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An estimated 8-10 million children make their living on the streets in Brazil, primarily because of extreme poverty. For most of these children, whose families cannot afford to feed them, life on the streets may be their best lifestyle alternative. A child working on the streets may earn several times the wages brought home by a parent working as a domestic or laborer. The average wage poor Brazilian workers get is barely enough to feed and clothe one or two people.
On a still darker side of this situation, according to most conservative estimates, four children are killed every day in Brazil. During the first 90 days of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's administration, a President who ran on a platform in which children problems had priority, more than 270 kids were murdered in Rio de Janeiro alone.
All of this happens despite recent important victories for the children's movement in Brazil. The decade of the 1980s has put the law on the side of the children. Although implementation of the Child and Adolescent Statute, an exemplary legislation approved by Congress, is problematic, the foundation for acceptance by the Brazilian people is in place because of the public relations successes of the movement.
The action was largely successful at recognizing and acting on unique historical opportunities. One commentator has said that such a visionary law as the Child and Adolescent Statute could never have been written by legislators. During the time of democratic transition in Brazil, the identities of governmental and non-governmental entities were indistinct. The new laws were consequently written directly by the children's movement because of the coalitions formed between community-based groups, government agencies, and professional associations.
The degree of vigilante violence against children in Brazil is unfortunately extreme. The behavior of vigilante murderers of children became a solidifying issue and a public relations cornerstone in the children's movement, which may have played an important role in the movement's overall success. The infamy of extremist violent behavior against street children has been used to improve prospects for all children and continues to provide leverage for groups worldwide against the government of Brazil on human rights issues.
In Brazil there is an opposition of two of the most extreme forces in the world regarding children's rights issues: one of the most horrid and condoned and widespread uses of execution-style murders against children vs. one of the most progressive national policies in the world on the rights of children.
In 1989 Brazil and the entire world were electrified by TV images of 700 street children and teenagers taking over the Brazilian National Congress. From the aisles and seats of the assembly building the children voted symbolically for the ratification of the Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA).
Spurred on by this demonstration and by a nation-wide movement in defense of children's rights, the Congress ratified the Statute in July, 1990. One of the most radical children's rights statutes in the world, the Statute follows the principles set forth by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20, 1989.
The 267 articles of the document grant full human rights to children and youth and form a legal and institutional structure for issues relating to children and youth. The rights are spelled out in extensive detail: right to use public spaces; free expression; freedom of religion; ability to practice sports and engage in leisure activities; participation in family, community, and political life; access to refuge and assistance; and freedom from violence.
WINDS OF DEMOCRACY
Perhaps only a Brazilian would understand that most of what is taken for granted under "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was brutally suppressed under a military regime for the population as a whole — and for children in particular — under an oppressive social welfare system and a wave of street-level violence. One of the most progressive ideas contained in the Statute is that children are to receive special protection and priority in government policy, including being made the highest priority group in any social welfare policy.
In the 1960s and 70s the social policy relating to children followed legislation drafted by the military regime. Laws, such as the Minor's Code, targeted children whose parents were incapable of taking care of their children. The laws did not distinguish between children who needed help because they were abandoned or poor and those who were delinquent.
It is difficult to imagine that this legislation was considered progressive for the time compared with earlier policies administered by the Assistance Service to Minors (SAM), an agency dating back to 1940. For this agency, any youth found not living with their families could be confined to "vocational training" schools. Unfortunately, the institutional "correctional-repressive" methods of SAM basically continued under new names, since the infrastructure was not replaced, in spite of some recognition within government that the system was not working. Later lock-up installations of the National Foundation for the Well Being of Minors (FUNABEM) became notorious for squalid living conditions. It has been estimated that 80% of the 100,000 children and youth in such facilities at any given time were only guilty of being poor.
The waning of the military regime in the late 1970s coincided with the rise of a myriad of grassroots organizations devoted to social needs which the military chose to ignore. The Catholic church was prominent in some of these organizations, many of which were devoted to children's issues. By 1984 the issue of street children was so prominent throughout South America, that the First Latin American Seminar on Community Alternatives for Assistance to Street Children was held in Brasília. Partly through this seminar, the community-based alternative program model became widely known and accepted as a desirable alternative to institution-based child welfare programs. By 1985 many of these autonomously evolved programs all over Brazil became part of a network known as the National Street Children's Movement (MNMMR). MNMMR held together a loose coalition of child advocacy organizations, each of which maintained its autonomy. In this same year 21 years of military rule ended, and the children's movement began to evolve with the new democracy.
In 1986 MNMMR organized the First National Street Children Congress in Brasília. The 500 street children representatives who attended were already experienced with the political process at the state and local levels. The ground-breaking meeting was heavily covered by the media, and the eloquence with which the children spoke captured the attention of the nation. From that point on, the children's movement enjoyed a high public profile.
THE SOCIETY WAKES UP
After the Congress, child advocate groups began discussing a long-term strategy for social change in Brazil. It was decided that even though the community-based model had proven successful, the scale of the problem — millions of street children nation wide — would ultimately require radical change from within the government.
Brazilian democracy at the time was a work-in-progress and it offered a unique opportunity to the children's movement to guarantee an important place for their issues in the new constitution. A national committee on child and the constitution was formed by governmental decree and campaigned for such a constitutional article.
The Committee along with many non-governmental organizations, including child advocate groups and interested professional associations, was successful in gaining widespread support for a constitutional guarantee of children's rights. A series of national meetings, public hearings, debates and other events along with discussion among major children's advocate organizations and other community organizations, and petitions signed by 1.4 million children, were all part of a strategy to publicize the movement and produce an acceptable statement on children's rights.
A powerful media campaign, aided by $1.8 million worth of free advertising devoted to the cause by media outlets and the National Advertising Council, helped solidify widespread support for the constitutional movement. The final text, which was endorsed by 200,000 voters, was presented to the Constituent Assembly and adopted by a vote of 435 to eight in November 1989.
The preamble to the chapter on children's rights in the constitution reads:
It is the duty of the family, society and the State to guarantee the child and the adolescent, with absolute priority, the rights to life, health, food, education, leisure, professional training, culture, dignity, respect, freedom, family and social life, and to protect them from all forms of negligence, discrimination, exploitation, cruelty and oppression.
The Article contained the principles that one year later would be adopted at the Convention on the Rights of the Child at the UN General Assembly.
The next step in the children's movement was to enact legislation which would permit the broad constitutional principles to be implemented. A similar coalition and strategy developed leading to the passage of the Child and Adolescent Statute. An umbrella organization, the Child and Adolescent Rights Forum, held thousands of meetings across the country seeking input and support for the new legislation.
The process survived a challenge by some judges and officials of the existing child welfare system, in part because the participation of representatives of the judiciary and public sector helped win the support of influential organizations, such as the Brazilian Bar Association.
The overall strategy of the Statute in approaching child welfare issues is to develop a series of "least restrictive" interventions on behalf of the child or adolescent. The approach accepts the validity of the experience of community-based groups. These groups believe that working with children where they live is the most effective way of reaching them. Facilities for detaining children and adolescents still exist but they are closely regulated to prevent the "hell-hole" phenomenon that gave the national child welfare program such a bad reputation.
The institutional form called for under the Statute is highly decentralized. At all levels of government, decision-making bodies are to be formed that include representatives of non-governmental child advocacy organizations as well as elected officials. The focus of implementing the Statute will be at the lowest level of government, the municipal level. Each municipality is required to write a child rights law within guidelines of the Statute. The Municipal Child Rights Council is the decision-making body specified under the Statute to ensure that all municipal policies conform to the Statute. Guardianship councils are separate bodies that have direct contact with children and adolescents and have authority to oversee interventions and may also represent children before child welfare agencies.
FACING OPPOSITION
It was obvious to child advocate groups that passage of the Child and Adolescent Statute of 1990 was just a first step in the children's movement. Since its passage, some groups continue to lobby against the implementation of the Statute and even promote its repeal.
Among the Brazilian police, some have not been enthusiastic about the Statute and a campaign against it is taking advantage of public fear that youthful criminals will not be prosecuted because the Statute is too "soft." The public relations campaign by child advocate groups continues towards embedding the Statute in Brazilian policy. Overall, the children's movement seems to be gaining ground in the area of public opinion. But legal battles over the interpretation of the Statute are expected to continue for years.
One case brought before a municipal judge showed the potential of the Statute to transform children's rights. A municipality which had declined to remedy a "seriously deficient" school was ordered to halt another municipal construction project until money was found for the school. The judge based the decision on the "absolute priority" given to the rights of children under the new Statute. However, such cases are as of yet outstanding and only succeed with the most progressive judges.
Of Brazil's 4,522 municipalities, two years after passage of the Statute in 1992, only 18% had functioning municipal councils and only 3% had guardianship councils specified under the Statute. Full implementation of the protection afforded to children and youth will probably take decades. The decentralized organization of the new child welfare system as well as resistance to the Statute are two factors contributing to this prediction. A sweeping change that finds its genesis in a major piece of visionary legislation is likely to take years to find general acceptance in the legal and administrative branches of all levels of government. Witness the civil rights and environmental movements in the United States.
Even passage of the Statute has not seemed to help the street-level violence against children — probably the most prominent issue in the Brazilian children's movement. In the years after passage of the Statute the world was shocked by the massacre of 8 street children in the Candelária massacre in Rio de Janeiro. The city of Rio has experienced a steady increase in the rate of murder of street children. An average of over 3 children a day are murdered in the city of Rio alone. In 1994, of 570 children and adolescents killed by gunshot in Rio, a total of 344 were under the age of 11.
Tânia de Almeida, head judge of Duque de Caxias Court, a municipal court in the Rio-area, recently, at a meeting of child advocates during the United Nations Social Summit in Denmark, spoke about the cycle of impunity that allows the murders to continue. In Brazil, as in the US, private security agencies are increasingly being employed to protect businesses and individuals by those who can afford them. Many of these agencies have strong ties to the police or Military Police and employ moonlighting police officers.
The work these agencies do commonly involves "cleaning the streets," which has come to mean murdering street children. Apparently, reassured by the cycle of impunity, these agencies now have staffs of professional killers according to de Almeida. She says that there are several Rio city officials, who, once professional killers themselves, currently protect their 'successors' in the security agencies.
Many child advocacy organizations in Brazil have accepted the fact of life on the streets and work with children where they live. The "assistance model" of child welfare favored by some international organizations is widely seen as ineffectual, because of the extreme poverty that is the root cause of homelessness among children. In the short term, many outreach organizations are concentrating on trying to help children with their immediate problems. The philosophy of MNMMR includes active participation of children in social programs in determining their own best interests.
Perhaps exemplary for any country has been the cooperation between government and NGOs. This cooperation was necessary to create a broad base of support for passage of children's rights legislation and is now an integral part of decision-making at all levels of policy formation. A generation of child advocates was brought up under the extraordinarily oppressive circumstances of the military regime. These advocates gained the necessary political experience in the years leading up to the creation of democracy in Brazil, when massive reform of the social welfare system became possible.
I caught the young reporters from Children's Express, Oakland Bureau, relaxing after a press conference with the Bay Area media. Just a few minutes earlier they had presented their findings on "Children Facing Violence" from hearings at International Conference of Healthy Cities in San Francisco, held in December 1993.
Looking somewhat relieved to be out of the glare of TV lights, reporter Kaitlin O'Connor, 10, shared some thoughts with myself and Cristina Franco of Brazil, one of the witnesses interviewed by Children's Express at the Conference. The reporters were disappointed because Franco, representing the National Movement of Street Children (MNMMR), had not been able to bring two street children who were supposed to attend the conference.
O'Connor believes talking directly to Brazilian street children could open new avenues of international communication. "Children feel more confident when they are talking to other children. With adults they feel like they are saying the wrong thing. If a Children's Express reporter was able to talk with a street child in Brazil, I bet they could see what is wrong with their life and try to find ways to solve problems by expressing their views."
David Sampson, 10, recently moved away from an Oakland housing project where 13 and 14-year-old gang members carry 9 mm pistols. Already an eye witness to gang-related shootings and beatings, Sampson is well aware of what prepares children for the gang lifestyle. "They have so little love at home, they have no one else to turn to. Families hurt children with abuse, because parents are so down on their luck and don't have anything to take their anger out on."
To prepare for the Conference, Sampson and the other reporters studied statistics and read stories about street children, provided by the ICRI (International Child Resource Institute) Brazil Project. He is well aware that the poverty that forces children as young as 7 or 8 years old onto the streets in Brazil does not compare even with the worse US housing projects. However, Sampson concludes that "if nothing is done about the situation in Oakland it will get as bad as the situation in Brazil."
If all goes well O'Connor and Sampson may yet get their chance to talk with Brazilian street kids. The Oakland Bureau of Children's Express has been talking about an exchange program with MNMMR that would send young reporters to Brazil. According to Cristina Franco, the exchange program would continue the innovative tradition of MNMMR of giving children a voice in political change in Brazil. The program is also being facilitated by the Brazil Project of the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI) in Berkeley.
Two years ago a death squad fired at a group of 40 sleeping street children killing eight of them on the steps of the Candelária Cathedral in Rio de Janeiro. The massacre made headlines around the world as it took place in front of Rio's most celebrated downtown cathedral favored by the elite for lavish weddings. Four men, including three military policemen, have been arrested for the murders. But they have not faced trial and human rights groups fear the murderers may never receive punishment for their crimes. Amnesty International estimates that over 90% of the murders of street children go unpunished.
On July 17, a coalition of six Bay Area organizations staged a Memorial Protest in front of the Brazilian Consulate, in the financial district of San Francisco, California. At the same time, a delegation of human rights groups based in the US met with Brazilian government officials at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, DC. In both occasions, the messages conveyed to the Brazilian government were tuned against the corruption and neglect of the Brazilian judicial system which benefit the killers of innocent children with virtual impunity.
In San Francisco the memorial protest lasted for one hour, with a brief presentation of Capoeira (Afro-Brazilian martial dance very popular among street kids). The busy Montgomery Street had the traffic slowed down as people stopped astonished in front of the signs and banners with revolting quotes, such as: 'Three kids murdered every day in Rio'; 'Impunity of criminal police officers, the Brazilian shame'; etc...
The protest was sponsored by the Brazil Project of the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI) and Brazil Action Solidarity Exchange (BASE), with the support of Global Exchange, Overseas Development Network (ODN), and the Rainforest Action Network(RAN).
At the end of the event, the Brazilian Consul, Minister João Almino de Souza, invited to his office a committee of organizers who demanded immediate action by the Brazilian government to stop the killings.
In Washington, DC, representatives of the ICRI Brazil Project, BASE, Amnesty International, Defense for Children International (DCI), National Child Rights Alliance (NCRA) and the Peace Center met with the Minister Antonino Lisboa Mena at the Brazilian Embassy. Both in San Francisco and in Washington, human rights advocates denounced the corruption of the Brazilian judicial system. They demanded from the government officials to put an end to the 'cycle of impunity' that largely benefit the murderers of street children as well as the immediate enforcement of the Brazilian children's rights statute.
The Brazil Project of the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI), headquartered in Berkeley, CA, circulated a petition addressed to Brazil's President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The petition urges the Brazilian government to stop the massacres of street children by bringing to justice their assailants. The petition was endorsed by 132 human rights organizations around the globe.
The Director of the Brazil Project, Caius Brandão, believes that "the image of Brazil will always be tarnished abroad while professional killers and police officers are paid to eliminate innocent children without responsible and effective actions by the federal government to prevent these atrocities." Brandão went on to state that "while 90% of the killers go unpunished, the new president has done little, if anything, to address the issue of impunity".
The Brazil Project distributed copies of the petition to 17 Brazilian embassies and consulates in nine different countries in North America, Europe and Asia. According to the Brazilian Embassy, in Washington, DC, the Human Rights Division of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry has started to get copies of the petition. Whether the Brazilian government will be accountable for its actions is still uncertain. The petition clearly requests expedition of nine exemplary cases of murders of children, including the Candelária case and the 1993 massacre of Yanomami children.
Do you want to know more about the ICRI's Brazil Project? Call (510) 644-1000
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