The raid took place in the city of Sao Paulo The owners of Spanish fashion chain Zara say they are strengthening the oversight of their production system after workers were found toiling in a Brazilian sweatshop.
A raid in Sao Paulo found mostly Bolivian immigrants working for a pittance in unsafe conditions.
Inditex, the parent company of Zara, said it had zero tolerance for such infringements.
The workers were employed illegally by a subcontractor, Inditex said.
A raid in Sao Paulo found people working in cramped, unsanitary conditions, for long hours.
Electrical wires dangled dangerously from the walls above piles of fabric, says the BBC's Paulo Cabral, who accompanied officials on their raid.
The people were being paid between 12 and 20 cents a piece - the equivalent of 7-12 US cents (4p-7p), Brazilian media reported.
Best practiceInditex, the world's biggest clothes retailer, said 15 people had been found working in a factory for a subcontractor without their knowledge.
Upon learning of the case, Inditex acted immediately, a company statement said.
"The supplier has accepted full responsibility and is paying financial compensation to the workers as required by Brazilian law and the Inditex Code of Conduct," the statement said.
The supplier was also going to improve the subcontractors' working conditions to bring them in line with those at facilities audited and approved by Inditex inspectors, it went on.
Inditex has approximately 50 suppliers in Brazil, which employ more than 7,000 workers.
The company said it wanted to "foster the best conditions possible in the Brazilian textile industry".
There are hundreds of factories in Sao Paulo state, producing garments for Brazil's booming market, our correspondent says.
Recently the Brazilian authorities formed a special task force to locate and shut down sweatshops.
Many of the workers are smuggled into Brazil from Bolivia, said Luiz Alexandre Faria from the labour ministry.
"They can't leave the workshop until they pay for their journey. Some employers even confiscate the workers' documents," he told the BBC.
Brazil's criminal code classifies slave-like labour as instances including when a person is forced to work exhausting hours, subjected to an unsafe working environment and prevented or restricted in their movement to and from work.
Fifteen years ago in El Monte, California, law enforcement officials discovered 72 Thai nationals confined in an apartment complex ringed with barbed wire, lured to this country with promises of achieving the American dream. Under conditions of forced labor and slavery, some of the victims had been confined for as long as seven years. A seven-member Thai family led by a ringleader known as the notorious “Aunt Suni” was apprehended at the scene. The story made national and international headlines as the first case of modern-day slavery since the abolishment of slavery in the United States.
Written by Los Angeles playwright, Henry Ong, “Fabric” is the only known dramatization of the 1995 Thai garment workers’ slavery case. Company of Angels, Los Angeles’ oldest professional non-profit theater company, in association with the Thai Community Development Center (CDC), opened “Fabric” to sold-out audiences and standing ovations this past weekend.
Fabric is presented by Company of Angels, inside the Black Box at The Alexandria, 501 S. Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles, and will run through August 8. Performances are on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 4:30 p.m. Tickets at $20 can be purchased at www.companyofangels.org.
Founded in 1959 as an artists’ cooperative, Company of Angels recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, making it the oldest non-profit professional theater in Los Angeles. The theater produces works that reflect the diversity of Los Angeles and the issues the City faces.
Thai CDC was founded in 1994, one year before the El Monte slavery case, with a mission to advance the social and economic well being of low and moderate income Thais and other ethnic communities in the Greater Los Angeles. The issues of human trafficking and slavery are an integral part of Thai CDC’s work as a majority of trafficking cases involve Thai nationals.
FABRIC
by Henry OngCo-Directors: Marlene Forte and Tchia Casselle
Produced by Kila Kitu, Joyce Liu, Henry Ong & Deborah Geer
Assoc. Produced by Gregory Gately
Starring: *Jennifer Chang, *Feodor Chin, Jolene Kim, *Dian Kobayashi, Jully Lee, Rudy Marquez, *P.J. Marshall, Eddie Mui, *Diana Toshiko, Ben Wang, *Jeff Watson, *Andy Hamrick
*Member of Actors Equity AssociationJULY 8 – AUGUST 8, 2010
Friday, Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 4:30pm
$20 General
$12 Students & Seniors
Box Office: (213) 489-3703 / info@companyofangels.orgLighting Design: Christopher Singleton
Sound Designer: Dennis Yen
Stage Manager: Amelia Worfolk
Set Design: Luis DelgadoLocation:
Company of Angels
inside The Black Box at The Alexandria
501 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Want to check it out, L.A. folks? 8Asians is doing a ticket giveaway on their site this week.
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Joz... sounds like "Jaws" jozjozjoz is an asian american gal who lives and blogs underneath the hollywood sign and who doesn’t clean her fishtank unless the fish starts to do the backstroke. she is also able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but cannot stop from bumping into door handles, cabinet doors, and anything else that protrudes or has a sharp edge. she does not run with scissors for this same reason. she can pet the fur off a dog but don’t ask her to go anywhere near a horse. or a moth. or a roach. her dealings with L.A.’s finest (aka the parking violations department) are legend, as are her giant sneezes. Other than the two too many joz’s, jozjozjoz is a perfectly normal, relatively sane individual who defies the odds, reaches for the stars, and carries moonbeams home in a jar. She’d rather be a fish… but not in her own dirty fishtank. aside from her personal blog at jozjozjoz.com, she also writes at 8Asians.com 
Sweatshops, child labor, and human trafficking in factories are usually talked about in association with far away places, like Cambodia or China. But in reality, sweatshops sit intertwined with other businesses in America, near restaurants, gas stations, and shopping malls. And the city that may seem the farthest from a dirty, cramped sweatshop — glitter-soaked Los Angeles — is actually a hot spot for sweatshops and slave labor.
Fifteen years ago this week, before human trafficking was even a crime in the U.S., 72 Thai nationals were found in a factory just outside Los Angeles. They had been working 20 hours a day to produce clothing. Today, Los Angeles remains a hub for sweatshop and labor trafficking activity. L.A.-based anti-trafficking organization CAST has seen their case load increase by about 200% in the past year, much of which has been individuals trafficked for forced labor. Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck, who has investigated human trafficking cases for over 30 years, says that the Department of Labor has fined area businesses tens of thousands of dollars for improperly paying workers.
Even in America, however, the sweatshops are populated mostly with immigrants from countries where sweatshops are common. Go figure, American dream. For example. 46% of CAST's recent caseload were Latinos, 24% were Southeast Asians, and 12% were East Asians. Sweatshops can employ men, women, and children, but children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in factories. And because of their size, they often get tasked with dangerous jobs.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the raid on an El Monte apartment complex where more than 70 Thai nationals were being held against their will and forced to sew garments in sweatshop conditions.
After they were freed in the raid, the victims sued some prominent clothing companies and collected about $4 million in damages.
On Tuesday, some of those women joined public officials in speaking out about human trafficking and how important it is to be vigilant since slave sweatshops are still in business in Southern California.
Rotchana Sussman, one of the El Monte victims, said she was conned into coming to America, but when she arrived she was locked in an apartment complex that had armed guards and barbed wire on the fences. She had been forced to sew garments 18 to 20 hours a day.
"These human beings came for the American dream," Los Angeles City Council Member Tony Cardenas told the news conference called Tuesday. "What they got, was a nightmare."
The news conference was held on the south lawn of L.A. City Hall. Cardenas, who said he has worked on this issue since 2003, wanted people to know this was not just a third world crime: "This crime is occurring in our back yard every single day."
Cardenas cited a new report that estimated Latinos make up 46 percent of the victims, Southeast Asians, 24 percent; and East Asians, 12 percent.
Cardenas said the current state of the economy may be making people more vulnerable to human trafficking crimes.
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck called it one of the worst crimes because it dehumanizes everybody. He has set up the L.A. Metro Task Force Against Human Trafficking, and he hopes to fight back "through prosecution, education and through partnership we can make a difference."
Task force member Kevin McClure said they've put together billboards, bus bench campaigns to help the public figure out what to look for in case human trafficking is occurring in your neighborhood.
The Task Force works in cooperation with the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Jose Guzman, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of ICE, said there's more than one reason to be on the lookout for traffickers.
The same routes and methods these criminal networks use, can be used by terrorists seeking to do us harm," Guzman said.
At the news conference, some of the survivors of El Monte held up colorful quilts they had made themselves as a show of solidarity.
Sussman urged the public to call the police if they suspected people were being held as slaves.
"Please, everyone, don't overlook the situation. Human trafficking existed then and it exists now," Sussman said.
Speaking Out Against Human Trafficking | NBC Los Angeles
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