Brazil branches of US-based church target of numerous probes
RIO DE JANEIRO — Every day before work, Liliane Souza says, she and three dozen fellow workers at a Brazilian picture-framing factory affiliated with the Word of Faith Fellowship church were obligated to pray.
When workers made a mistake, such as cutting a frame too short, she says they were screamed at and sometimes even hit to expunge the “devil” behind the error. And when Stylofino stopped paying its workers for months, Souza said the company’s co-owners — members of a Brazilian branch of the U.S.-based church — had a ready explanation.
“They said the business was struggling because we were sinners,” she said.
The business and its labour practices are under investigation by Brazilian authorities — just one of several inquiries launched into a pair of churches connected to Word of Faith Fellowship, a secretive evangelical sect based in Spindale, North Carolina.