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CHILDREN-BRAZIL: Hunger, Poverty Create Breeding-Ground for Social Ills
By Ricardo Soca
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 15 (IPS) - Every time Brazilian President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva speaks at an international forum, he underlines that his main
objective is to fight hunger and poverty.
In Brazil, Latin America's giant, 32 million children and adolescents
live in families with incomes of less than 40 dollars a month.
Lula brought up the issue once again Monday, at the opening of UNCTAD XI
(the 11th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), which ends
Friday in Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city.
''I have undertaken a vital commitment to fighting hunger, and that
objective is the top priority of my government...In the various
international meetings in which I have participated, I have defended the
central importance of this issue, and the need for a new world order,
capable of producing prosperity with social justice,'' said Lula, a former
trade unionist.
In this country of 178 million, poverty pushes school-age children into
the world of work and creates a breeding-ground for social ills like
malnutrition, sexual exploitation, and violence against children.
Although there are no reliable statistics on child labour in Brazil, an
estimated three million children under 14 work, 40 percent of them in
agriculture, where the worst conditions are found and where work is
generally incompatible with school attendance.
According to statistics from the National Confederation of Agricultural
Workers, minors working on plantations cut an average of 2.3 tons of sugar
cane a day, doing arduous work at an age at which their bone and muscle
systems are not yet fully developed.
As adults they often suffer irreversible limb and joint problems and are
at risk of cardiac and respiratory ailments.
An International Labour Organisation (ILO) report released last week
found that Brazil has the third largest number of minors working in domestic
service - a total of 559,000 - surpassed only by South Africa and
Indonesia.
Most of them are girls who are kept by their employers as signs of social
status. Very few of the domestics are able to attend school, and they
frequently receive no remuneration, but merely room and board and minimal
clothing, which relieves the pressure on their impoverished families by
reducing the number of mouths to feed.
Sexual exploitation is another problem to which poor children in Brazil
are vulnerable. But legislation promoted by various administrations and the
work of the Catholic Church organisation Pastoral for Children have
considerably reduced the magnitude of the problem, which in the 1990s
affected half a million girls and adolescents.
There have been other advances as well. The under-five child mortality
rate has been cut from 60 per 1,000 live births 15 years ago to 28 per 1,000
today, the coordinator of the Pastoral for Children, Clovis Boufleur, told
IPS.
However, that is still high, he added, pointing out that among the 1.8
million children assisted by the Pastoral, under-five mortality has been
reduced to 15 per 1,000 live births.
But ''Our work is aimed at contributing not only to reducing child
mortality, but at creating opportunities for the integral development of the
child,'' said Boufleur. ''We don't simply want to increase the number of
children who survive, but are working for them to have all of the
opportunities for integral development to which they have a right.''
In addition, the most highly developed parts of the country have made
progress in fighting child malnutrition, and the national average has been
reduced to five percent. But in the impoverished northeastern state of
Alagoas, for example, 17 percent of children are still undernourished,
according to the Health Ministry.
Violence is another serious problem facing minors in certain sectors of
society. Every day, an average of four children and adolescents in Brazil
are killed by the police, other minors, or common criminals.
In addition, juvenile delinquents are subjected to harsh punishment when
they are captured. Government reform schools inspire such fear that
adolescents frequently try to pass themselves off as old enough to be sent
to prison instead.
A report presented by non-governmental organisations in Brazil to the
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on Jun. 11 cites the
progress made in the fight against malnutrition and in expanding primary
school coverage in Brazil, but states that the country still has a long way
to go towards ensuring respect for the rights of children who run into
problems with the law.
The groups reported that 71 percent of the 190 institutions for juvenile
delinquents in Brazil fall short of U.N. requirements regarding respect for
the dignity of minors.
Mistreatment and torture, a deficit in human resources, and prison-like
architecture are problems found in these institutions, according to the
civil society report presented to the Committee on the Rights of the Child,
which is meeting in Geneva.
A government report states that between September and November 2002 a
total of 9,555 adolescents were deprived of liberty in Brazil. Of that
total, 90 percent were males, 60 percent were black, 51 percent did not
attend school, and 49 percent did not work.
The official report also states that between 1988 and 1990, 4,661
children under 17 were murdered - an average of four a day. Of the victims,
52 percent were killed by the police or private security guards; 82 percent
were black; and 67 percent were males between the ages of 15 and 17.
Combating violence against minors is one of the commitments assumed by
the leftist Lula when he took power in January 2003.
(END/2004)
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