A/HRC/33/46 employers is in some cases ensured through threats and abuse, including physical violence.38 25. In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, bonded labour has been reported among the indigenous Guaranis in the Chaco region and among indigenous workers and mestizos on sugar plantations, and in relation to the production of Brazil nuts in the northern Amazon. 39 The indigenous Guaranis in the Chaco region are mainly involved in farming and ranching, in activities such as the production of corn, beans, cassava, plantain and fruits, and fishing and hunting. It is estimated that a large number of indigenous Guarani families in the Bolivian Chaco are subjected to debt bondage and forced labour and are thus referred to as “captive communities”. 40 Furthermore, every year during the sugar harvest, tens of thousands of indigenous workers and their families, 41 recruited by intermediaries or contractors through the enganche recruitment system,42 migrate to Santa Cruz and Tarija. 26. In Paraguay, debt bondage has reportedly been observed among members of various indigenous ethnic groups on traditional low-technology cattle farms located in remote areas of the Chaco region. 43 Casual workers are hired for changa work — short-term work clearing fields or bringing in the harvest, and receive very low pay or no pay for their work after employers have deducted amounts from their wages corresponding to the items purchased on credit at the estate shop. 44 Permanent workers are employed as playeros (ranch hands) to perform a variety of tasks, such as cutting wood or milking the cows, and in some cases due to the debts they have contracted are directly or indirectly held against their will. ILO estimated in 2005 that a total of 8,000 indigenous workers could be victims of debt bondage in Paraguay.45 27. In Brazil, the highest incidence of what is commonly referred to as “slave labour”, which includes the practice of debt bondage,46 is found in industries associated with the 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 GE.16-11363 Eduardo Bedoya Garland, Alvaro Bedoya Silva‐Santisteban and Patrick Belser, “Debt bondage and ethnic discrimination in Latin America”, in Forced Labor: Coercion and Exploitation in the Private Economy, p. 44. Ibid. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “Captive communities: situation of the Guarani indigenous people and contemporary forms of slavery in the Bolivian Chaco”, 2009. Eduardo Bedoya Garland and Alvaro Bedoya Silva‐Santisteban, “Enganche y servidumbre por deudas en Bolivia” (ILO, 2005), p. 1. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “Captive communities: situation of the Guarani indigenous people and contemporary forms of slavery in the Bolivian Chaco”, 2009, p. 7: “According to a study by the ILO, the enganche system leads to a situation of debt bondage and forced labour: To pay his debt, the farmer who receives an advance has no option other than to work in the place determined by the enganchador (intermediary or contractor) … The farmer cannot repay that advance with money, nor can he look for another recruiter who will give him more money, nor is he in a position to seek other employment … The enganche, therefore, is a system of getting labour that entails the worker’s loss of liberty and it takes place in the absence of a developed labour market”. Also: Eduardo Bedoya Garland and Alvaro Bedoya Silva‐Santisteban, “Enganche y servidumbre por deudas en Bolivia”, pp. 1 and 2. Submission from Paraguay. Eduardo Bedoya Garland and Alvaro Bedoya Silva-Santisteban, “Servidumbre por deudas y marginación en el Chaco de Paraguay” (ILO, 2005), p. ix. Ibid. Slave labour is defined in art. 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code as reducing someone to a condition analogous to that of a slave, namely subjecting a person to forced labour or to arduous working days, or subjecting such a person to degrading working conditions or restricting, in any manner whatsoever, his mobility by reason of a debt contracted in respect of the employer or a representative of that employer. See Nicola Philips and Leonardo Sakamoto, “The dynamics of adverse incorporation in 11