In Ecuador, courts are due to rule in landmark cases of labor exploitation and slavery. Agricultural workers say they suffered decades of abuse on plantations producing plant fiber for Japanese company Furukawa, whose representatives could face fail time.
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00:00If you look at the extra bend in his leg, you can see Jose Clemente Chavez lives in pain.
00:07He broke it while working on a plantation and says his employer didn't give him proper medical care.
00:13He was operating a machine like this when the upper calf fibers he was processing caught his leg.
00:19The injuries from that and other accidents left him disabled,
00:23but he says the Japan-based company Furukawa, which exported the product, never compensated him.
00:28He says there was little consideration for safety and no support for those who were injured.
00:33With my legs, I only feel like I'm half alive.
00:37When you're incapacitated, they pretend to not know you anymore,
00:40and they don't help at all because they don't know you.
00:43You're not worth anything if you say you're incapacitated.
00:46That's the thing about Furukawa.
00:49Chavez is from Ecuador's Santo Domingo region.
00:52He's just one of 338 workers from across the country who are suing the company in court.
00:58The accusations include negligence, lack of safe working conditions, health care and clean drinking water.
01:04It's a huge case, which also includes claims of child labor and modern slavery.
01:09Susana Quiñones says she started working here when she was just six years old
01:14and spent decades in inhumane conditions.
01:17She told us she gave birth to seven children on the plantation with no medical care.
01:23It was very tough because we had to work during pregnancy with our big bellies.
01:28We got used to it. Sometimes we would be working with the fiber right up until birth pain started.
01:33Lacking maternal leave, she and other women got back to work directly after birth.
01:38Former workers show us how they would harvest the abaca for turning into rope, paper and fibers.
01:46They claim not only was it dangerous, they usually had no breaks or days off.
01:51If they didn't work, they wouldn't be paid.
01:54Campaigners say more than 80% of the workers live in extreme poverty.
02:03Ecuador's government testified during the trial against Furukawa.
02:07This is what the labor minister told us.
02:11Previous governments, including the Ministry of Labor,
02:15didn't stop the situation that, from my point of view, is one of the most emblematic
02:20because here we are talking about slave labor.
02:24In the case of Furukawa, it was all there.
02:30Abaca exporter Furukawa's current manager insists the workers always had social security and medical care,
02:37but he says responsibility for those things was partly in the hands of local contractors until 2018.
02:46The company could have had a closer relationship with the contractors
02:50to find out if there were problems while processing the fiber.
02:55That is something that could have been improved.
02:59But to speak about slavery is very, very, very far-fetched.
03:05The workers say they lost childhoods, education and health.
03:11We indeed have suffered here at this company, so we demand justice and reparation.
03:16At the end of the day, the judges too are fathers and mothers.
03:20Those judges in the penal court and the constitutional court could make historic decisions,
03:26setting out responsibility and accountability for workers' rights in Ecuador.