Climate disruption is leading to the onset of health problems, such as ‘heat stress’ or skin and eye diseases, while certain extreme weather events are responsible for a large number of work-related deaths every year. In Brazil, workers in the least skilled jobs are often hardest [...]Read the full article
“Maybe it’s not the right to the city that we need. […] the city represents a form of accumulation that feeds on the extraction of everything around it: the favelas, the occupations and the countryside.”Read the full article
In Brazil, the ecosystem of the Maricá restinga, a nature reserve 60 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro, could be disrupted by plans to develop a luxury resort, the environmental impact of which has been denounced by several researchers.Read the full article
Trade unions – which consider solidarity and the respect of the human rights of all people as fundamental principles – have a crucial role to play in challenging discriminatory laws, supporting the LGBTQI+ community at work and ensuring that we live in a more inclusive and respectful [...]Read the full article
“A striking parallel between both stories of the new capital cities is how both projects only reinforce a colonial state, in spite of their promoters claiming the opposite. Both projects dominate and destroy the life spaces and territories of forest communities for economic and political [...]Read the full article
For the past five years, workers in Latin America’s largest country have faced job insecurity, rising unemployment and weakened trade unions.Read the full article
Hard hit by the pandemic and several years of economic woes, Brazil’s poor population is once again experiencing disturbing levels of food insecurity, affecting nearly 125 million people, that is, almost six out of ten Brazilians.Read the full article
In an interview with Equal Times, Patah discusses the conditions that digital platform workers in Brazil face, particularly the country’s nearly 300,000 motoboys and the options available to unions for organising these workers.Read the full article
Selma Jesús de Souza promotes community work that brings social, environmental and quality-of-life improvements to her village and her territory. This includes the manufacture of acoustic insulation panels from wild cane fibre, as well as a multitude of initiatives aimed at empowering young [...]Read the full article
Brazil’s Public Labour Prosecutor’s Office is fighting on all fronts to defend the country’s workers. At the centre of this battle, which has intensified since the onset of the pandemic, are the institution’s prosecutors. Since President Jair Bolsonaro came to power in 2018, they have been faced [...]Read the full article
More and more Black influencers are using social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube to connect with audiences, monetise their content and challenge dominant media narratives about what it means to be Black and Brazilian.Read the full article
Gold prices have risen steadily over the past two years, reaching an all-time high in mid-2020. In the Brazilian Amazon, men come to seek their fortunes on forest land that the federal government should protect, but which, more and more, is succumbing to the pressures of [...]Read the full article
Since 2018, most of the murders of journalists no longer occur in countries where there is armed conflict. Now they happen in nominally peaceful nations. Neither criticism from those in power nor populist speeches assassinate journalists directly. However, they do worsen the environment for the [...]Read the full article
Living in conditions that are often more precarious than the rest of the population and with much higher health risk factors, Indigenous peoples around the world know that their very survival is on the line if the coronavirus reaches their [...]Read the full article
Antonio Lisboa:Instead of the Brazilian government exercising its regulatory role, protecting workers, safeguarding incomes and ensuring the functioning of the economy, Bolsonaro has taken a criminal and negligent stance in combating the spread of [...]Read the full article
The most frequent form of violence is bullying, with supervisors screaming and cursing at workers, threatening them if they do not produce at the required pace and harassing them for using the bathroom.Read the full article
By allowing citizens to own guns, President Bolsonaro is actively helping militias, narcotraffickers, land grabbers collaborating with agrobusinesses and other criminals gain access to even more firepower.Read the full article
Mathilde Dorcadie:The critical state of our common natural heritage is all of our responsibility. The rainforest is burning because we’ve let it happen.Read the full article
Mayra Castro :In his first four months in government, Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has adopted measures that have thrown Brazil’s fulfilment of the Agenda 2030 goals off track.Read the full article
Brazil has experienced two unprecedented human and environmental disasters, in 2015 and 2019, caused by burst mining dams. Ever since, all those who live near similar dams live in fear of another disaster.Read the full article
Glauber Sezerino :“Of all the forms of resistance seen over the last few weeks, one in particular seems the most capable of confronting the fascist menace threatening Brazil: the active and on-going resistance of women, particularly of black women.”Read the full article
In a divided country, public universities struggle to operate in the face of fire hazards, budget cuts and the threat of privatisation.Read the full article
Brazil is set to elect its new president in October. As tensions are heightened by Lula’s imprisonment, the recent assassination of councillor Marielle Franco and the stabbing of the ultra-right candidate, women are continuing to battle on the sidelines and are gaining ground in party politics [...]Read the full article
César Muñoz Acebes:The large influx of immigrants has a clear impact on a small town like Pacaraima, but Brazilians should direct their outrage at the Maduro government – not its victims.Read the full article
With their growing congregations, Evangelical churches across Latin America are working to increase their institutional presence, under the banner of conservative morals, opposing the legalisation of same-sex marriage, abortion and marijuana, [...]Read the full article
“What we want is equality, and that equality should also apply to decision-making. In this struggle, we want to stand alongside men and not be sidelined, to make decisions, particularly regarding our land.”Read the full article
In our globalised economy, as consumers and citizens, we are increasingly confronted with the impact of our purchases on the lives and health of those who produce and make our food and day-to-day objects.Read the full article
From north to south, the Americas are in the grip of an intense election year, set against the background of Lula’s imprisonment in Brazil, the participation of the FARC in Colombia, rising violence in Mexico and calls to reject the results in Cuba and Venezuela. Leading the polls are the most [...]Read the full article
Nicolò Giangrande:Franco was a prominent dissenting voice in a racist and classist society, which made her a target. But her death has triggered a new wave of activism, just at the start of a very long and uncertain presidential election.Read the full article
In the state of Amazonas, extractivists work to pay off debts to their ‘bosses’. For three generations the cycle has bound families to a life of cutting piassava, the palm fibers used to make brooms.Read the full article
Despite significant progress at both a national and international level, the socio-economic status of domestic workers in Brazil is still precarious, and new challenges are emerging.Read the full article
Sharan Burrow:Under Lula, the taste of shared prosperity gave everyone hope. Yet since Temer’s business cronies took the reins, 22 million people are now living below the poverty line and one in five families has no income.Read the full article
“The day-to-day lives of the poor population are governed by very different laws than those on paper: Rio lives by a logic of apartheid.”Read the full article
Social movements are faced with heightened repression under the governments of Temer in Brazil and Macri in Argentina. More than repression, social organisations in Colombia and Mexico talk of a war orchestrated by the elites against the people, to preserve their control over the [...]Read the full article
“We are taking action now because we want to ensure that all the women and girls who want to follow in our footsteps will have the means to achieve better results than we did, both on the pitch and elsewhere.”Read the full article