"After ten years as a national newspaper journalist, a holiday experience in Brazil changed journalist Matt Roper’s life. A chance encounter with an 11-year-old girl doing ‘programmes’ - prostitution - on the side of a remote motorway leads him into a dark world of exploitation and trafficking few knew existed."
A chilling tale of human trafficking, forced labour and the corruption that perpetuates this heinous criminal activity, Before the Night Comes exposes the brutal realities surrounding Brazil’s so-called ‘Exploitation Highway’. Meticulous research and first-hand experience work to create a narrative that is as disturbing as it is enlightening.
‘Exploitation highway’ is a metaphor for a trade in human misery where poverty, social injustice and corruption combine to allow opportunity for criminals, deviants and the corrupt to exploit men, women and children - their fellow human beings - for financial gain.
On holiday with a friend, Matt Roper learns by chance how young, local girls are being exploited for sex. Spurred on by his professional curiosity and a desire to expose a wrong, he digs further. What he finds is shocking and will stun the reader. The exploitation he discovered isn’t confined to the sex industry. It has become a widespread, endemic way of life that pervades the very fabric of Brazilian society. Be it in agriculture, mining, logging, hospitality or even the clothing industry; bribery, corruption and exploitation is treated as a normal part of life.
The problem doesn’t end at Brazil’s borders though. Roper skilfully explores how global trade and the demand for cheaper goods and services play a role in propagating and perpetuating what has become an international crisis. International corporations and consumers, though far removed from the fields of Brazil, are intricately connected to the exploitation of people who produce our coffee, our sugar, our timber. In one interesting section of the book, the author traces the journey of coffee beans from their origins in a Brazilian field to the shelves of luxury cafes in New York and London. The juxtaposition of the opulent lives of coffee consumers with the hellish conditions of coffee pickers is as effective as it is devastating.
Perhaps the greatest aspect to this excellent read is the author’s ability to balance harrowing personal accounts with broader socio-political analysis. As the reader is introduced to a range of characters who reveal insight into their tragic lives, the author never loses sight of the bigger picture. This careful balance ensures that the reader not only understands the individual suffering but also the systemic factors that make it possible. These accounts are not easy to read, but they are essential to enable the reader to understand and to confront the uncomfortable reality that exploitation is not a distant problem; it is intimately connected to the products we consume, the politicians we elect, and the corporations we support.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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