BRAZILIAN FARMER TALKS TO GOVERNMENT INSPECTORS ABOUT HIS SLAVE LABORERS, 2003-09-22 (photo)

Brazilian farmer, Marcos Antonio Araujo Braga (R), is interrogated by inspectors from the Labor Ministry about 22 slave laborers that he has exploited for the past six months on his property, the Bom Jesus farm in the Amazon basin, some 1,600 kilometers (994 miles) north of Brasilia, where they have been illegally exploited for the past six months, September 22, 2003. As teams of government inspectors and federal police step up their quest to free an estimated 25,000 slave laborers, there is no doubt that Brazil's feudal slavery traditions are still alive and well in pockets of its hardscrabble northeast, more than a century after the practice was abolished. PP031000003 REUTERS/Rickey Rogers/FEATURE/BRAZIL-SLAVERY RR/SV