Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) filed a public civil lawsuit against Chinese electric carmaker BYD on allegations the company subjected 220 Chinese nationals to conditions analogous to slavery and international human trafficking at its unfinished plant in Brazil.
MTP said that it is seeking 257 million Brazilian reais (roughly $45 million) in collective moral damages from BYD, Jinjiang Group, and Tonghe Equipamentos Inteligentes do Brasil, the two contractor companies that brought the Chinese nationals to Brazilian territory for BYD.
The lawsuit was filed in the 5th Labor Court of Camaçari after the companies refused to sign a conduct adjustment agreement with local authorities.
BYD, a company with extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party, has invested for years in building a vehicle plant in the Brazilian city of Camaçari, Bahia, at a location once occupied by American carmaker Ford, which ceased all operations in Brazil in 2021. Ford sold the location that BYD now occupies to the local Bahia government in 2023.
MPT ordered the suspension of all construction works at the BYD plant in late December after a months-long investigation led to the rescue of 163 Chinese nationals found working in inhumane and unsanitary slavery conditions. An additional 57 workers were rescued at a later date for a total of 220. Days later, the Brazilian government stopped issuing work visas to BYD while the investigation continued. Further investigations determined that Jinjiang used “irregular visas” to bring roughly 500 Chinese nationals to work at the BYD plant.
MPT detailed that the all 220 rescued workers entered Brazil illegally with work visas for specialized services that did not correspond to the activities carried out at the BYD plant’s construction site. Investigators reportedly found the workers crammed into accommodations without the minimum standards of comfort and hygiene, the presence of armed surveillance, and at risk of accidents due to negligence of occupational health and safety standards.
The Prosecutor’s Office further stressed that the workers, whose passports had been seized, held employment contracts with illegal clauses such as exhausting working hours and no weekly rest.
In addition to the roughly $45 million in moral damages, MPT is demanding that BYD and the two contractors pay individual moral damages to the Chinese workers equal to 21 times their contractual salaries, plus one wage per day that the worker was subjected to conditions analogous to slavery, and the severance pay owed to each.
Furthermore, to comply with Brazilian labor protection standards and for subjecting the workers to slavery and human trafficking conditions, MPT is demanding a payment of 50,000 reais (roughly $8,720) for each breach, multiplied by the number of workers affected.
The Prosecutor’s Office reiterated in its announcement that its investigation against BYD began in October 2024 after it received an anonymous complaint. On December 23, a task force of officials of the Labor Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Public Defender’s Office, the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the Federal Highway Police, and the Federal Police arrived at the BYD plant in Camaçari and rescued the initial 163 Chinese workers. These workers were all brought to Brazil by the Jinjiang group and the second group of 57 were brought to the country by Tonghe Equipamentos Inteligentes do Brasil — now known as Tecmonta.
“The working conditions were extremely degrading. Five lodgings were maintained by BYD, Jinjiang and Tecmonta (formerly Tonghe). Some workers slept on beds without mattresses and had their personal belongings mixed in with food materials,” MPT’s statement read.
“There were few toilets, which were not separated by gender. In one of the lodgings, only one toilet was identified for use by 31 people, forcing the workers to wake up at around 04 a.m. for personal hygiene before starting the working day,” the statement continued.
The investigation found that the contractual conditions of the workers constituted forced labor, a form of modern-day slavery according to the United Nations. The Chinese workers were required to pay a deposit and had up to 70 percent of their wages withheld under threat of severe punishment should they decide to quit, while retaining their passports. Chinese workers that quit were forced to relinquish both the deposit and wages withheld, had to reimburse their inward ticket cost, and cover their own flight tickets back to China.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here
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