Trabalho escravo contemporâneo na cadeia produtiva da moda: a responsabilidade empresarial das marcas por violações aos direitos fundamentais na era do ESG

Abstract

This monograph analyzes the phenomenon of contemporary slave labor in the fashion supply chain and the corporate responsibility of brands, in light of the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) agenda, using paradigmatic cases from the national and international industry as reference. It starts from an understanding of global value chains in the garment sector, marked by cascading outsourcing, productive fragmentation, and constant pressure to reduce costs and lead times, to demonstrate how this structural design feeds into the four hypotheses of Article 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code (forced labor, exhaustive working hours, degrading conditions, and debt bondage) in garment workshops that supply major brands. This qualitative research adopts a deductive method and is based on literature review, documentary analysis, and case studies, with emphasis on episodes involving brands such as Zara and Animale, as well as on national and international normative frameworks for the protection of fundamental rights. ESG is examined as a governance and human rights due diligence framework, articulating the social function of the company, supply chain civil liability, theories such as risk–benefit and willful blindness, and instruments of reputational regulation, such as the Brazilian “dirty list” of slave labor. The study concludes that, in long and outsourced chains, it is not enough to hold only the immediate workshop owner liable; it is essential to assign duties of prevention, mitigation, and reparation to the brands that coordinate production and concentrate the economic benefit, under penalty of reducing ESG to mere marketing discourse disconnected from the reality of the supply chain.