Brazil Branches of US-Based Church Target of Numerous Probes
Church Based human trafficking and forced labor — it’s just religious freedom in action…///
When workers made a mistake, such as cutting a frame too short, she says they were screamed at and sometimes even hit to expunge the “devil” behind the error. And when Stylofino stopped paying its workers for months, Souza said the company’s co-owners — members of a Brazilian branch of the U.S.-based church — had a ready explanation.
“They said the business was struggling because we were sinners,” she said.
The business and its labor practices are under investigation by Brazilian authorities — just one of several inquiries launched into a pair of churches connected to Word of Faith Fellowship, a secretive evangelical sect based in Spindale, North Carolina.
The Associated Press has learned that Brazilian prosecutors also are looking into possible improprieties in a land deal involving one of the churches. And education ministries in two Brazilian states said they are investigating allegations that church schools physically and psychologically abused students and redacted textbooks in violation of state policy.
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