ICFJ Voices: Claudia Jardim, Exploring How the Everyday Consumer is Affected by Modern Day Slavery

By: Sherry Fan |08/15/2024

Claudia Jardim is a Brazilian freelance journalist who specializes in human rights issues across Latin America and South Asia. Her impactful work earned her recognition as a 2021 Professional Fellows Program for Emerging Media Leaders (PFP EML) fellow and a 2022 Alumni Engagement Grant awardee.

Since its inception the PFP EML fellowship has supported over 200 news professionals from Latin America and the Caribbean, providing opportunities to develop digital projects through a U.S. exchange program.

Some PFP EML fellows can be selected for an ECA Alumni Engagememnt Grant, which supports media initiatives that have the potential to transform Latin American journalism. With this funding, Jardim launched No Labirinto, a podcast about modern-day slavery in Brazil.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Let's say you are talking to someone reading your ICFJ Voices profile that knows nothing about modern slavery in Brazil - what's one thing you want them to know, and why?

Well, I would say that modern slavery is an issue that is related to everybody. Modern slavery is connected to the clothes that we wear, the food we eat, the smartphones we use. The production chain is connected to modern slavery.

A t-shirt that costs only $1 or $2 would not have had a fair production. Someone was exploited to produce that t-shirt. It's not far from our reality, it's happening right now.

I think when we are informed, we can make better decisions. And this is the point of No Labrinto. If we can choose better, if we can vote better, then we can change our realities.

How did you find this beat?

So I was in Southeast Asia, and modern slavery is a part of daily life there. It's connected to the human trafficking migration, especially in Thailand. So many of the people that are enslaved there come from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos or Vietnam. A scene that makes me crazy was just a few weeks after I arrived, a group of Myanmar migrants were found dead in the jungle of Thailand. They were in cages. So basically, what the police said was, well, the deal that the trafficker had with the person didn't go well, and basically they just left them to die in the jungle. So, you know, when you face that reality, that's like 'oh my gosh.'

So nowadays, we have 50 million people worldwide being enslaved right now. It's a lot. I mean, it's a shame. It's much more than during the colonial period with the slave trade from Africa to America. And as journalists, we don't talk about that as much as we should. So that was my kick off, and then I said, well, I know that it's happening in Brazil as well. So I was writing articles for BBC and Al Jazeera about modern slavery in Southeast Asia, but I also found it interesting to narrate those stories here in Brazil.

So much of your background was in documentary and print before starting your podcast. What inspired your transition into podcasting?

Radio was never my format. But then I did podcasts with Radio Ambulante, NPR's Spanish-language podcast. And I basically fell in love with them because the structure is similar to documentary, but you need to narrate audio, right? So it was like another format, where I could write in a way that I like to - not like short versions of stories. You can use narrative and storytelling techniques that in journalism, especially in print, we don't have space for anymore. So a podcast, for me, is that space where we can experiment more. I think podcasts are a venue where we can explore more and experiment while using techniques that are interesting. I enjoy this form of storytelling.

How has your podcast evolved since receiving the Emerging Media Leaders grant in 2021?

I like to call it the seed fund. It wasn't enough to cover all production, but it did cover the research for two episodes when I was in Thailand. And it was especially important because my podcast isn't about a commercial topic. I know it's hard for people to be like, 'Okay, I'm going to do a podcast about modern slavery.' You know, it's not easy, it's not cheesy, it's not cheerful. But as a journalist, I understand that we need to talk about tough topics as well. So it was right in front of me, I should do it and take the risk. ICFJ supported me and said, 'yeah you should do it.' It's something that is not in the spotlight, but should be.

And then after that, I got an IWMF grant, and maybe if I didn't have ICFJ's support, then IWMF might not have trusted me. ICFJ's grant showed others that this project is reliable. One thing is connected to another. And then IWMF ended up funding the whole production.

I do consider that ICFJ was so important in the beginning, in the seed fund stage that helped me to trust that my idea was a good idea.

What's a 'No Labirinto' story that stands out to you?

One of my podcasts called 'Pureza: The saga of a mother searching for her enslaved son.'

I interviewed Pureza. She talked about how in her 50s, her son disappeared and she tried to find him for three and a half years. She knocked on every door in her state. Brazil is like the U.S., where states are large and many, many, many miles apart. So she was jumping from one state to another trying to find her son who was enslaved.

In the beginning, she was just looking for her son, but in a way, she understood what modern slavery looks like. And she understood the web of how guys trap workers in those situations.

This was in the 90s when the government didn't recognize modern slavery as an issue, and civil society was fighting for that. So then she was like part of this abolitionism where citizens were pushing the government to change. She was also a part of the period when the president recognized modern slavery in Brazil. She was fighting this issue. This woman was amazing.

What are you working on now?

I was just admitted to do a masters on migration and climate change. I want to combine those topics to show how some people are forced to migrate because of climate change. This makes them vulnerable to being trapped in modern slavery work.

Climate change is going to worsen the situation for everybody. People will be displaced due to climate change. And when they are forced to migrate to another country where you don't know the language, don't know the law, you become vulnerable. I want to connect the dots. Let's see.

What do you have to say to up-and-coming journalists?

I think it's key to be passionate about the story that you're going to cover. I guess this is the biggest advice I could give you because you are going to learn the other things step by step.

It's normal, in life, when we don't know everything all the time. But we are capable of learning. And this is amazing because in journalism, we have a career that we can learn from all the time. Every article pushes you to learn because you need to interview people, and then you need to study to interview that person, and then you understand another perspective from that reality that maybe you didn't know before. So it's amazing. I mean, journalism itself is a learning process that never ends.