Killings of landless peasants and rural slavery in Brazil increased in 2002 as more rural areas became a battleground for land ownership, the Roman Catholic Church said on Thursday.
During the year, 37 peasants were killed in conflicts over ownership of 6.2 million acres of land, compared with 29 peasants killed over 5.4 million acres in 2001, according to the Pastoral Land Commission.
It was the highest number of killings, apart from 1996, when 19 peasants were massacred and 69 injured as police cleared a highway they were blocking in the northern state of Para to press demands for land.
"The situation in the countryside is horrible, hellish," said Bishop Tomas Balduano, president of the Pastoral Land Commission, presenting preliminary results of a report saying that more than 5,600 Brazilian rural workers are treated like slaves.
In 2001, the Commission counted 2,416 rural slave workers.
"The rise in slave workers is frightening," said Antonio Canuto, one of the report's coordinators.
Canuto estimated that the real number of rural slave workers was much higher -- at least 20,000.
"We calculate that for each known case of slavery there are up to five hidden cases," he said, adding that slavery mostly occurred on remote farms.
Para state in northern Brazil contains the largest number of rural slave workers, followed by neighboring Maranhao state and Mato Grosso in the Center-West, Canuto said.
Bernardo Manuano, one of the report's advisers, criticized the legal system for failing to take stamp out rural slavery.
Farmers very often went unpunished and this encouraged them to continue making peasants work as slaves, Canuto said.
Brazil's Catholic Church created the Pastoral Land Commission in 1975 to help organize rural workers and report on violence and injustice against them. Since 1985 it has conducted an annual survey of rural land conflicts.