“‘Morally repugnant’: Brazilian workers sue coffee supplier to Starbucks over ‘slavery-like conditions’”, 24 April 2025

“John” was just days from turning 16 when he was allegedly recruited to work on a Brazilian coffee farm that supplies the global coffeehouse chain Starbucks…

Unpaid and without protective equipment such as boots and gloves, he worked under a scorching sun from 5.30am to 6pm with only a 20-minute lunch break, until he was rescued in a raid by Brazilian authorities in June 2024.

The official report from that operation concluded that John had been subjected to “child labour in hazardous conditions”, and that he and other workers had been “trafficked and subjected to slavery-like conditions”.

This week, John and seven other Brazilian workers… filed a civil lawsuit in the US against Starbucks, with the support of International Rights Advocates (IRA), seeking financial compensation for the harm they allege to have suffered.

On Thursday, the NGO Coffee Watch also filed a complaint with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seeking to “exclude coffee and coffee products produced ‘wholly or in part’ with forced labour in Brazil” from being imported by Starbucks and other major companies such as Nestlé, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Dunkin’, Illy and McDonald’s.

In Brazil, coffee farming is the economic sector with the highest number of workers rescued from conditions analogous to slavery…

A Starbucks spokesperson said: “The cornerstone of our approach to buying coffee is Coffee and Farmer Equity (Cafe) Practices, one of the coffee industry’s first set of ethical sourcing standards when it launched in 2004 and is continuously improved.

“Developed in collaboration with Conservation International, Cafe Practices is a verification program that measures farms against economic, social, and environmental criteria, all designed to promote transparent, profitable, and sustainable coffee growing practices while also protecting the well-being of coffee farmers and workers, their families, and their communities.”