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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
A group of homeless children were recruited to work at a shopping mall to help the customers carry their bags and to also clean the bathrooms, the floors, and parking lots of the mall. They were promised compensation from the shopping mall but what they got were only the tips from some of the costumers. The children were afraid of saying something to the owners because they knew that they could lose even the tips from the customers. However, a small group of courageous kids protested for their salary. The owners immediately fired the protesters, cleared them out of the area, and did not pay them for their work. They made sure to tell everyone that letting the children receive a tip and stay in the mall during the day is more than enough.
Response and intervention
The victims won the case, but the company has appealed the judge's decision CONNATS CONNATS, a social movement of children run by children, was created to protect working children's rights and to prevent the exploitation and slavery of children. CONNATS decided that it was necessary to take this case to court because there is a corporate culture in Paraguay (and in the rest of the world) that makes children consent to unpaid work due to their necessity to subsist.