It is impossible not to associate immigrants with the worst that our societies can do. A few days ago, the media reported on an operation in Portugal that apparently sought to intervene in cases very close to slavery. It is easy to enslave an immigrant in Portugal, especially one who is illegal and has few means of defending themselves in a strange land. There are terrible suspicions. It is likely that businesspeople and several so-called “law enforcement officers” may have been involved in the exploitation of these poor people. The courts must get to the bottom of this because the possible involvement of police and military personnel from the GNR (National Republican Guard) in such acts raises the problem to a level of gravity that is difficult to qualify.

These people are expected to ensure the functioning of the democratic rule of law by enforcing and complying with the laws and the Constitution. However, there are no laws that allow such alleged abuses, and even less so does the Constitution allow slavery, especially with the help of those who should be fighting it with all their might. Portugal is, indeed, on the international list of countries that practice slavery. In addition to this latest case, we must remember dozens and dozens of cases investigated or reported in recent years, all of which are shameful. This cannot continue to happen—and it does happen because some interpret capitalism as an ideology that allows the exploitation of others in any way (and that is not what it is about…), because there are unscrupulous people everywhere, and because there are those who believe that immigrants should be treated like work animals, without rights and without prospects for integration into our society. All of this shames us.

Things are not much better in the rest of the world, but that should not be a consolation to us; quite the contrary. According to credible data, there are more than 50 million slaves in the world right now, and immigrants or migrants are vulnerable and susceptible to such inhumanity. But modern slavery takes many forms—it involves women forced into marriage against their will and others who are sexually exploited; children who are also “used” for labor and sex, in the latter case becoming involved in networks of perverts that are difficult to dismantle because they appear to be protected at high levels in our societies. And we have classic slave labor in various countries, some supposedly democratic, others totalitarian. This state of affairs has shown no signs of improving—quite the contrary.

We will wait and see how the investigations progress, what efforts are made to secure convictions, and what penalties are imposed. Because it is urgent to deter.

In Diário Insular-José Louren’ço, director, and Armando Mendes (PhD), editor-in-chief.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL).