Woman returns home to those who would have enslaved her – 09/09/2023 – Market

The STJ (Superior Court of Justice) and the STF (Supreme Federal Court) authorized the return of a 50-year-old woman to the home of a judge from Santa Catarina who was being investigated for allegedly keeping her in work similar to slavery.

The woman was found by the Federal Police at the magistrate’s residence, in the Itacorubi neighborhood, in Florianópolis. According to investigations, she lived in a moldy room at the back of the house and had done domestic work for two decades.

Through a press office, Borba’s family states that they will not give an interview or make comments out of respect for the judicial secrecy in which the process is being processed. In June, when the case became public, the couple denied any degrading conditions.

The judge of the TJ-SC (Court of Justice of Santa Catarina) also stated, at the time, that he would recognize the woman, who is deaf and illiterate, as an affectionate daughter. In a note sent to Sheet, Borba also said that he intended to “return to family life”. This would guarantee the alleged victim the right to inheritance.

STJ minister Mauro Campbell Marques accepted the Borba family’s requests. Marques wrote in a decision dated August 18 that the report from the MPF (Federal Public Ministry) did not indicate the risk of a possible practice of work analogous to slavery occurring again in the case.

He thus allowed the woman to choose to return to the residence, if she wished. The STJ minister also recognized the “patent difficulty in communication”.

Federal public defender William Charley Costa de Oliveira, in turn, tried to suspend the effects of the decision with a habeas corpus presented to the STF. He argued that this is a serious case still under investigation.

It was Charley who confirmed to the reporter the woman’s return to the Borba family residence. The information was first published by UOL.

At the STF, Minister André Mendonça refused the public defender’s requests for not identifying a risk of irreparable harm or plausibility of the right in question.

The ministers of the STF and the STJ argue that it is up to the MPF to continue the investigations. The criminal action continues under judicial secrecy.