Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Charged Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Franco da Rocha, São Paulo, Brazil · 2018

Brazil: labor prosecutors sue a Word of Faith Fellowship-linked church for forced labor of congregants

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Charged

Authority role

pastors using deliverance/spiritual-control doctrine, affiliated church leadership (Word of Faith Fellowship, US)

Organization

Ministério Evangélico Comunidade Rhema, Word of Faith Fellowship (US affiliate)

Spiritual nexus

Pastoral spiritual authority and a 'deliverance'/demon-purging control doctrine were used to override congregants' free will and self-determination, which the labor prosecutor cited as the coercive mechanism constituting labor analogous to slavery.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2018-01-01 · civil action filed by government labor prosecutor

    Ministério Público do Trabalho (Public Labor Prosecutor's Office), 2ª Região (São Paulo), Brazil. Brazil's Public Labor Prosecutor's Office filed a civil action (case no. 1000125-39.2018.5.02.0292) against Ministério Evangélico Comunidade Rhema and its school, alleging pastors used psychological coercion to nullify congregants' free will, compelling unpaid labor and funneling young members to the US as unpaid laborers under the guise of 'Spiritual Seminars' run by Word of Faith Fellowship. The prosecutor sought dissolution of the church/school and damages.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • psychological coercion to override congregants' free will
  • unpaid labor framed through 'spiritual seminars'

Primary record

Sources

official prosecuting authority charging report 'Igreja é processada por exploração de mão de obra de fiéis', Ministério Público do Trabalho, 2ª Região (2018).

The Brazilian labor prosecutor's office documents its civil action alleging the church used spiritual coercion to compel unpaid labor.

local reporting charging corroboration 'Brazilian prosecutors sue to shut church over forced labor', WLOS (2018).

Corroborates the Brazilian labor-prosecutor action against the Word of Faith Fellowship-linked church.

Contextual record

Background & context

Institutional and pattern-level sources on Christian institutions & contexts, not specific to this one case.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice (2004) 'The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950-2002' [the 'John Jay Report'], via Bishop-Accountability.org. Available at: bishop-accountability.org (Accessed: 15 July 2026).

The American bishops' own commissioned study — 'authorized and paid for by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)' — found that 'the total number of Catholic priests and deacons in the United States who have been accused of sexual abuse of children is 4,392' and that 'A total of 10,667 individuals made allegations of child sexual abuse by priests.' Because the study relied on the dioceses' own files, these figures are widely regarded as a floor, not a ceiling.

Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (2009) 'The Ryan Report' [Irish statutory inquiry, summarized at Wikipedia; primary at gov.ie]. Available at: en.wikipedia.org (Accessed: 15 July 2026).

Ireland's ten-year state inquiry into Catholic-run residential institutions — the strongest tier of documentation there is, a statutory commission chaired by a judge — found that 'Sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions' and that 'testimony had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential.'

Al Jazeera (2021) 'French clergy sexually abused 'over 200,000 children' since 1950', Al Jazeera, 5 October [reporting the CIASE/Sauvé Report]. Available at: aljazeera.com (Accessed: 15 July 2026).

France's independent CIASE commission (the Sauvé Report) produced the largest estimate ever made of clergy abuse in one country: 'About 216,000 children are estimated to have been sexually abused by thousands of French Catholic priests, deacons and other clergy since 1950' — 'a number which could rise to 330,000 when including abuse by lay members.' The commission called the abuse 'systemic' and found the Church had shown 'deep, total and even cruel indifference for years.' Note: these are the commission's epidemiological estimates, not case-by-case adjudications — an independent commission established at the bishops' request but operating independently.

Show 2 more context sources
FLOODLIT.org (2025) 'Christopher Michael Jensen' [LDS abuse case database; settlement documents made public 2025]. Available at: floodlit.org (Accessed: 15 July 2026).

Christopher Michael Jensen 'was a Mormon church member in Utah and West Virginia; sentenced to 35 to 75 years in prison for sexually abusing two children; local LDS church coverup alleged; LDS church settled civil lawsuit mid-trial in 2018 for $32 million, also spending over $27 million on legal fees; FLOODLIT.org discovered the settlement details in 2025 and made them public for the first time.' Note: Jensen's conviction is a standing criminal outcome; the $32M is a civil settlement, not an adjudication of the church's liability, and the cover-up remains alleged.

Charity Commission for England and Wales (2017) 'Investigation leads to improvements in safeguarding at Jehovah's Witnesses charity', GOV.UK. Available at: gov.uk (Accessed: 15 July 2026).

A statutory regulatory finding, in the Commission's own words: trustees of the Manchester New Moston Congregation 'did not deal adequately with allegations of child abuse made against one of the trustees', failed to identify one allegation as potential child abuse — 'dismissing it as ‘a matter between 2 teenagers’' — and abuse victims were effectively required to repeat their allegations 'in the presence of the abuser, and the abuser was permitted to question the alleged victims.' Trustees also 'did not provide accurate and complete answers' to the Commission itself. A related honesty note: a Montana jury's $35M verdict against Watchtower (Nunez, 2018) was unanimously reversed by the Montana Supreme Court in 2020, which held the organization exempt from the state's mandatory-reporting statute because its doctrine required confidentiality — the standing law from that case is the exemption, not the verdict, and it is recorded here as such.

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