Ecuador's justice has, for the first time ever, brought a company to trial for human trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation. The company being indicted is the Japanese Furukawa Plantations C.A.
The judge in charge, Susana Sotomayor, also indicted Marcelo Almeida as the direct author of the crime, and Hugo Chalen and Paúl Bolaños as co-authors of the crime. They were also charged with child and adolescent labor violations.
"We believe that taking Furukawa to trial was very accurate and coherent given the more than one hundred pieces of evidence gathered by the Prosecutor's Office," stated Alejandra Zambrano, a lawyer who is a member of the case's litigation team. “It's especially fair to the victims, who have the right to demand responsibility, sanctions, and reparation,” she added.
The Japanese company has been in the spotlight since 2018 when a report by the Ombudsman's Office, which was made public in the first half of the following year, stated that the company had employed modern slavery throughout its almost six decades of history. The agency detailed the absolute absence of labor rights, subhuman housing, child, and adolescent labor conditions that 1,244 people were subjected to, according to their own census. That's why they urged ten state portfolios to put an end to the abuses. Later reports confirmed the entity's complaints.
The prosecution demands public apologies and measures of non-repetition. “We're also asking for financial compensation to the victims, who are mostly people that will be unable to join the labor market,” stated Alejandro Morales, a lawyer for the 106 plaintiffs. The process has just started, but the plaintiffs and their lawyers already feel relief. “It's a first step, but it's a step that had to be taken,” Zambrano said.
As detailed by the Attorney General's Office of the State of Ecuador, Furukawa, a Japanese capital company, was established in Santo Domingo de Los Tsáchilas in 1963. “The company is dedicated to the cultivation and processing of abaca, a plant from which they obtain very resistant plant fibers that are used to manufacture paper. This raw material is also used in the textile and automotive industries.”
“Currently, Furukawa has some 32 farms in the provinces of Santo Domingo, Los Rios, and Esmeraldas. However, since the Ombudsman's Office presented the Human Rights Verification Report, several camps have been abandoned or destroyed."
Source: elpais.com