The Secret World of Modern Slavery

Toyota Affiliate

Intat Precision Inc., a Rushville, Indiana-based foundry and casting company owned by an affiliate of Toyota, buys Brazilian pig iron from National Material Trading to make steel in two foundries, says Andy Lambros, Intat's chief metal buyer.

Intat produces engine parts for Toyota, according to Intat's Web site, including engine brackets for Avalon sedans, exhaust flanges for Camry sedans, brake drums for Tacoma pickups, brake rotors for Tundra pickups and parts for Lexus RX 330 SUVs.

Intat parts end up at Toyota factories, including the company's largest U.S. plant, located in Georgetown, Kentucky. Intat has been buying Brazilian pig iron from National Material Trading since 1990.

Intat prefers Brazilian pig iron because it rarely varies in chemical makeup, Lambros says. Intat is owned by Toyota City, Japan-based auto parts manufacturer Aisin Seiki Co. Toyota is Aisin's principal stockholder.

Sinks and Bathtubs

In a written response, Lambros says Intat isn't aware of using any products traced to slave labor. ``Intat does not condone to any degree the abuses you outlined,'' he wrote. ``We will take every step necessary to purchase materials from suppliers and subsuppliers that respect the rights of all people. Intat is now taking actions to review our entire supplier chain.''

Brazilian pig iron also goes into sinks and bathtubs. Kohler has been buying about 900 tons of pig iron from Brazil yearly from National Material Trading, says Kevin Fair, Kohler's metals buyer for sinks and tubs.

Kohler feeds the pig iron into a foundry in Wisconsin to make the base for enameled bathtubs and kitchen sinks. ``Anything we make out of cast iron uses pig iron, and a lot of it comes from Brazil,'' Fair says.

Kohler's Cassady says the company forbids suppliers and their subcontractors from using slave labor. He says Kohler has stopped buying pig iron from National Material Trading so it can investigate the Brazilian government's findings.

`Virtually Every Model'

Waupaca, Wisconsin-based foundry and casting company ThyssenKrupp Waupaca Inc. buys about 35,000 tons of pig iron a month from National Material Trading to make parts for DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Nissan and Toyota, says Doug Pohl, who purchases metals for ThyssenKrupp Waupaca, a unit of ThyssenKrupp AG, Germany's biggest steelmaker.

``Virtually every model that Ford and GM sell have our parts,'' Pohl says. The pig iron the company uses is made to its specifications by Cosipar and purchased from National Material Trading, Pohl says.

The company also makes brake calipers for the Honda Civic, according to its Web site.

Honda says it's conducting an investigation into the slavery question. ``Honda does not tolerate any unfair or inhumane labor practice,'' spokesman David Iida says.

Social Responsibility

ThyssenKrupp spokesman Christian Koenig says he's surprised to learn about the use of slave labor. ``ThyssenKrupp Waupaca is committed to policies that promote, and do not diminish, social responsibility,'' he says. ``We are looking into your allegations.'' GM spokeswoman McGill says the company contacted ThyssenKrupp Waupaca to make sure there was no slave labor in its supply chain.

ThyssenKrupp Waupaca also makes brake drums and weights for Deere & Co. tractors and combines. Moline, Illinois-based Deere is investigating whether parts it buys from Waupaca contain Brazilian pig iron, Deere spokesman Ken Golden says.

``John Deere will not engage in or support the use of forced or involuntary labor and will not purchase materials or services from a supplier utilizing forced or involuntary labor,'' he says.

While Brazilian authorities have made some headway in tracing the use of pig iron that originates with slaves, their counterparts in Peru have had little success tracking the trail of a more precious commodity that also starts with forced labor: gold.

``There's really no information,'' says Guillermo Miranda, who heads a Peruvian government task force directed against forced labor. ``There's no structure out there to measure the problem.''

Rivers Choked

About 25,000 people work in gold-panning sites in the Amazon, producing more than 7 metric tons a year. There are at least 2,000 such mines stretching for a total length of 125 miles, which have turned rain forest into a moonscape of scarred mounds and rivers choked with mercury-tainted silt.

The gold makes its way into some of the biggest banks in the world, says Grant Angwin, a Salt Lake City-based general manager at London-based gold refiner Johnson Matthey Plc, which buys most of the gold from the area. Angwin declined to comment about slavery.

Thousands of miners go without pay for months and are not permitted to leave, says Juan Climaco, a judge based in Huepetuhe, a town of 12,000 in the Peruvian Amazon, who's investigating more than 30 slavery cases.

`Worst Conditions Imaginable'

``We are talking about people forced to work in the worst conditions imaginable, without pay, and they really have no way out,'' Climaco, 38, says.

In Delta 1, a mining town on the western edge of the Amazon, Wilma Huamani Sacsi cries as she recalls the death of her son, Luis Alberto, weeks before he would have turned two.

She'd been working without pay as a cook in a gold mine for five months until late April, when her son grew gravely ill. He had crawled in the dirt at her feet and eaten the same watery soup, rice, beans and bits of meat she prepared for the miners.

``This is exploitation of the worst kind,'' Huamani, 33, says. ``I know that. No one has the right to treat another human being like this.''

Luis Alberto's belly grew swollen from a kidney infection. Huamani begged her boss, Chedo Mateos, for enough money to visit a health clinic, she says. ``I needed the money to save my little boy, but the boss just screamed at me and told me to go back to work,'' she says. Mateos couldn't be located for comment.

`Dead in My Arms'

Huamani says she set out on foot, walking 14 miles to the nearest clinic, cradling her son in her arms. Maguin, the doctor at a clinic in Delta 1, says he told her she needed to make a 120-mile journey to a hospital to save her son. Huamani begged on the streets for money to pay for the next leg of her journey.

By the time she had raised the money, it was too late. Luis Alberto died on May 17, Maguin says. ``I had to bring him all the way back here, dead in my arms,'' Huamani says, sobbing. ``I didn't even have enough money for a coffin. We had to bury my little boy in the dirt across the river.''

Huamani coughs frequently, her 5-foot-2-inch frame shuddering because she's suffering from tuberculosis, Maguin says. She came to the area from a farm near Cuzco in Peru's impoverished Andean Altiplano plateau, where there are few jobs. She's found part-time work in a restaurant in Delta 1, hoping to scrape together enough money for the journey home.

Intestinal Parasites

Slavery frequently brings sickness and death, Maguin says. About 90 percent of the children he treats have intestinal parasites from drinking polluted water, playing in the mud in the streets or swimming in streams where sewage flows, he says.

``Unfortunately, cases like this aren't that uncommon,'' says Santos Cordero, a 55-year-old shopkeeper who volunteers as the sole representative of Peru's central government in Delta 1. When workers bring him a complaint, Cordero contacts government ministries.

Men and women take jobs in slave camps because there's no work to be found at home. About 100 miles from Cuzco, Helena Condori has been sharing her family's adobe hut on a wind-swept plateau with her sister and two nephews. Condori, 37, is starting to worry.

Her brother-in-law, Tito Hurtado, left in April, lured by the promise of jobs in gold mines on the other side of the snowcapped Andean peaks. Hurtado, 25, wanted to send money to his wife, Rosana Condori, to put their 8-year-old son through school and buy milk and clothes for their 1- year-old daughter.

Hurtado found work at Cuatro Amigos, or Four Friends, a mine near a fetid heap of mud close to Huepetuhe. He says he hasn't been paid in the three months he's been there.

<   Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7   >

		Email this article Printer friendly format