Gender and race in the context of contemporary slavery: insurgent debates during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The objective of this study was to understand how the social markers of gender and race impacted the experiences of black women in the context of work similar to slavery in Brazil during the Covid-19 pandemic. This objective was developed with the theoretical support of intersectionality, integrated with studies related to the sexual and racial division of productive work, which allowed a contextualized reflection on the problem analyzed here. The research design involved a qualitative methodology, using bibliographic and documental analysis techniques. As a result, it was found that the (historically) precarious insertion of black women in jobs was aggravated due to the pandemic period, a fact that facilitated, to some extent, the increase in the number of work crimes similar to slavery in the Brazilian territory after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the victimization of black women. Finally, this study concludes that there is a need to redesign public policies to confront contemporary slave labor in the light of approaches that value the particularities of gender and race of victims.