Intersectionalities of contemporary slavery of black women under decolonial thought: work, social determinants, and social inequalities

Abstract

This article problematizes the invisibility of the enslaved black woman from a decolonial theoretical approach to confronting contemporary slave labor, methodologically adopting a qualitative approach and bibliographic review research focusing on belonging-social recognition and black feminism and equity. We discuss the position of black women in Brazilian patriarchal society, their invisibility, and the decolonial feminist methodology as an institutional strategy for a political, legal, and economic reaction against contemporary enslavement, adopting the contributions of Ibarra-Colado and Maria Lugones as references. We found that the black woman is doubly vulnerable due to her color and gender, making her condition in the social relations of work essentially based on an asymmetry of power between her, a working black woman, and her employers. This consequentially naturalizes the practices of invisibility through the choices of public and private policies to combat exploitation. It is concluded that there is a need to redesign organizational strategies to combat contemporary slave labor from a decolonial perspective that values Brazilian particularities and diversities, ensuring effective recognition and confrontation of the invisibility of black women, providing them with a more dignified, more equal, and less peripheral life.

Keywords:
Invisibility of the black woman; Racism; Contemporary slave labor; Decolonial theory; Gender violence

Resumo

O presente trabalho visa problematizar, como objeto de estudo, a invisibilidade da mulher negra escravizada com base em uma aproximação teorética decolonial de enfrentamento ao trabalho escravo contemporâneo, com a adoção de uma abordagem qualitativa e pesquisa de revisão bibliográfica como método, com recorte no pertencimento-reconhecimento social, feminismo negro e equidade. O desenvolvimento do trabalho discute a posição da mulher negra na sociedade patriarcal brasileira, a sua invisibilidade e a metodologia feminista decolonial como estratégia institucional para uma reação política, jurídica e econômica contra a escravização contemporânea, adotando as contribuições de Ibarra-Colado e Maria Lugones como referenciais, em atenção às diretrizes de pesquisa da chamada especial Cadernos EBAPE. Como resultado, constata-se que a mulher negra é duplamente vulnerabilizada em razão de sua cor e gênero, o que torna a sua condição na relação social do trabalho essencialmente baseada numa assimetria de poder entre ela, mulher negra trabalhadora, e os seus empregadores, o que, como consequência, naturaliza as práticas de invisibilidade pelas escolhas das políticas públicas e privadas de combate à exploração. Este estudo conclui que há a necessidade de redesenhar as estratégias organizacionais de combate ao trabalho escravo contemporâneo fundamentado em uma ótica decolonial que valorize as particularidades e diversidades brasileiras, garantindo efetivo reconhecimento e enfrentamento da invisibilidade da mulher negra, para propiciar-lhe uma vida mais digna, menos desigual e menos periférica.

Palavras-chave:
Invisibilidade da mulher negra; Racismo; Trabalho escravo contemporâneo; Teoria decolonial; Violência de gênero.

Resumen

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo problematizar, como objeto de estudio, la invisibilidad de la mujer negra esclavizada basándose en una aproximación teórica decolonial para confrontar el trabajo esclavo contemporáneo, adoptando metodológicamente un enfoque cualitativo y una investigación de revisión bibliográfica con foco en la pertenencia-reconocimiento social, el feminismo negro y la equidad. El desarrollo del trabajo discute la posición de las mujeres negras en la sociedad patriarcal brasileña, su invisibilidad y la metodología feminista decolonial como estrategia institucional para una reacción política, jurídica y económica contra la esclavitud contemporánea, adoptando las contribuciones de Ibarra-Colado y Maria Lugones como referentes, cumpliendo con los lineamientos de investigación de la convocatoria especial de Cadernos EBAPE. Como resultado, se constata que la mujer negra es doblemente vulnerable por su color y género, haciendo que su condición en las relaciones sociales de trabajo se base esencialmente en una asimetría de poder entre ella, una mujer negra trabajadora, y sus empleadores, lo que, como consecuencia, naturaliza las prácticas de invisibilidad a través de la elección de políticas públicas y privadas para combatir la explotación. Se concluye que existe la necesidad de rediseñar las estrategias organizativas para combatir el trabajo esclavo contemporáneo desde una perspectiva decolonial que valore las particularidades y diversidades brasileñas, asegurando el reconocimiento efectivo y el enfrentamiento de la invisibilidad de las mujeres negras, brindándoles una vida más digna, menos desigual y menos periférica.

Palabras clave:
Invisibilidad de la mujer negra; Racismo; Trabajo esclavo contemporáneo; Teoría decolonial; Violencia de género

INTRODUCTION

The difficulties suffered by black women inserted in the Patriarchal, Misogynistic, and sexist Brazilian social structure, considered the current power systems, justify research and studies that highlight the idiosyncrasies of a conjunctural racist society that naturalizes contemporary slave labor and still harbors domestic relationships that conceal, in the unfortunate social metaphor of large house and slave quarters (senzalas), the silent and obsequious exploitation of domestic work and its domesticated, docile and familiar invisibility. However, this exploration, away from a mere shallow Marxist rhetoric of added value, although omitted from official statistics, has been spotted all public spaces.

In the context of contemporary slave labor, underlying that carried out by the black worker woman, there’s also difficulties in identity the real statistics due to the underrated data collected. This lack of data results in the misinterpretation of the current social context of these workers. The invisibility of this public, due to its social determinants of color and gender, creates significant obstacles when, most often, the absence of data legitimizes a state of unconstitutional things, which accommodates a public organization and management of labor relations, employment, and gender that aggravate the violence suffered by black women.

This qualitative research, with the application of document and bibliographic review, has as the object of study the problematization of the invisibility of black women concurrently enslaved, which appears almost constantly, and only socially, in the statistics of violence against life, homicides, femicides, and rescues of enslaved workers, adopting as a theoretical basis a decolonial conceptual approach to an influential political reaction, legal and economic against slave labor, according to the prediction of the illicit conduct contained in art. 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code, and in international standards for combating contemporary slave labor. It is based on the semantic understanding of race and racism in Gonzalez’s ideas (2018, p. 191) as functional and conforming elements of determining institutional designs, translating into violence for black women. This analysis assumes feminism in the theoretical dialogue of Lugones’ (2008) thought, in the light of Latin American decolonialism, with the gender cutout, in the proposal for a new path to decolonize feminism. That is a dialectical movement between Eurocentrism and the peripheral plural subjectivity of emancipation, in a rupture of the desire to cover up the other (Dussel, 1993).

It is also necessary to point out that the cut out of the investigation on work and gender shows that the violence suffered by black women is compressed by the intersectionality of their multiple conditions of violence, that is, being a woman, being a black woman employed before the different social roles of women who are phenomenologically mixed up with their social identities, from a perspective adopted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (2020).

There is no contradiction in the finding that, in the female civilizing process, the black and, at their side, the black woman is the target of economic, social, and political segregation, being handed over to the legal system the role of legitimizing official violence. Black women, rewarded by the inequality of remuneration that naturalizes discriminatory access to economic capacity, note the resistance of institutions to rebalance democratic forces of participation and equality, which can be classified as a posture of hostile administrative public policies, according to the theoretical description of Kimberlé Crenshaw (1995).

The hypothesis adopted assumes the existence of contemporary slave labor performed by black women and a state of official political silence that contributes to the naturalization of this violence of erasure and invisibility of this problem, which hinders its confrontation and denounces the need for new political-strategic institutional designs that recognize a feeling of social belonging and dignity considering a decolonial theoretical approach at the intersections of social determinants: education, work, income, access to public equipment, health, sexuality, and gender.

The discussion reserved for the general objective is about the intersectional gender violence suffered by black women in Brazilian society, whose institutional designs of the administration of public policies, aligned with the economic, political, and legal systems, allow a state of naturalization of the invisibility of this woman, perpetuating her segregation and worsening of her exclusion in the levels of social participation of public life and the realization of her projects of a dignified life. Furthermore, in the specific objectives, reflection requires the intersectional discussion of the relationship between work, gender, and power, in the context of contemporary economic exploitation, in the form of slave labor, by a decolonial feminist theory.

Faced with the social facts of a markedly patriarchal society, sexist and institutionally violent, this investigation places the object and its problem as academic and political agendas, aiming to embarrass society to an indeferred commitment to new institutional designs, the implementation of effective public policies of social inclusion of black women in the emancipatory economic, social structure and, as a consequence, in the systems of power, to enable the adoption of other strategies to strengthen the instruments and policies to combat underreporting, control and punishment of contemporary female slave labor, baring the multiple layers of vulnerability in which black women are inserted, even captive to their history.

THE INVISIBILITY OF BRAZILIAN WOMEN IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY SLAVE LABOR

The history of humanity is confused with the history of the exploitation of man by man, evidenced, in the contemporary panorama, by the precarious nature of labor relations, with the negative of rights materialized in a plural way, from the submission of workers to degrading jobs, with reduction of labor guarantees, to the most inhuman form of labor exploitation, that is, the worker’s submission to slave-like conditions. Miraglia (2011) teaches that contemporary slave labor is when the employee is subjugated, humiliated, and subjected to degrading conditions.

Cavalcanti (2021) elucidates that, with the decline of feudal society and the emergence and strengthening of capitalism, there was no consecration of humanity and the freedom of all people. On the contrary, these historical elements represented, in fact, the consolidation of the absence of these aspects, and people had their longings adjusted for capital.

Considering the gender cut, which constantly represents women as dependent and submissive, it is worth questioning whether there were full possibilities of social integration when framed to capitalism. Saffioti (1976) argues that women suffer several problems due to their gender in competitive societies, considering elements such as motherhood, breastfeeding, and so-called female absenteeism at work. The author understands that, given these issues, the creation of conditions of full employment for women depends on an action that involves both sexes. Overcoming these problems requires developing effective collective action for the two categories of sex.

It should be observed that gender inequality is another factor of aggravation of the social abyss, in which there is no minimum level of conditions for the exercise of true freedom, as Binenbojm (2020) teaches.

Also, in this problem, Saffioti (1976) exemplifies the persistence of productive systems as a factor of marginalization for women more than for men, mentioning the example of the clothing industry of France, which fostered work at home, a model in which exploitation knows looser limits.

Therefore, it is essential to highlight that the enslavement of the contemporary worker reflects a tangle of vulnerabilities multiplied by the subjection of miserability to economic power, which cannot fail to perceive aggravating situations of such realities, including the question of gender and race.

Looking at the beginning of the 21^st century, Silva (2013) argues that, at that time, racial inequalities continued to be expressed and had particular intensity, especially in the labor market context. Although we have in view of the advances provided by the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, there are mechanisms of discrimination that continue to operate, even in a subtle but efficient way.

The black woman worker, subject to working conditions analogous to those of enslaved people, is the product of a social dynamic that, since the elders of Brazilian Colonial times trivializes the use of the labor force of women, especially black women, based on an essential element necessary to combat the exploitation of the labor of such workers, that is, underreporting. The position occupied by black women represents a legacy of the colonial mentality in Brazilian society, especially those people who are fixated on large urban centers who have the idea that the work performed by black women, especially in the domestic sphere, would be a less critical work exercise, without fundamental values, based on the idea that these workers were already benefiting from the supply of food and housing (Davis, 2011).

It is undeniable, therefore, that the change in society’s mentality regarding its perception of the exploitation of black women’s labor in slave-like conditions is advocated as the first obstacle to combating such a harmful practice since the non-perception of such a practice as illegal and violating human rights is a fundamental element of underreporting, whereas what is not envisaged as illegal, inhuman or wrong will hardly be denounced, investigated and combated by a community, therefore, from the social actors of the justice system.

As if that were not enough, Brazil, as a country of continental dimensions, faces complex difficulties in combating contemporary slave labor. From the inhospitable areas of occurrence of the crime, which make complaints very difficult, to the access of inspection teams to such regions and the scrapping of the agencies to combat this practice, with a lack of human material and resources, in order to enable effective and robust surveillance and investigation of complaints. Even in the case of domestic slave labor, the obstacle to the domicile’s inviolability embarrasses and sometimes prevents adequate supervision by the agents of the justice system responsible for multidisciplinary combating this criminal practice.

Suppose Brazilian mentality and social practices are of lesser value to black workers, with poor working conditions; in that case, the situation of black workers is of severe indignity, especially when domestic tasks are perceived as an exclusive obligation of women, whether she is a member of the family or enslaved person.

In this sense, Gato (2021, pp. 64-65) clarifies that there is a culture of stereotypes of black workers that attributes to them “conditions” such as loitering and non-productivity, bumping into the resistance of the lords in the face of the inevitable need to negotiate with freed workers and rights holders. The submission of black women to the exploitation of work in sexual slavery should also be highlighted. The complex system that involves everything from human trafficking to the most deplorable criminal practices has once again hampered both the deficiency of the notification and the state structure and the non-involvement of civil society in the promotion of public policies aimed at combating this crime.

Then, the sum of two social determinants that overlap and turn the victims repeatedly vulnerable emerges: the gender and colored conditions, being women and being blacks. The convergence between these two conditions is understood in light of the lessons of Crenshaw (1995), which explains intersectionality as the combination of the structural and dynamic consequences of the interaction between two or more axes of subordination of social roles. According to the author, racism, patriarchy, and class oppression are discriminatory systems that create fundamental inequalities that structure subalternized positions related to women, races, ethnicities, and classes. Intersectionality also deals with how policies and actions generate oppression that permeates these axes, constituting dynamic or active aspects of “disempowerment” and hostility (Crenshaw, 1995).

Adopting this parameter of intersectionality to understand the object of research, it is observed that the situation of enslaved women goes through several categories of discrimination that intersect, and, thus, the problem of the exploitation of women cannot be analyzed under isolated social markers. Among the various possible categories of fundamental disenfranchisement or under-social-inclusiveness, there are at least four social determinants indicated by Crenshaw (1995) identified in the case of contemporary slavery: woman, black, poor, and Latin American.

The Brazilian context of the negative human rights, which implies the lack of citizen access to education, health, housing, and basic sanitation, makes such workers potentially vulnerable, who see themselves as easy prey for work proposals, sometimes disguised as a promise to escape poverty, access to study, and better life than that granted to an ascendatry of exploited, sometimes for generations of the same family.

Thus, in the context of this discussion, Cavalcanti (2021, p. 223) maintains that “inequality is naturalized, being internalized in collective consciousnesses as something inexorable. Moreover, thus, the exclusion is trivialized, begging is trivialized, exploitation is vulgarized, insensitivity is widespread.” By becoming commonplace and banal, the continuity of exploration composes a cyclical scenario of the negative of rights. Modernity did not imply the rupture of exploitation, oppression, and discrimination contexts. On the contrary, unequal social relations coexist, in which racism, xenophobia, and the hierarchization of human beings are evident (Cavalcanti, 2021, p. 224).

The social asymmetry between the sexes and between races is cruelly portrayed in the exploitation of the black woman worker in conditions analogous to those of enslaved people, which demonstrates a cyclical universe of exploitation inherited from a colonial mentality. The social organization of work is compromised in the dimensions of inclusion and equity, considering that Brazilian society brings historical heritages that push aside black women making them vulnerable and socially invisible.

It is perceived, therefore, that the challenge of combating submission to work in conditions analogous to those of a slave of black women is beyond the issue of miserability and social exclusion. The debate is inseparable from a colonial culture of perception of the black race and the female gender as non-holders of the range of fundamental rights guaranteed by the 1988 Constituent, denying it equality, freedom, and dignity in what has to be more elementary for the construction of a developed plural society: decent work within reach of social justice. It is necessary to rethink the public organization and management of labor relations, employment, and gender based on the Brazilian historical-social particularities and the search for equity of the social determinants addressed in this analysis.

THE POSITION OF THE BRAZILIAN BLACK WOMAN IN THE DOMINANT SOCIAL STRUCTURE

In the discussion of the position of black women, when inserted in the structure of Brazilian society, one perceives a factor predominantly present in the interrelations of which she is part, from the colonial period to contemporary time, which is: the factor of exploration, which makes it invisible and naturalizes this position. In this scenario, the black woman is constantly placed in a place of disinterest, invisible in the eyes of the majority. She ceases to occupy good jobs, remaining on the margins of society.

Racial and gender characteristics involving the invisibility of a particular public can be debated in the light of the theory of social determinants, understood as social, economic, cultural, ethnic/racial, psychological, and behavioral factors that influence the population’s risk factors. The factors of social determinants significantly and negatively alter the possibilities of equity and the conditions of decent living for women. Due to their inherent determinants, they are vulnerable and obstruct access to justice and social rights (Chai, 2021b).

Thus, this exhibition begins based on the ideas of Gonzalez (2020), who, when looking at the situation of black women in Brazilian society, theorizes that, considering the 18^th century population terms, despite predominantly reaching men, did not exclude women, inserting them into two categories: bedwork and housemaid (mucama).

Thus, it is perceived that it was up to the black Brazilian woman enslaved task of conceiving moral strength for the men, children, and brothers of captivity. There were exceptions - the author mentions the example of the outbreak of the Malês Revolt, mainly incited by a woman (Gonzalez, 2020). The variables racism and sexism emerge as constitutive of the patriarchal mentality. In general, therefore, the author understands that there was an essential role of the black slave woman in the moral support to men in the context of libertarian conflicts, with exceptions that, however, confirm the rule.

In this research, the terms “racism” and “sexism” are used based on the ideas of Gonzalez (2018, p. 191), which states that the first “ism” mentioned - racism - is responsible for characterizing Brazilian cultural neurosis and that its articulation with sexism generates several damaging effects for black women in particular.

Moreover, for the author, racism consists of ideological construction and a set of practices that went through a process of perpetuation and reinforcement precisely after the abolition of slavery since it benefited and benefits several interests (Gonzalez, 2020, p. 28).

Sexism and racism, therefore, for the author, are variations of the same theme, being more general, focusing on biological differences, the starting point for establishing ideologies of domination (Gonzalez, 2018, p. 144).

In the period after abolition, when most of the people who previously made up the enslaved part of Brazilian society were involved with coffee plantations, the role of women had a greater focus on the exercise of manual activities since it was inserted in the crop and, therefore, on the reproduction of the economy. During the Empire, it is estimated that among about 800,000 workers, 300,000 were women. However, the female labor force was viewed with contempt, although it existed in an expressive number (Sousa, Tardivo, & Haack, 2021, pp. 57-58).

However, as it turns out, the invisibility factor of black women is patent, which leads researchers to focus on social structures and power systems, bringing to the discussion the issue of gender as a determining factor for the situation exposed. Fernandes (2008, pp. 301-302) accurately analyzes the degradation caused by slavery, going through the characteristics of social anomy, pauperization, and deficient integration that were the combined elements to cause a pattern of isolation of black and mulatto in society, both in the economic and socio-cultural spheres. The legal disappearance of slavery, therefore, launched blacks into the composition of a new commoner under this classification’s direct and indirect effects. In this scenario, Fernandes (2008) asserts that so-called racial democracy is a myth.

It is within these events that racism is consolidated, with the ideas that the negro, although freed from slavery, will always remain in a lower position, belonging to the commoners, without adequate conditions for real improvements in the quality of life since the rooted idea of being inferior prevents opportunities from being concretely aimed at them.

Concerning black women, Araújo (2003, p. 25), when it deals with the position of women in the post-abolition, elucidates the issue of gender as an intrinsic physical characteristic, treated as natural and immutable in the sense of maintaining it self thus, so that it represents a factor of naturalization of female oppression.

Therefore, it is understood that the body experience characteristic of gender analysis results from social and historical processes related to constructing meanings. That is, they would not exist outside of social relations. Therefore, a comparison between a white woman and a black woman is stipulated about how patriarchy naturalized black female oppression since white women were considered sacralized in the function of wife and mother; on the other hand, for the enslaved black woman, sexual function remained, objectified (Araújo, 2003, p. 25).

The sum of the cross-cultural, black, and peripheral social categories is standard throughout America, as in the case of General Motors, analyzed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, where it was found that discrimination in the workplace was enhanced by the sum of the vulnerability of social determinants of race and gender, in a clear example of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989). However, social determinants cannot be analyzed in isolation.

This discussion is also fought by Gonzalez (2020), who, when mentioning the situation of black women in the labor market, states that as long as there is racial and sexual division in the labor field, the black woman will suffer a process of triple discrimination that involves the following elements: race, class, and sex.

Also, in this context of the contemporary discussion about the labor discrimination of black women, the author mentions that, over the years, new perspectives have emerged in the feminized bureaucratic sectors. However, these opportunities involve activities that require a higher level of educational training, as well as charge the candidate-specific “education” and “good looks” (Gonzalez, 2020). Such conceptions end up representing new barriers for black women who, although they currently have access to higher levels of education, observed that racial selection is still present. After all, cases of rejection are patent. It is possible to verify that when there are vacancies ads whose qualifications are “good looking” and similar, it is already assumed that black candidates will not be admitted. The author also mentions, on this point, the selection within multinationals, which have the acronym CR to qualify candidates who are colored, that is, people with skin color (Gonzalez, 2020).

What is perceived, therefore, is a process of constant discrimination, which establishes a comparison between white women and black women, being the ones with countless more barriers. It is so contemporary this inequality of the idiosyncrasies of Brazilian life that the recent report of the Atlas of Violence (Cerqueira et al., 2021) brings ascending indicators of aggression against women, while political polarization, led by the President of the Republic, catalyzes hate speech, which proliferates disinformation and tensions the credibility of democratic institutions and freedoms, even of thought and equality by the coefficient of difference. Social protection networks, both in the fight against contemporary slave labor and in the promotion of environmental protection instruments and affirmative policies, have suffered significant reductions and changes, which even affect the collection of data that inform the map design of violence, giving rise to the Violent Death identifier for Unidentified Cause.

The factors exposed lead the mentioned authors to interconnect when dealing with the issue of sexualization of the black female body. Gonzalez (2020, p. 51) states that when black women are not working as domestic, she finds themselves in low-paid service stations and crowded schools, hospitals, and supermarkets, among others. Thus, as an overview, it is established that, in contemporary society, for black women, there are two types of professional qualifications: the maid and the role of mulatto. As for the latter, the author justifies this fact as a reflection of the exploration and sexualization of black bodies.

The author brushes the aforementioned sexual exploitation of black women as something rooted not only in the minds of Brazilians but mainly in the exposed Eurocentric view, which represents another form of discrimination by which women suffer due to the social determinants of color and gender.

Davis (2011) also addresses the sexual exploitation of black women, stating that this is one of the distinct ways women can also suffer and be exploited, victims of sexual abuse and barbaric mistreatment. In this scenario, the exploration of these women accompanies the convenience of the explorer: if it is convenient to use their manual strength, so it is done; if it is appropriate to exploit them sexually, they do so.

In the end, still in the proposed theme, Gonzalez (2020, p. 52) mentions what would be a particular type of sensuality of black women and draws attention to the exclusion of black women from the national feminist movement.

In the first aspect, the author suggests that the sexual exploitation of black women is often proposed even by white women inserted in the middle or upper class. Regarding the exclusion of discussions in the context of racism in the feminist movement, the author used a technical example of a feminist event in which she participated, in which she tried to insert agendas of black feminism, not having acceptance.

Given the above, it becomes possible to verify that, from the Colonial period to contemporaneity, black women suffered from the constant invisibility of their rights, longings, and needs, among other aspects, remaining unable, for various reasons internalized in the general culture, to meet the exact expectations that other people, whether white women, are men of any race.

It is also perceived that the position of black women in the dominant social structure arouses concern and should be problematized, because it represents a serious issue and is present in Brazilian society.

DECOLONIAL FEMINIST THEORY AS AN INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY TO COMBAT THE SUBALTERNIZATION OF BLACK WOMEN IN LABOR RELATIONS

As demonstrated, contemporary slave labor is one of the cruelest forms of human rights violations in the modern world. It has historical and social roots that deserve to be considered for its understanding and lacks coping policies. Considering the Brazilian context, it is observed that the enslavement of black women deserves special attention for social determinants that favor the invisibility of its occurrences, such as gender and color. In a society with a legacy of a recent slave period, it is necessary to establish considerations for institutional policies to prevent and combat forced labor.

Despite contemporary slave labor not being a direct consequence of colonial enslavement, the sociological roots that explain the perpetuation of the practices of undervaluation of the other, now expressed in other ways, are undeniable. Ancient slavery left a legacy of devaluation of labor and denial of the rights of a particular group (blacks) to the detriment of maintaining the might of another. “It is to perceive how it (slavery) creates an exclusionary and perverse singularity. The sociability tended to perpetuate itself in time, precisely because it was never effectively understood or criticized” (Souza, 2017, p. 9).

Recognizing this presupposition, Gonzalez (2020) proposes cutting sexism in national culture, which, in addition to racism, imposes a place of submission to black women, excluding them from decision-making spaces, access to social and political rights, and adequate working conditions. Any social transformation intended to face the slave heritage that victimizes and invisible black women must be conceived and executed with their participation. Black feminism must therefore be the protagonist of social changes and the struggle for the right of the represented category. Any process of social transformation demands the organization and active participation of black women themselves (Gonzalez, 2020).

At the international level, Voss et al. (2019) highlight the UK’s experience in instrumentalization to reduce the various forms of labor exploitation and thus move towards implementing SDG8.7. To this end, the Modern Slavery Law was created, which lists measures to address the vulnerabilities of exploitation and combat them in public and private spheres. In the latter case, the law gives special attention to enslaved women. It imposes restrictive measures on the fashion and textile industries, where much female labor exploitation occurs, as in Brazil. According to the legislation, companies should be obliged to submit detailed reports on working conditions and measures preventive to labor exploitation, which the public authorities will examine for adaptation to the appropriate parameters, labor, and human dignity.

This British legislation, although it presents gaps and needs improvement in its implementation (Voss et al., 2019), points out some lessons that can be incorporated into the Brazilian experience: the importance of transparency, supervision, and sanction regarding practices to combat slavery (or the absence of slavery). Thus, in addition to considering the effective participation of black women in strategies to combat exploitation, organizational measures - public and private - should be published and supervised to ensure greater effectiveness of their purposes.

Regarding the need for transparency, Chai (2021a) highlights its importance for institutional organization and risk management, which should be one of the fundamental pillars for the exercise of public functions and the performance of the private sector. As due diligence of human rights, the need to consider the principle of maximum public transparency of risks in the dissemination and management of information, the actual and potential impacts of human rights, and the integration and performance of results is reinforced, informing how possible impacts will be addressed (Chai, 2021a). Within the framework of anti-racist and preventive policies against the exploitation of the workforce, this principle is essential to ensure an effective corporate governance structure and a communicative approach to the organization and public management of labor, employment, and gender relations.

However, it is necessary to reaffirm that, to combat racism and sexism as a prevention of the enslavement of black women, it is not enough to import foreign experiences. The national particularity of social relations distances the Brazilian demands from those of the United States and Europe, for example. To think about racial and gender prejudice in social relations and public and private institutions is to recognize the structural and expression differences between these forms of exclusion (Rosa, 2014).

While the Brazilian experience of the Anglo-Saxon countries should be undefeated, the national conjuncture of a similar context can be approached, with the case, based on the historical and social contours typical of Latin America. As Rosa (2014) contributes, the analysis of social-racial relations and organizational structure based on the South-global logic allows a better understanding of the organization of the working class and the reproduction of symbolic violence and effective dynamics to cope with inequalities.

Although some experiences may contribute to national thought, it is crucial to keep the historical particularities and local diversity that underpin the perpetuation of the invisibility of black women in exploitative situations. Confronting the colonialization of the global south, the name of decolonial is given, reasoning by which Brazil can be thought based on local needs, especially regarding race and gender relations (Ibarra-Colado, 2007; Rose, 2014).

Gonzalez’s contributions (2020) are essential as a starting point for understanding power relations involving race and gender. For the epistemological deepening of the categories raised in this investigation, we seek the contributions of Hannibal Quijano to the study of coloniality and, consequently, decolonial thinking. The author teaches that the colonial structures and the process of colonization of America, the result of European domination, produced social discrimination in the social, ethnic, anthropological, and national spheres that have historically persisted in power relations (Quijano, 1992).

According to Quijano, the hierarchization of people by their biological and geographical conditions validated the perception of superiority and inferiority among beings and guaranteed a place of subalternization to those outside the European standard, especially regarding race (Quijano, 2014). In this context, decolonial theory arises from the importance of subverting power relations and making room for Latin American protagonism, overcoming the fragile narrative of “discovery” and European superiority that is translated in the interest of “covering up the other,” placing the West in a position of subalternization before the supposed European modernity (Dussel, 1993).

In this theme, Lugones (2008) analyzes the decolonialism of Latin America with the gender cutout, proposing a new path to decolonize feminism. The author understands the conditions of women based on their perspectives, outside the centrism of Eurocentric gender discussions, because she understands that it does not encompass women in postcolonial situations (or even coloniality). Thus, Lugones’ decolonial feminist theory faces the dominant feminist discourse by presenting new historically invisible looks and finding itself deeply connected to the historical coloniality that passes through the theory of coloniality of power (Lugones, 2008).

The term “dichotomous and hierarchical category logic” is used by Lugones (2014, p. 935) to refer to the capitalist and colonial system regarding the clippings of race, gender, and sexuality in the context of colonization of Latin America. The author demonstrates that the colonization process represented physical, social, and cultural violence and epistemological subrogation, which add up as the colonized accumulated categories of vulnerabilities regarding race, gender, and sexuality.

In this context, the need for gender decolonization emerges, criticizing the historical and systematically exerted oppression from the racialized, colonial, capitalist perspective on Latin women. Lugones (2014) focuses on subjectivities to disaggregate the consequent oppressions of capitalist and gender colonialism and aims to overcome this systematic oppression through decolonial feminism.

In this same sense, Ibarra-Colado (2007) highlights, within organizations and administration, the importance of otherness, ensuring that complex organizational problems, as in the case of racism-sexism in the collective and institutionalized mentality in Brazil, are solved in a dialogical, inclusive and participatory way. The author, in an analysis of the meaning of “globalization,” strongly criticizes Eurocentrism, indicating the need to foster an organizational debate based on particularities and local reality, on the recognition of diversity and current needs, and with the guarantee of autonomy of local peoples to overcome the current positioning of social determinants.

Therefore, when considering the need for otherness, in the Brazilian situation, space is opened for an inclusive and participatory institutional rationality of the objects of local policies, which matters to this work, black women. This characteristic must be repeated both in the private organizational sphere, especially in relation to inclusion to prevent contemporary slave labor, and in the public sector to face it widely.

Ibarra-Colado (2007) concludes with the need to think about the world and seek the solution to problems based on otherness and the dialogical point of view, ensuring a social transformation that respects the different points of view, with consideration for differences and equal opportunities for all. In confronting modern enslavement, this participatory methodology is indispensable to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 8.7: to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, and end modern slavery and human trafficking.

The study of decoloniality aims to overcome the subalternization of Latin countries as a detriment of North American and European colonization, with the possibility of rethinking policies based on their own needs and experiences. In confronting racism, sexism, and, consequently, the enslavement of black women, it is necessary to privilege the decolonial option to ensure the overcoming of local barriers and the practical scope of overcoming inequalities.

According to Abdalla and Faria (2017), Brazil’s administrative and organizational restructuring, according to a decolonial perspective, must permeate three interconnected advances: academic, educational, and social. In order to contextualize the contributions of the authors to the delimitation of this research, we first defend the promotion of a decolonial academic strategy by forming a national political identity that recognizes racism and sexism as structurally formed thoughts that enable the invisibility of black women. In the background, we call for an educational strategy that builds, legitimizes, and disseminates the principles of equality and social inclusion based on local realities, ensuring the participation of the female and black populations in the spaces of debate and political decision-making. Finally, we believe that significant social advancement is needed to engage institutions and society against the problems of coloniality, especially racism and sexism.

In the same sense, Moraes and Chai (2020) argue that the emancipatory policy of enslaved workers requires a broad, intersectoral, and transdisciplinary effort to be implemented by public management and the private sector, which ensures conditions to break cycles of enslavement and enable the social inclusion of vulnerable people. Overcoming the invisibility of exploiting black women is not only about specific punitive actions. However, it requires the operationalization of emancipatory measures based on Brazilian needs within the decolonial theory presented by Lugones (2008).

Therefore, given the Brazilian structural conditions that silence enslaved women and the double-gender rights, political - in public - and organizational - in the private - sphere must be conditioned to ensure the emancipation and guarantee of female dignity, driven by decolonial thinking that guarantees prominence to national particularities and diversities.

CONCLUSIVE REMARKS

After more than one centenary of the prohibition of enslavement in Brazil, it is perceived that the human exploitation of men and women is still present in the countryside and the city. However, it has different characteristics from those of colonial Brazil. In the same sense as global concerns, national legislation has tried to confront contemporary slavery through preventive and punitive strategies. However, these measures have been questioned in the face of clusters of people still rescued by submission to degrading working conditions.

Analyzing the context of modern slave labor requires a unique cutout: that of female enslavement. It is perceived that the exploitation of women is closely related to their submission in a society that brings patriarchal and sexist inheritances. Thus, the exploitation of women, which takes place in several areas, is also perceived as a cause of the invisibility of labor exploitation.

In addition to female invisibility, the color reinforces the practices of exploitation. It weakens even more black women, who assume social determinants repeatedly discriminating: gender and color, in a picture of the intersectionality of the conditions of fragility. According to a consolidated academic debate, Brazilian society inherited the thought of racist patriarchy in its history, motivated by the unresolved end of slavery practices, without guaranteeing the emancipation of vulnerable populations, which allowed the perpetuation of exploratory practices, even with new clothing. There are, therefore, latent problems to be solved by the institutions: the recognition and effective confrontation of the enslavement of black women.

Constitutional interests in the defense of human dignity and the Sustainable Development Goals demonstrate the explicit mission of confronting the various forms of contemporary exploitation. Based on these principles, it can be concluded that tackling slave labor is a joint mission of the public and private authorities, both responsible for implementing adequate measures of inclusion and protection. Nevertheless, there are no clear guidelines or policies aimed at mitigating the exploitation of women, which results in the invisibility of the public and the underreporting of cases perceived by the lack of information and official data on the modern enslavement of women, especially in the domestic environment.

Thus, considering the particularities that differentiate the Brazilian conditions from the North American experiences and the European countries, we advocate the construction of a positive agenda by the public and private sectors, driven by decolonial organizational thinking, capable of valuing the historical needs, diversity and particular demands of the country. In particular, the historical demands of confronting racism and socially established sexism stand out. In this context, the decolonial perspective - specifically of decolonial feminism - contributes to seeking emancipatory, inclusive, and egalitarian contours to social policies and combating the exploitation of black women. It is a primary strategy to overcome the cover-up of Latin women in the face of historical heritage that intersects racism, sexism, and various prejudices.

Possible ways to overcome the complex and historical challenges mentioned in this research include the need for intersectional and continuous efforts to rethink Brazilian society’s dominant structures and power relations. The OAB, a civil entity committed to protecting rights and social justice, for example, can assume an essential role in thematic commissions on race, gender, and slavery, at the federal and state levels. On the other hand, it is up to the superior councils of the labor judiciary and the National Council of Justice (CNJ) to insert the reflections on the institutional role of the judiciary in the application of decolonial feminism in confronting domestic labor exploitation. This work deserves to be exercised as a filter when selecting career members and in the continuing training of magistrates.

From the normative and organizational point of view, there are several possibilities for legal improvement concerning labor rules and the increase in the supervision and transparency of anti-discriminatory measures, such as the English experience in combating female enslavement. At the same time, it is necessary to preserve the legal advances already achieved, such as the typification of the crime of submission to slave labor, provided for in the Brazilian Penal Code, considered an advanced guaranteeing standard and model for other countries.

Nevertheless, the debate about the subalternization of black women in labor relations must be made within the national and state commissions to combat slave labor (Conatrae and COETRAEs), and, based on local realities, public policies can be rethought to reach this invisible public. The boards of participation and social control aggregate different views and sectors, essential for formulating, executing, and monitoring interinstitutional actions of prevention and confrontation of contemporary slave labor. Based on the contributions of decolonial feminist theory, thematic working groups can study ways to rectify public policies to ensure more excellent protection for black women, who today are discovered as part of the actions to confront exploitation.

The need for critical and feminist decolonial thinking involves academics, society, invisibility, public organizations, and private sectors, which must have measures to prevent and face national challenges in the conception of their organizational policies and strategies. Thus, the necessary basis is possible to face both contemporary slave labor and the invisibility of black women repeatedly silenced by their conditions of gender, race, and cultural subalternization.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the evaluators for the dialogue, fgv for the thematic editorial line, as well as the Federal University of Maranhão for the institutional shelter of the Culture, Law, and Society Research Group (DGP/CNPQ/UFMA) and for the space for conducting scientific research and building knowledge committed to the democratic regime, protecting human rights and human dignity in effective gender equality.

• [Translated version] Note: All quotes in English translated by this article’s translator.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  30 June 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  28 Feb 2022
• Accepted
  13 Aug 2022