In Brazil, human tracking often occurs in remote areas such as cattle ranches, where such labor exploitation is harder to detect. In response, policymakers have entered into legally binding agreements with slaughterhouses, offering sustainability certifications in exchange for their commitment to source cattle from ranches compliant with environmental and labor standards. However, because detecting forced labor is more difficult than monitoring deforestation, these agreements may have unintended consequences in which ranchers may actually increase worker exploitation to offset the cost of environmental compliance if they believe the risk of detection is low.

Principal Investigator Grant Miller and the Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab are measuring these unintended consequences of labor trafficking in six beef-producing Brazilian states. Researchers will first examine the effects of the legally binding agreements on deforestation and on labor trafficking activity. They will then adapt a novel anti-trafficking supply chain tracing tool to the cattle ranching sector to test whether these unintended consequences can be mitigated by increasing the perceived probability of trafficking compliance audits. In doing so, they hope to create deterrent effects, reduce exploitation and inform future projects to improve labor conditions.

A foundational collaboration between the Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab and key Brazilian governmental partners, as well as frontline Brazilian Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have shaped this project, the research design, and proposed intervention. Following the project, the team will apply their technology in larger-scale contexts to reduce labor trafficking.

Co-Principal Investigator Kimberly Babiarz, PhD, a senior social science research scholar of health policy in the School of Medicine, described the motivation for this project as coming from a Brazilian collaborator who expressed frustration with the global climate movement who told them: ‘They care about the trees, but they don’t care about the people.’”

“Indeed, the tradeoffs between climate policy and the wellbeing of local populations are poorly understood,” Babiarz said. “We hope this research sheds light on both the positive and negative spillovers between environmental, and labor, and social policies, and that it ultimately leads to improved governance and protections for farm workers in regions that have become the focus of global climate policy.”

Read more about the project in these recent, related articles:

Satellite data reveals hidden labor trafficking in Brazil

The Unintended Human Cost of Global Conservation: Modern Slavery in Brazil’s Arc of Deforestation

Principal Investigators:

Grant Miller, PhD, Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor, School of Medicine

Kimberly Babiarz, PhD, Senior Social Science Research Scholar, Health Policy, School of Medicine,

Research Team:

Luis de Assis, PhD, Research Fellow, Center for Human Rights and International Justice, School of Humanities and Sciences, Chief Data Scientist, Ministério Público do Trabalho, Ministry of Labor, Brazil

Haojie Wang, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford Data Science

Jessie Brunner, MA, Associate Director of Human Trafficking Research, Center for Human Rights and International Justice, School of Humanities and Sciences

Victoria Ward, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Pediatrics, School of Medicine

Lydia Aletraris, PhD, Social Science Research Scholar, Health Policy, School of Medicine, in partnership with Ministério Público do Trabalho, Brasília, Brazil.

Funders:

Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Stanford Health Policy