"In Brazil, charcoal industry fuels illegal deforestation and slavery", 04 January 2022

...[A] dozen charcoal kilns burned wood day and night, filling the air with smoke, next to piles of logs illegally cut from the endangered Cerrado biome, South America's largest savanna...

That fuel, used by steel mills and for the traditional Brazilian barbecue, has links to both labor rights abuses and environmental violations.

...[S]everal...men were hired in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais for jobs in center-west Goias state where they were forced to work in conditions labor inspectors who found them in December described as "slavery-like"...

In 2015, Brazil was the world's top producer of charcoal, the most recent available FAO data shows.

Brazil's steel mills rely on charcoal, much of which is made from native forests, said Roberto Kishinami, energy coordinator at the Rio de Janeiro-based Institute for Climate and Society.

"We do not consider charcoal as sustainable because charcoal from reforestation and from native forests mix, and ... there is no control process in the steel industry for it," he said...

In 2021, about 40% more workers were rescued from charcoal production sites than in 2020, said Krepsky, who attributed the rise to the current high charcoal price.

This year, 66 workers were found in slavery-like conditions at just one site, something not seen for a decade, he added...

On Dec. 6, labor inspectors from Brazil's anti-slavery mobile enforcement group rescued Antonio and 11 other workers from three locations, in an operation joined by the Thomson Reuters Foundation...

They found workers living in a dilapidated brick building, where they covered holes in the walls with plastic bags to keep out scorpions and burned firewood inside to drive out mosquitoes.

At the third site, they found a 16-year-old helping with charcoal production, which is prohibited under Brazilian law. It was his first job, and he had stopped going to school to do it...