as predictors of modern slavery in the Brazilian context (MT).
The sociodemographic data is redefined as sociocultural data when it becomes a component of social vulnerability. The declaration of race/color and gender are considered sociocultural elements of vulnerability due to their historical construction. In this sense, race/color and gender may be strong conditions for the cyclical and permanent reproduction of modern slavery due to the social representation that they possess in the context. The explanatory model of contemporary slavery could be made more robust with the incorporation of these elements as components of sociocultural vulnerability.
According to the data presented, modern slavery in Brazil has a color. A clear relation exists between the black and brown population and slavery practices. Triangulation of the data from the 2016 IBGE Census with the data on enslaved workers released in Brazil by the MPT and MTE indicate an increase in black or brown individuals rescued in production chains in Brazil. Brown workers represent a higher percentage of people rescued from slave-like labor in comparison to black workers. Compared with the last Census in 2010, there was an increase in individuals declaring themselves black and brown. Hypothetically, this increase may be associated with higher birth rates among black and brown people, or greater individual self-recognition.
It seems that race/color can be a predictor variable for the probability of slavery occurring in Brazil, due to a historically constructed and socially reproduced context. The race/color variable cannot be considered a determining factor for the existence of modern slavery, but without doubt it is a strong condition. The number of black and brown workers rescued in diverse regions of Brazil indicates a preponderance of the black population among those subjected to the condition of slaves.
Despite presenting strong indications in this direction, future quantitative research and rigorous statistical tests are necessary for the race, poverty, MHDI, vulnerability and education variables in order to better understand, for example, the moderating effect of these conditions and the persistence of slave labor.
In terms of the empirical results, other implications and important findings were systemized.
Firstly, it was possible to observe that contemporary slave labor coexists with the economically representative productive chains in Brazil and, indeed, with the signatory companies of InPACTO.
The coexistence is consolidated in a relatively invisible organization run by 'gatos' or contractors who, in some cases, are themselves 'former slaves.' This difficult to perceive organization emerges in the rural environment of agribusiness and in the urban environment, particularly in civil construction and the textile industry (COSTA, 2010;MTE, 2012;2016). These institutional arrangements are made possible by a context that in some form enables this articulation. For example, the research revealed that routines are developed and functions are delimited through actors and their interlinked structures, in which each actor occupies a consolidated position, combining interests, resources and strategies to maintain the structure (habitus) and the game.
Besidess the direct actors ('gato,' farm owner, cook, hotel owner, workers), the indirect actors also sustain this dynamic. The relation of dependency between workers and slave organizations completes the picture, given that it is strongly influenced by hidden mechanisms related to extreme violence and murders involving bosses, 'gatos,' workers and other suppliers, taking advantage of the sociocultural and economic-political conditions of structural inertia (CRANE, 2013, DATTA;BALES, 2014).
From the survey, it can also be observed that a significant lacuna exists in the Brazilian legal framework, derived from a definition of the concept that does not expressly recognize forced or compulsory labor as modern slave labor. The existence of this lacuna in an environment with a high possibility of corruption sets the terrain for the development of an ambiguous political struggle in which some institutions can use the very legal and regulatory frameworks to promote the practice of slavery. This can be observed in the definition of the crime and in the existing institutional arrangements. In turn, this configuration points to one of the implications of the study, namely its exposure of the maneuvers adopted by certain companies or farmers in response to the GEFM inspections through lawyers aware of the impact of the 'dirty list' and, very often, ready with an appeal to submit to the courts. A defense mechanism has developed to avoid punishment involving restrictions on loans intended for agribusiness.
In the Brazilian context, the slave practices in chains of cattle farming, agriculture, civil construction and the textile industry persist concomitantly with the 'responses' to the institutional regulatory pressures, monitored by InPACTO or the 'dirty list,' and to the prices of a competitive market. This response demands that some links in the chain adapt to meet the market and the regulatory environment. Another implication of the study showed that the actors participating in the production chain do not communicate with all the links of the chain, and do not detect or correct the The study's limitations are associated with the scant attention paid by some companies to the issue of slave labor in production chains. Along these lines, over the course of the study a strong sense of distrust and self-protective responses were perceived, which limited the number of interviews that could be conducted, especially with companies. However, participation in seminars and presentations held by InPACTO in São Paulo and Brasilia, along with a visit to the ILO head office in Brasilia, was used as a strategy to collect primary data and triangulate this material with the secondary data.
The path for future research involves a better understanding of 'whether' and 'how' institutional deformity can hinder the instruments used to combat slave labor in Brazil.
Consequently, a research agenda is proposed that emphasizes the unsustainability of aspects of the globalization of production and consumption. A research agenda is also proposed, that prioritizes modern slave labor as a central rather than peripheral problem, investigating the role of the MTE, the MPT and the Federal Attorney General (AGU), alongside NGOs and ILO. It is necessary to rigorously investigate the independent variables such as race/color, poverty and vulnerability associated with the incidence of slave labor in certain regions. In addition, an opportunity is created to better comprehend how the creation of institutions can contribute to the discussion of alternatives and the proposal of solutions to problems.
The results point to the need to examine, in more depth, how economically representative supply-chain companies can implement the audits and routines of international certification practices so as to reach the invisible organizations formed and maintained by 'gatos' or contractors.
Another opportunity for future research resides in understanding how organizational capacities are developed to meet institutional demands and, along the same lines, which of these demands are related to the promotion of racial integration in the management of diversity. The study also opened up a range of opportunities to the action of NGOs, companies and the public authorities in the formulation of public policies to combat slave laborits articulations, interests, hidden mechanisms and interferences. Such approaches need to problematize the racial dimension of slave labor in the country's sociodemographic and economic composition, reflecting its historically constructed trajectory. By recognizing that the Brazilian population has a historical legacy, still present in the forms of treating the racial profile in organizations and in information on slave labor, such an initiative would help make public and private actions more effective. Ignoring this perspective, on the contrary, means perpetuating certain conditions of vulnerability and colluding with the persistence of an inhumane organizational practice.