Destination Sao Paulo: The Characters

Brazil has been generally receptive to refugees. Its legal framework is modern and permissive. Still, integration has not been easy for many migrants and would-be refugees coming across the Atlantic Ocean.

Many complain about racism and corruption in Brazil.

We interviewed many in Sao Paulo who were mulling their future as migrants, or were awaiting permanent documents – which allow them to stay and work legally in Brazil. Many were already working informally, selling goods on the streets.

Today there are is concern about exploitation of refugees in illegal sewing facilities, in particular, those led by Bolivian gangsters in the east of the city, where a large counterfeit market in Sao Paulo features clothing sewed locally by a migrant workforce.

According to a report by the Sao Paulo city government, a quarter of refugees helped by the local Reference Center for Migrant Assistance (CRAI) are educated. But due to a lack of institutional recognition of their qualifications, many end up in unskilled jobs, or illicit work.

Here are some of their stories.

Jorge, 25, Guinea-Bissau

Jorge is a trained engineer who came to Brazil two years ago, who is now selling counterfeit and smuggled clothes in a local market. His Brazilian girlfriend is now pregnant and he is waiting for a work permit in order to get a job as mason. He said that when Federal Police went to his home address to confirm he was living there – an essential step in the process of issuing a work visa to a migrant – his house mates thought they wanted to arrest him and denied he lived there. It delayed his chance of getting a permit that would allow him a legal and better-remunerated job. The lack of trust in Brazilian law enforcement is a huge issue among refugees and migrants, many say that they rarely provide help or support, but instead only make their lives more difficult.

Santa Efigenia neighbourhood

Santa Efigenia is an area of around ten street blocks in the heart of the Centro area where locals say you “won’t find anything original or any product that entered the country legally”. There are dozens of galleries with local merchants, migrants and hawkers selling their wares, and crowds shouting and grabbing to sell counterfeit and contraband electronics late in the night. When we visited, a homeless old man was setting a campfire out of trash to heat himself on the corner, the people passing by aggressively yelling at him due to the black smoke his improvised urban survival mechanism was generating.

Ibrahim, 41, Senegal

Members of the Senegalese community gather in República Square every week for a party, mounting up their own sound system, bringing drums and singing. On the night we visit around 50 people were dancing and chanting traditional Senegalese songs. Later they take a seat and discuss issues important to the community. Ibrahim, one of the group, has a talent for sewing fake Nike and Adidas logos to clothing in an improvised atelier nearby. Although he is a professional tailor and prefers to dedicate his time to his own original work, he says financial pressures meant he was forced to join the market of counterfeit designer-label clothing.

Guaianazes street, downtown Sao Paulo

On Rua Guaianazes there is a run-down mosque on the second floor of an old and degraded building, which is frequented by many African migrants. Outside, the smell of marijuana and crack is inebriating. Crowds gather on the streets in front of the packed bars, while different people ask us if we want cheap marijuana. We enter one bar that has literally no chairs or tables: there is a poster of Cameroon’s most famous footballer Samuel Eto’o on the wall, and a big snooker table in the centre while all around customers gamble, argue and smoke. The bartender tells us it is a Nigerian bar, but that it is frequented by Africans of all nationalities. Among the offers of marijuana, crack and cocaine, laughs, music and loud chat, you can barely hear to the imam’s call. Rua Guaianazes is considered to be the heart of Cracolandia, a territory controlled by organized crime for more than a decade and now reportedly home to some African-led drug trafficking gangs.

“H”, 42, Angola

“H” is an Angolan woman now living in a house rented from the Baptist church. The area outside the house is a “boca de fumo” – an open drug dealing spot managed by armed guards. “H’s” house is annexed to the church building itself, and is very rustic and simple. She arrived a year ago with two of her children, and also pregnant. She says that after the family of the Angolan president took over the market of smuggled goods in her country, her small import business started to crumble. Her husband and two more daughters are still there. She is currently unemployed, but happy that her young son is studying, although often he comes home complaining about racism at school. “H” does not want him to play with the neighbourhood children, she is afraid he will be drawn to narco-trafficking if he gets in with the wrong crowd. In the long run, she wants to go back to Angola, but only under “a different political situation.”