The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has published a report that states that 30,000 Peruvians are the victims of forced labour in the Amazon region.

Illegal lumberjacks, entering indigenous communities, offer money and goods such as rice and salt, before insisting that members of the community then work to pay back their ‘debts’. The indigenous people are forced to work, cutting down local forests taking wood from their territories.

The lumberjacks, taking advantage of local peoples lack of knowledge of the price of wood and the value of their labour, sign people up to 10-year contracts.

The report found that this method of forced labour is prevalent throughout the Amazon region. The highest levels of forced labour were found in Ucayali, Madre de Dios and Loreto, most as a result of the illegal trade in wood.

The report found other problems relating to forced labour are prostitution within the lumberjack camps, inhumane working conditions, money laundering and drug trafficking. The negative impact on local communities thus, is over whelming.

The report recommends that forestry companies operating in Peru must be subject to regulations protecting the working conditions of the people who cut the wood they buy.

In response to the report Roberto Servat, the Minister for labour, said “The responsibility is with all members of civil society. For that reason, the government is forming a multi-sector commission and a strategy for the eradication of the practice of forced labour with the participation of those subjected to forced labour, forestry companies, lumberjacks, indigenous workers, the Ministry of Labour and NGO’s etc.”.