It is post-dictatorial society with certain vestiges of the past and it has a weak union movement, which are often the ones to monitor such things and keep up pressure on the authorities. Patterns of exploitation can go on for a long time in remote areas if they are not broken by decisive action from central authorities.
I think I've read in some sources that
de facto chattel slavery--not even sharecropping, actual slavery--continued in certain remote parts of the Deep South up until the New Deal.
