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Brazil - Initial reports of States parties due in 1992: Addendum [2003] UNCRCSPR 35; CRC/C/3/Add.65 (17 December 2003)
UNITED NATIONS
|
|
CRC
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Convention on the Rights of the Child
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Distr. GENERAL
CRC/C/3/Add.65 17 December 2003
Original: ENGLISH
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COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
CONSIDERATION OF
REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES
UNDER ARTICLE 44 OF THE
CONVENTION
Initial reports of States parties due in 1992
BRAZIL
[27
October 2003]
GE.03-45798 (E) 010304
CONTENTS
Paragraphs Page
Abbreviations 5
Introduction 1 - 20 7
I. GENERAL MEASURES OF APPLICATION 21 - 84 10
A. Measures adopted to reconcile Brazilian legislation with
the
provisions of the Convention 21 - 47 10
B. Existing mechanisms (national and local) for coordinating
the
policies related to children and supervising the
application of the
Convention 48 - 75 15
C. Child budget and federal Government expenditure
on the policy of
enforcing the rights of the child
and adolescent 76 - 84 22
II. DEFINITION OF THE CHILD 85 - 89 26
III. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 90 - 134 28
A. Non-discrimination 90 - 117 28
B. The higher interest of the child 118 - 120 34
C. Rights to life, survival and development 121 - 129 35
D. Respect for the child’s opinion 130 - 134 36
IV. CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES 135 - 189 37
A. Name and nationality 135 - 137 37
B. Preservation of identity 138 - 149 37
C. Freedom of expression 150 - 153 39
D. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion 154 - 160 40
E. Freedom of association and holding peaceful meetings 161 - 167 40
CONTENTS (continued)
Paragraphs Page
F. Protection of private life 168 - 172 41
G. Access to relevant information 173 - 177 42
H. The right not to be submitted to torture or other cruel,
inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment 178 - 189 43
V. FAMILY ENVIRONMENT AND OTHER TYPES
OF GUARDIANSHIP 190 -
277 45
A. Direction and orientation of parents 190 - 203 45
B. Responsibilities of the parents 204 - 207 49
C. Separation of the parents 208 - 214 50
D. Family union 215 - 216 50
E. Illegal travel and illegal retention 217 - 227 51
F. Payment of food support 228 - 234 52
G. Children deprived of family environment 235 - 246 53
H. Adoption 247 - 262 55
I. Periodic examination of internment conditions 263 - 266 58
J. Abuse and neglect, psychological recuperation and
social
integration 267 - 277 58
VI. BASIC HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 278 - 426 60
A. Children with special needs 278 - 292 60
B. Health and health-care services 293 - 399 64
C. Social security and services and children’s shelters 400 -
415 84
D. Standard of living 416 - 426 87
CONTENTS (continued)
Paragraphs Page
VII. EDUCATION, RECREATION AND CULTURAL
ACTIVITIES 427 - 555 89
A. Education incorporated into professional training and
guidance
427 - 529 89
B. The objectives of education 530 - 544 109
C. Rest, leisure and cultural activities 545 - 555 112
VIII. SPECIAL PROTECTIVE MEASURES 556 - 709 114
A. Children in exceptional situations 556 - 567 114
B. Adolescent offenders 568 - 591 116
C. Children submitted to exploitation, including
their physical and
psychological recovery and
their social re-integration 592 -
670 124
D. Children belonging to minorities or to
indigenous groups 671 -
710 137
ANNEXES[*]
Abbreviations
|
Adolescent and Youth Health Area
|
BPC
|
Continued Benefits Provision
|
CBIA
|
Brazilian Centre for Childhood and Adolescence
|
CONAETI
|
National Commission on the Eradication of Child Labour
|
CONANDA
|
National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents
|
CRIE
|
Special Immunobiological Reference Centres
|
ECA
|
Statute of the Child and Adolescent
|
ENEM
|
National Secondary Education Exam
|
FONACRIAD
|
National Forum of Government Directors of Executive Agencies for the Policy
of Enforcement of the Rights of the Child and Adolescent
|
FUNAI
|
National Indian Foundation
|
FUNABEM
|
National Foundation for Child Welfare
|
FUNDEF
|
Primary Education Maintenance and Development and Teacher
Appreciation Fund
|
GDP
|
Gross domestic product
|
GSF
|
Federal social expenditure
|
HDI
|
Human Development Index
|
HIV/AIDS
|
Human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome
|
IBGE
|
Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics
|
ICCN
|
Incentive Programme for Combating Nutritional Deprivation
|
INEP
|
National Institute for Educational Studies and Research
|
INSS
|
National Social Security Institute
|
IPEA
|
Institute of Applied Economic Research
|
IPEC
|
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, ILO
|
Abbreviations (continued)
|
Law on Educational Directives and Bases
|
NGO
|
Non-governmental organization
|
PAB
|
Minimum Healthcare Allocation
|
PCN
|
National Curricular Parameters
|
PETI
|
Programme to Eliminate Child Labour
|
PNAD
|
National Household Sample Survey
|
PNI
|
National Immunization Programme
|
PNIAM
|
National Maternal Breastfeeding Incentive Programme
|
PRONAGER
|
National Programme to Generate Employment and Income
|
PSF
|
Family Health Programme
|
RDA
|
Recommended daily allowance
|
SAEB
|
National Basic Education Evaluation System
|
SEAS
|
State Secretariat of Social Assistance
|
STD
|
Sexually transmitted disease
|
SUS
|
Single Health System
|
UNDP
|
United Nations Development Programme
|
UNICEF
|
United Nations Children’s Fund
|
Introduction
- In
compliance with the provisions of article 44, paragraph 1, of the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, the Government of Brazil
is submitting to the Committee
on the Rights of the Child the present consolidated report incorporating
the initial report and the
first two periodic reports provided for in the
Convention. The present document covers the period from 1991 to 2002.
- In
updating the obligations arising from the signing of the Convention, the
Government of Brazil would like to thank the Committee
for allowing the reports
due up until last year to be consolidated. The present consolidated report
seeks to present faithfully
the efforts undertaken at the domestic level to
implement measures for defending, promoting and protecting children’s
rights,
as well as the deficiencies still existing in this area and the
difficulties encountered in rectifying them.
- The
agendas of the Government and of society in terms of children’s and
adolescents’ rights coincide perfectly. Brazil
has very advanced
legislation in this respect, in the form of the Statute of the Child and
Adolescent (ECA), a juridical instrument
which transposes to the national plane
the rights set forth in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and provides
for the adoption
of mechanisms and supplies guidelines so that public policies
can be geared to promoting such rights.
- The
process of disseminating the rights established by the Convention was associated
with the process of elaborating and publicizing
the Statute of the Child and
Adolescent. The social mobilization behind the passing of the statute
constituted a factor of the greatest
importance in ensuring that
children’s rights received the dissemination that they deserve.
- The
ECA statute has been printed and distributed both by Government agencies and
representatives of civil society, and has been widely
circulated in schools and
community centres.
- The
elaboration of reports for the committees created by United Nations conventions
is a highly complex task. In the Brazilian case,
the geographical scale of the
country, the diverse characteristics of the different regions and the federal
political-administrative
structure are of particular importance, in addition to
the characteristics of the interrelatedness of children’s and
adolescents’
rights.
- The
format adopted for elaborating the present report sought to follow the
guidelines of the United Nations committee system in terms
of the participation
of civil society. During five months, meetings were held with
representatives of different Government spheres
and nongovernmental
organizations, to collect the necessary data. A drafting committee was formed,
with each of its members being
given the task of elaborating the sections
related to their specific areas of competence.
- The
Ministry of Foreign Relations was responsible for coordinating the work of the
Drafting Committee, which was composed of representatives
of the Ministry of
Education; the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Labour and Employment; the
Special Secretariat for Social Assistance
(SEAS); the Department for Children
and Adolescents of the Ministry of Justice; Institute of Applied Economic
Research (IPEA); National
Foundation for the Indian (FUNAI) and a representative
of the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents (CONANDA).
Representatives of the following ministries and agencies also took part in the
meetings or provided data: the Ministry of Culture;
the Ministry of Science and
Technology; the Ministry of Sports and Tourism; the Brazilian Institute of
Geography and Statistics (IBGE);
the Public Prosecution Service for Labour; the
Human Rights Committee of the Chamber of Deputies; the Training Centre of the
Superior
Court of Justice; and the National Council for Combating Racial
Discrimination, among others.
- In
the process of elaborating the report, efforts were made to ensure the active
participation of civil society. A significant number
of non-governmental
organizations with a recognized presence in the area were invited to take part
in the process in whatever way
they saw fit. Organizations from civil society
decided that they would be represented in the Drafting Committee by the
representative
of CONANDA, an agency created in 1991 and made up of an equal
number of government and non-government representatives - 10 each.
- With
a view to expanding even more the process of consultation with society and above
all enhancing the protagonist role of the children
and adolescents themselves in
the whole process, the Government of Brazil plans to publicize the present
report. Ideally, any reactions
concerning this report will be consolidated in
due course and submitted to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
- In
addition, it should be clarified that the report presented herein does not
include general information on Brazil and its population,
the political
structure of the country or the normative standards for human rights. Such
information is in the process of being
updated and will be submitted shortly to
the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as an
addendum to the
core document (document HRI/CORE/1/Add.53), presented in
September 1994 and officially released on 10 January 1995.
- As
one can gather from reading the present report, the Government of Brazil has
sought to deal with the theme objectively and transparently,
without
sidestepping the problems that it is facing. Among other questions, the
repercussions of the unequal social structure on
the lives of children and
adolescents were examined, revealing that the imbalance in income distribution
particularly affected this
segment of the population. Notwithstanding the
progress obtained, the percentage of children and adolescents living in poverty
in
Brazil is still significant.
- In
the poorest families, very often single-parent families and headed by women, the
number of children is greatest, and it is also
where one finds the most
precarious sanitation and feeding conditions. Moreover, when the
characteristics of the family environment
are hostile, some children or
adolescents might end up in the streets, exposing themselves to new types of
violence and risk. Defining
the best strategy for dealing with these problems
remains an important challenge. The gravity of the question led the Government
of Brazil to introduce during the 1990s a series of direct income-transfer
programmes which, as the report points out, benefited
thousands of families in
the most vulnerable situation. Civil society also mobilized itself and launched
various innovative initiatives,
many of them in partnership with the
Government.
- In
dealing with the specific problem of the adolescent, the report analyses two
serious questions: the growing incidence of early
pregnancy among girls and the
increase in cases of violent death among boys. These are problems of the
greatest complexity which,
to be rectified, require the joint efforts of the
Government and society. The question of juvenile delinquency is also examined
in the report with signs that the passing of the Statute of the Child and
Adolescent has represented a substantial advance on the
juridical plane, but
with results that are still far from ideal in terms of the effective
implementation of the rights set forth
in the Convention.
- From
the point of view of Government policy successes, the substantial reduction in
the infant mortality rate and the significant
expansion of primary education
should be highlighted. This dual line of action was considered a priority in
the last decade and
as such, concentrated the greatest Government efforts for
the area, in terms of overall public policy targeted at children and
adolescents.
The results of these policies are clear: fewer Brazilian children
are dying; more children are receiving schooling.
- Another
positive aspect of Government action is the series of policies and programmes
for combating child labour. One is witnessing
a progressive expansion in the
number of persons benefiting from government programmes, as well as a rising
level of awareness among
Brazilian society on the harm caused to children and
adolescents by underage work. Sexual violence and the sexual exploitation of
children and adolescents for commercial ends are also examined in the document,
which includes a list of the programmes and mechanisms
which the State, in
partnership with civil society, has sought to implement in order to combat these
grave problems. Besides providing
a minimum income to the families of the
children and adolescents freed from exploitation, the programmes adopted are
designed to
ensure an expansion of schooling by conditioning payment of the
benefit on proof of school attendance.
- The
situation of children and adolescents of Afro or indigenous descent is analysed
in different parts of the report. In the case
of the former, one finds a lower
level of income and schooling; as for the indigenous peoples, one finds a need
to establish, within
the overall nativeBrazilian policy framework, a policy
which is specifically directed at indigenous children and adolescents. The
recent implementation of a number of important initiatives are mentioned in the
report.
- In
the health area, the report points to the notable success of the Brazilian
HIV/AIDS control programme which, through preventive
action and the offer of
free treatment to everyone, has managed to bring about a significant reduction
in the rate of infection among
children and adolescents, a 50 per cent reduction
in the vertical transmission of the disease and an increase in the life span of
children and adolescents living with HIV. One should also mention the
immunization campaigns which have led to the eradication of
poliomyelitis and
measles.
- Another
great step forward that the present report underlines is the formation of a
network of agents responsible for the enforcement
of legally acquired rights,
which Government efforts and those of civil society are contributing to. This
network finds its strongest
expression in the formation, at the national, state,
and municipal levels, of the Councils for the Rights of the Child and Adolescent
and the Guardianship Councils. The way in which they were conceived and their
mutual interaction give these councils the necessary
capillary action to
directly affect the lives of millions of children and adolescents, in terms of
empowering children and adolescents
and guaranteeing their rights.
- It
should be pointed out, and the report highlights this, that the Convention on
the Rights of the Child and the Statute of the Child
and Adolescent marked a new
conception of the child and adolescent in Brazil, breaking significantly with
the previous normative
standards, where a repressive and paternalistic
conception prevailed in dealing with questions involving children and
adolescents.
I. GENERAL MEASURES OF APPLICATION
A. Measures adopted to reconcile Brazilian legislation with
the provisions of the Convention
- In
perfect consonancy with international protective parameters, particularly with
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the 1988
Brazilian Constitution and
the Statute of the Child and Adolescent inaugurated, within Brazilian juridical
culture, a new paradigm inspired by the conception
of the child and adolescent
as true rights-bearers, in a special stage of
development.[1]
- This
new paradigm promotes the doctrine of full protection to the child and
adolescent and recognizes a logic and a set of principles
of its own directed at
ensuring the prevalence and primacy of the interests of the child and
adolescent. In their capacity as rights-bearers
in a special stage of
development, the right to special protection is guaranteed to children and
adolescents. From the human rights
standpoint, the 1988 Constitution and the
Statute of the Child and Adolescent expressed a comprehensive view of the human
rights of children and adolescents, including
the indivisibility of these
rights, their reciprocal implementation and the equal importance of all the
rights, whether civil, political,
social, economic or cultural.
- The
process of elaborating the 1988 federal Constitution, in the context of the
redemocratization of the country, led to a full national debate, with the active
participation of civil society.
As a consequence, social questions and the
rights of children and adolescents were given an unprecedented treatment in the
present
Constitution, compared with previous charters.
- The
priority conferred on children and adolescents runs throughout the 1988 federal
Constitution, but the inclusion of an article devoted specifically to
guaranteeing civil, economic, social and cultural rights establishes their
importance for Brazilian society as a whole. Such a treatment resulted from a
process in which popular participation, government
sectors and members of the
Constituent Assembly all worked together. In 1986, Interministerial Directive
No. 449 created the Children’s
and Constituent Assembly National
Committee, made up of representatives from the Ministries of Justice, Education,
Social Security
and Welfare, Planning and Labour. Also in 1986, a technical and
financial cooperation agreement was signed between the Ministry
of Education and
the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ensuring the
participation of the latter in the process of debating
the juridical norms and
institutional framework for protecting children’s rights.
- By
this time, the draft of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, under
discussion since 1980 by a working group appointed by
the United Nations General
Assembly, was now available, which led to principles already in a stage of
consensus and which would form
part of the Convention being included in the 1988
federal Constitution.
- The
Children’s and Constituent Assembly National Committee carried out
important work in informing and mobilizing public opinion.
Debates and meetings
were held in various states of the federation and widely publicized in the
media. Members of the Constituent
Assembly received letters signed by more than
1.3 million children and adolescents requesting the inclusion of the rights of
the
child and adolescent in the constitutional text. It should be stressed that
children and adolescents participated actively throughout
the constituent
assembly process, canvassing for children’s and adolescents’
rights.
- Two
amendments, the result of a popular initiative, were then submitted to the
Constituent Assembly and fused into article 227 of
the Constitution. This
article guarantees children and adolescents political, civil, social, economic
and cultural rights, according to the following
principles: (a) full
protection; (b) absolute priority; (c) responsibility shared between the family,
society and the State; and
(d) children and adolescents as rights-bearers.
- In
fact, article 227 of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution lays down that: “It
is the duty of the family, society, and the State to guarantee children and
adolescents, with absolute
priority, the right to life, health, food, education,
leisure, professional training, culture, dignity, respect, liberty and family
and community life, besides maintaining them safe from any form of negligence,
discrimination, exploitation, violence, cruelty and
oppression.”
- By
virtue of the vulnerability to which children and adolescents are subject,
special and particular juridical protection is outlined,
which reflects the
so-called “specification process” of the rights-bearer. It should
be said that general, generic and
abstract protection is not enough; one moves
to special protection, addressed to certain groups, which require specific
juridical
guardianship. In the case of children and adolescents, this specific
guardianship is justified, either because they are rights-bearers
at a special
stage of development, or because they are faced with an
“adult-centric” culture, which conceives the world
basically from
the point of view of adults, undervaluing children and adolescents and
considering them as inferior subjects.
- In
their capacity as rights-bearers at a special stage of development, children and
adolescents are guaranteed special protection.
It should be said that the
special rights recognized for children and adolescents stem from their
particular condition of being
a developing human being. As a consequence, the
State and society should ensure, through laws or other means, every opportunity
and facility to allow them to fully develop their physical, mental, moral,
spiritual and social capabilities, making sure that this
occurs under conditions
of freedom and dignity.
- The
1988 Constitution, in article 227, paragraph 3, lays down that the right to
special protection shall encompass the following aspects: (a) minimum
age of 14
years to commence work, observing the provisions of article 7, XXXIII; (b) a
guarantee of social security and labour rights;
(c) guarantee of access of the
adolescent worker to school; (d) a guarantee of the full and formal
acknowledgment of the charged
offence, equality in procedural relationships and
legal defence by a qualified professional, pursuant to the specific guardianship
legislation; (e) compliance with the principles of brevity, exceptionality
and respect for the particular
- condition
of a developing person, when applying any liberty-depriving measure; (f)
stimulus from the public authorities, through juridical
assistance, fiscal
incentives and subsidies, as laid down by law, to provide protection through
guardianship to orphaned or abandoned
children or adolescents;
(g) prevention programmes and specialized care for children and adolescents
dependent on chemical substances
and similar drugs.
- One
can note that when dealing with the law-breaking adolescent, the repressive and
remedial focus has now been transformed into a
focus which gives priority to
special protection, to involve the joint responsibility of the family, society
and the State, with
a view to socially rehabilitating the child or
adolescent, as stipulated in the Statute of the Child and Adolescent.
- Following
the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, social movements, particularly those
related to the rights of children and adolescents, became deeply involved in the
elaboration
of the bill that would be passed by the National Congress to become
the Statute of the Child and Adolescent.
- Considering
the origins of this reorganization of Brazilian legislation, from the very
beginning in line with the Convention, it is
clear that the mobilization behind
the Statute of the Child and Adolescent was similar to what occurred in various
countries in respect
of the Convention.
- In
1990 the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA), Law No. 8.069
of 13 July 1990, was passed, revoking the previous Code of Minors
and reconciling the subconstitutional norms to the new set of
constitutional principles. The ECA is designed to regulate the juridical
situation of persons up to the age of 18 years, defining as a child a person up
to the age of 12 years and someone aged between 12
and 18 years
as an adolescent.
- In
elaborating the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, besides the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, the following were also
taken into account: the
United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile
Justice Courts (Beijing Rules,
1985); the United Nations Rules for the
Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (1990);
and the United Nations Guidelines
for the Prevention of Juvenile
Delinquency (Riyadh Guidelines, 1990). Provisions resulting from
Convention No. 138 (1973) of the
International Labour Organization were also
included; the minimum age for employment was fixed at 16. The Hague Convention
on Protection
of Children and Cooperation in respect of International Adoption
was ratified by Brazil in 1999, and ILO Convention No. 182 (1999)
on the
prohibition of the worst forms of child labour and immediate action for their
elimination, was ratified by Brazil in 2000.
- The
ECA statute guarantees children and adolescents under Brazilian jurisdiction all
the rights provided for in the Convention on
the Rights of the Child and
emphasizes the democratic principle of the participation and control of civil
society in formulating
and implementing policies and initiatives designed to
promote and defend rights.
- In
relation to the doctrine, legislation and policy previously in force in Brazil,
based on the concept of a “minor in an irregular
situation”, found
in the Code of Minors, Law No. 6.697 of 10 October 1979, and the National
Policy for Child Welfare (PNBEM),
provided for by the 1964 Law No. 4.513,
the Statute of the Child and Adolescent was an advance in the following
respects:
- − It
replaced the generic concept of “minor” with that of “child
and adolescent”, considered to be “developing
persons”
with different characteristics
and needs;
- − It
conferred absolute priority to guaranteeing children and adolescents’
rights;
- − It
changed the focus of interpretation from a socially underprivileged, abandoned
or delinquent child to that of a developing
person, a bearer of enforceable
legal
rights;
- − It
replaced the repressive and remedial focus, according to which the child and
adolescent in a situation of abandonment and/or
in conflict with the law
constituted a “question for the police and the courts”, with a new
conception of special protection,
which involves the joint responsibility of the
family, society and the State.
- One
of the main innovations of the ECA statute is that it now applies to all persons
below the age of 18, unlike the former Code of
Minors, which only applied to
minors in an irregular situation, creating a juridical dichotomy between
children and adolescents in
a regular family situation and those who were
outside standards considered to be regular by the legislation and
jurisprudential interpretation
of such legislation. The term
“minor” was so firmly associated with this irregular situation that
today it is considered
discriminatory and has been banned from the present
legislation.
- In
the Brazilian juridical system, children and adolescents enjoy all the basic
rights guaranteed to a human being, both those recognized
by Brazilian law and
those provided for in international treaties, to which Brazil is a party.
Moreover, they enjoy the full protection
conferred by the statute itself.
- The
characterization of children’s and adolescents’ rights as human
rights highlights the inalienable character of these
rights and commits the
State, both on the domestic and international plane, to respect them, defend
them and promote them. Furthermore,
absolute priority should be given to these
rights, as well as to meeting the needs of the child and adolescent.
- Bearing
in mind that the most recent international instruments for human rights stress
the indivisibility between civil, political,
economic, social and cultural
rights, when considering children and adolescents’ rights as human rights,
they must be guaranteed
as a whole, from an
- integral
standpoint. This means that disrespect for any right implies that all the human
rights, in one way or another, are violated,
since they are interlinked and the
guarantee of one right presupposes the guarantee of the others.
- In
accordance with this guideline, the ECA statute deals in an interconnected way
with children’s and adolescents’ rights,
extending to other rights,
when it is concerned with protecting a certain right, and linking social and
individual rights under a
single title. In this way, the following rights are
provided for: the right to life, health, liberty, respect, dignity, family
and
community life, education, culture, sport, leisure, professional training and
employment protection. Here again, one has to
emphasize the perfect harmony
between the ECA statute and the Convention in their focus on children’s
rights, which equally
endorse the indivisibility of the human rights of
children, their reciprocal implementation and the equal importance of all
rights.
- The
Statute of the Child and Adolescent is divided in two volumes. Volume 1 defines
basic rights - the right to life and health (arts.
7 to 14); the right to
liberty, respect and dignity (arts. 15 to 18); the right to family and community
life (arts. 19 to 24); the
right to education, culture, sports and leisure
(arts. 53 to 59); the right to professional training and employment protection
(arts.
60 to 69) - and the obligation, defined as being everybody’s, to
prevent the occurrence of any threat or violation of children’s
and
adolescents’ rights (arts. 70 to 85). Any individual or corporate
entity that fails to comply with the norms of prevention
shall be held
responsible (art. 73).
- Volume
2 establishes the guidelines for the Policy of Assistance for Children’s
and Adolescents’ Rights (arts. 86 to 89);
makes provisions concerning
childcare organizations and their inspection and the forms of assistance (arts.
90 to 97); and specifies
the protection measures for children and adolescents in
a risk situation (arts. 98 to 102). It also defines the practice of a juvenile
offence (arts. 103 to 105), the rights of the adolescent offender
(arts. 106 to 109), the legal guarantees (arts. 110 to 111),
socio-educational
measures (arts. 112 to 125), the attributions and
functioning of the Children’s Court (arts. 145 to 151). Finally, it makes
provisions concerning crimes practiced against children and adolescents, by act
or omission (arts. 225 to 244), as well as administrative
infractions committed
in detriment to the rights of the child and adolescent (arts. 245 to 258).
- One
of the most important innovations of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent is
judicial protection of the individual, diffuse
and collective interests (arts.
208 to 224) guaranteed to the child and adolescent. The statute makes
provisions concerning liability
suits and civil actions in the event of any
violation of these rights. The focus of the statute is based on a participatory
democracy
of civil society to coordinate and control public policies in the
“rights councils”.
- Throughout
this report, the provisions found in the statute will be examined in detail
together with their consonancy with the minimum
protective parameters
established in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
B. Existing mechanisms (national and local) for coordinating
the
policies related to children and supervising the application
of the
Convention
- In
replacing the old National Policy of Child Welfare, the ECA statute instituted a
new Policy of Assistance for the Rights of the
Child and Adolescent, which is
based on two basic guidelines coming from the 1988 federal Constitution (art.
227, para. 7): politicaladministrative decentralization and popular
participation.
- In
this new scheme, the federal Government is responsible for coordinating and
establishing the general norms of the new policy, while
the states and
municipalities coordinate and execute the programmes and activities. The
statute lays down that this policy will
be implemented through an interlinked
set of government and non-governmental initiatives and actions.
- In
brief, this new policy covers:
- − Basic
social policies of a general character, which should be guaranteed to all
children and adolescents without distinction,
offered through legal and
institutional sectoral structures. Health and education policies, for example,
should give priority to
children and adolescents and meet their needs according
to the precepts of the statute;
- − Social
assistance policies, which include a series of programmes and activities
directed at children and adolescents in a
permanent or temporary situation of
need, by reason of economic deprivation or other factors of vulnerability;
- − The
special protection policy, which is designed for children and adolescents who
find themselves in a situation of personal
and social risk. A situation of
personal and social risk is the exposure of the child or adolescent to factors
that threaten or
violate their physical, physiological or moral integrity, by
act or omission of the family, other social agents, the State or the
children
and adolescents themselves. In the Brazilian situation there are various
situations which represent a social and personal
risk for children and
adolescents: abandonment; abuse; negligence and mistreatment; exploitation of
child labour; sexual exploitation;
living in the streets; drug addiction; and
juvenile delinquency.
- As
for the second constitutional guideline, public participation should be
guaranteed both in formulating and executing the new policy
and in controlling
activities in all three levels of government. The municipalization of
children’s services provided for
in the statute (art. 88), besides
strengthening and guaranteeing the decentralization guideline, gives society
greater control over
the use of public resources and the quality of the services
provided.
1. The Councils for Children’s and Adolescents’
Rights
- The
creation of Councils for Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights, in each
sphere of Government (national, state, and municipal),
allows the public to
participate in the policy for
- enforcing
children’s and adolescents’ rights. These councils are deliberative
in character, linked to the public administration,
and they control the new
policy. They are formed on an equal basis by representatives of Government and
civil society.
- At
the federal level, Law 8.242 of 12 October 1991 created the National Council for
the Rights of Children and Adolescents (CONANDA),
which is responsible
for:
- − Elaborating
the general norms for promoting and protecting the rights of children;
- − Overseeing
the implementation of assistance for children and adolescents;
- − Assessing
state and municipal policies and the performance of the state and municipal
Councils for Children’s and Adolescents’
Rights;
- − Monitoring
the elaboration and implementation of the federal Government’s budget
proposal, indicating changes necessary
for carrying out the policy of enforcing
children’s and adolescents’ rights.
- CONANDA
is composed of representatives from the Ministries of State: Justice; Foreign
Relations; Education and Sports; Health; Treasury;
Labour; Social Security and
Social Assistance; Culture and Planning and Budget, besides a representative
from the Executive Office
of the President and non-governmental organizations.
The representatives of non-governmental organizations are elected by their
peers. CONANDA has an executive secretariat and meets generally once a
month.
- The
law also confers powers on CONANDA to monitor the institutional reorganization
and to propose, whenever necessary, changes to
public and private structures
designed for child and adolescent care and assistance.
- The
state and municipal Councils for Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights
according to the law and following the recommendations
of CONANDA, formulate and
control the policies directed at children and adolescents, at the respective
levels. The rights councils
stage conferences every two years to debate
important themes related to implementing the assistance policy.
- All
government and non-governmental bodies dealing with children and adolescents are
obliged to submit their programmes to the municipal
council, which informs the
Guardianship Council and the local judicial authority. (statute, art. 90.)
- By
1999, in addition to the national council and all 27 state councils, 3,948
municipal councils were created, in 72 per cent of Brazilian
cities. The lack
of infrastructure over the years has hampered the setting up of municipal
councils and which is partly responsible
for the lack of understanding
concerning the meaning and importance of these bodies in terms of child and
adolescent care. The councils
are distributed by demographic region, as shown
in the following table:
Table 1
Municipal Councils for Children’s and
Adolescents’ Rights
|
Municipalities
|
Councils
|
Percentage
|
Brazil
|
5 507
|
3 948
|
71.7
|
North
|
449
|
261
|
58.1
|
North-east
|
1 787
|
1 087
|
60.8
|
South-east
|
1 666
|
1 210
|
72.6
|
South
|
1 159
|
1 005
|
86.7
|
Centre-west
|
446
|
385
|
86.3
|
Source: IBGE, Research Directorate, Department of Population and
Social Indicators,
Research of Basic Municipal Data 1999.
Note: The Federal District was not included in the results.
2. Funding for the child and adolescent
- Besides
the Councils for Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights, Brazilian
legislators have sought to ensure funding mechanisms
for the new
Children’s Rights Policy. Thus the ECA statute also establishes, as one
of the guidelines of the policy, the creation
and maintenance of
funds[2] (national, state and
municipal) linked to the respective rights councils.
- The
statute linked a source of regular resources to the fund based on a fiscal
waiver, without detriment to other revenues. According
to the legislation in
force, private and corporate taxpayers can deduct from their income tax
liability a corresponding sum to that
donated to the national, state and
municipal funds. Individual taxpayers can, according to Law No. 9.532
of 10 December 1997, deduct
up to 6 per cent of their income tax liability,
and companies, according to Provisional Law No. 2.189-49 of 23 August 2001, up
to
1 per cent of their corporate tax liability.
- The
funds are administered by the executive power of the respective government
sphere, which means they are linked to the public budgets,
the functioning of
which is extremely complex and not very accessible to persons unfamiliar with
the theme, like many of the representatives
of civil society and the government
that sit on the rights councils.
- According
to CONANDA resolution 78, the resources of the funds should as a priority be
allocated to protection programmes and socio-educational
measures. Children and
adolescents, therefore, in a situation of personal and social risk - juvenile
offenders, drug addicts, victims
of ill-treatment and those who live in the
streets - shall be given preference in the allocation of the resources of the
funds.
- At
the federal level, the National Fund for Children and Adolescents (FNCA), which
was also created through Law No. 8.242/91, only
began to receive budget
allocations from 1995 onward, after being regulated by Decree Law No. 1.196 of
14 July 1994. Despite the
legal provision for receiving tax-deductible
donations from individuals and companies, the FNCA has only received one
donation during
these years. Thus, the sources of funding are almost
- exclusively
federal taxes, the nominal amounts of which are shown in the following table.
The financial resources of the FNCA allocated
to children and adolescents are
well below the real national requirements and, as one can see, have been
declining.
Table 2
Budget spending of FNCA during the 1995-2001
period
|
Amounts allocated (R$)
|
1998
|
2 925 614
|
1999
|
3 714 149
|
2000
|
1 982 530
|
2001
|
1 765 446
|
Source: General Budget Coordination of the
Ministry of Justice.
- The
state and municipal funds are created through their own respective legislation.
According to data from the Brazilian Institute
of Geography and Statistics
(IBGE) for 1999, all 26 Brazilian states, the Federal District and around
1,400 municipalities had created
their funds for the child and adolescent.
- The
state and municipal funds have been more successful at collecting tax-deductible
donations. Private citizens and companies have
preferred to make donations at
the local level, which is in line with the directive advocated by the statute,
for political and administrative
decentralization. However, as table 3 below
demonstrates, the number of companies that donate to the funds is small in
relation
to the total number of companies eligible to make such donations.
Among the reasons for this is the limited negotiation between
the councils and
potential donors concerning the allocation of resources, the bureaucratic
complexity involved in making the donation
and the budgetary spending. It is a
difficult task for members of the rights councils to manage the funds, due both
to bureaucratic
technicalities and possible doubts about how to capture and
invest the resources.
Table 3
Companies donating to the funds in relation to the
total number
of companies eligible to donate (2000)
|
Donor companies (per cent)
|
Total number of companies with tax to pay
|
South
|
1.2
|
19 163
|
South-east (except São Paulo)
|
0.3
|
16 657
|
São Paulo
|
0.6
|
27 591
|
North-east
|
0.2
|
9 229
|
Centre-west
|
0.3
|
4 564
|
North
|
0.2
|
2 008
|
Brazil
|
0.6
|
79 212
|
Source: Ministry of Finance/IRS, 2000.
3. Guardianship Councils
- Besides
the Councils for Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights and their
respective funds, the statute created another juridical-institutional
entity of
great importance for the new childcare policy: the Guardianship Councils.
These are permanent and autonomous organs,
non-jurisdictional, entrusted by
society for enforcing children’s rights. Their members (five)
are chosen directly by the
local community for a three-year mandate and
each municipality must have at least one Guardianship Council. The
Guardianship Council
has the following functions:
- − To meet
the needs of children and adolescents whose rights are threatened or
violated;
- − To
apply protective measures for these children and adolescents;
- − To
liaise with and counsel parents or person responsible and, if necessary, issue a
warning;
- − To
demand public services in the health, education, social assistance, social
security, labour and work safety areas;
- − To
communicate with the Public Prosecution Service concerning occurrences that
constitute an administrative or criminal offence
against the rights of the child
or adolescent;
- − To make
a representation to the judicial authorities in the event of unjustified
noncompliance with their deliberations;
- − To
submit to the judicial authorities cases that fall within their competence;
- − To
provide any protective measure established by the courts for an adolescent
offender;
- − To
request birth and death certificates for children and adolescents when
necessary;
- − To
advise the local Executive Power on the elaboration of the budget proposal for
plans and programmes for enforcing the rights
of the child and adolescent;
and
- − To make
a representation to the Public Prosecution Service in cases of loss or
suspension of custody.
- The
decisions of the Guardianship Council can only be revised by the courts at the
request of someone with a legitimate interest.
By 1999, 3,011 Guardianship
Councils had been created all over Brazil, distributed by geographical
regions, according to the following
table.
Table 4
Guardianship Councils
|
Municipalities
|
Councils
|
Brazil
|
5 507
|
3 011
|
North
|
449
|
185
|
North-east
|
1 787
|
647
|
South-east
|
1 666
|
897
|
South
|
1 159
|
951
|
Centre-west
|
446
|
331
|
Source: IBGE, Research Directorate, Department of Population and
Social Indicators,
Research on Basic Municipal Data 1999.
Note: The Federal District was not included in the results.
- In
relation to Guardianship Councils, representatives of civil society have
expressed their discontent at the failure, during the
12-year existence of the
ECA, to set up these councils in all Brazilian municipalities. As these
representatives point out, such
a situation results from a lack of
infrastructure and resources, in addition to the failure to grasp the
significance of these councils.
4. System of guarantees
- The
Guardianship Councils, the councils of rights and the funds are essential
institutions in the new Children’s Rights Policy.
Equally essential are
the specialist agencies in the security, justice and childcare areas, as well as
the forums of civil society
that make up the so-called “system of
guarantees”. This system has its origin in the ECA statute itself, which
lays
down, among other provisions, that the states and Federal District should
create specialized and exclusive children’s courts
and confers a broad and
well-defined responsibility on the Public Prosecution Service to defend the
individual, diffuse and collective
rights of the child and adolescent. The
creation of integrated units is particularly encouraged, with a specialized
police force,
the Children’s Court and the Public Prosecution Service
operating in the same place, in a coordinated way, which helps to prevent
the
violation of rights, the abuse of authority and the risk of mistreatment. In
some states, like Bahia and São Paulo, there
are already a number of
these integrated centres, which have been making an efficient contribution to an
integrated childcare service.
- The
process of restructuring government agencies and policies to match them with the
new legal order was already under way at the
same time the proceedings of the
Constituent Assembly and the statute were being concluded. In 1990 the National
Foundation of Child
Welfare (FUNABEM) was shut down. This was the central
agency responsible for the previous National Policy of Child Welfare, replaced
initially by the Brazilian Centre for Childhood and Adolescence (CBIA), which
had already introduced various changes and initiated,
among other
- things,
a publicity campaign concerning the statute and a training programme for civil
servants in the states and municipalities.
In 1995 the CBIA was shut down and a
new Department for the Child and Adolescent was created within the Secretary of
State for Human
Rights of the Ministry of Justice. It is the Department’s
responsibility in close collaboration with CONANDA:
- − To
promote, stimulate, monitor and assess the implementation of the Statute of the
Child and Adolescent;
- − To
promote and encourage the adoption of socio-pedagogic projects by assistance
institutions working directly with adolescents
in conflict with the law;
- − To
support the strengthening of the network of juridical-social protection for
children and adolescents;
- − To
promote the production, systematization and dissemination of information related
to juvenile questions;
- − To
execute the activities inherent to the function of Federal Central Authority in
matters of adoption;
- − To
manage and promote the dissemination of the information system for childhood and
adolescence; and
- − To
coordinate nationally the policy of promoting and defending the rights of the
child and adolescent, as well as support
services and programmes providing
direct assistance to adolescents in conflict with the law.
- In
the majority of states, the old State Foundations of Child Welfare (FEBEM) were
already being restructured, at least in formal
terms. Among the changes that
took place, one can mention the new names given to the foundations, the
specialization of sectors
responsible for dealing with juvenile offenders, the
transfer to assistance and/or educational agencies of the programmes directed
at
poor or abandoned children and adolescents (creches, shelters, social assistance
programmes, scholarships, combating child labour,
etc.).
- Since
the beginning of the 1990s, the state directors of childcare agencies have
started to link their activities together in their
own forum, the National Forum
of Government Directors of Executive Agencies of the Policy of Enforcement of
the Rights of the Child
and Adolescent (FONACRIAD), and their performance in the
struggle to implement the statute and the changes in their own restructuring
was
and continues to be very significant.
- For
more than a decade, therefore, they have been working to bring about
institutional changes in terms of the agenda, methods and
management necessary
to achieve the fundamental rights established by the ECA statute. This need to
reorganize the institutions
and integrate the justice, security and childcare
(identifying the actors, functions, limits of competence, interfaces and flows,
demands for essential specialist services, operating in an organized and
interlinked public service network), involving the three
administrative spheres,
the different powers and
- non-governmental
organizations, has been requiring a huge national effort, even though the
advances are still insufficient, given
the situation of vulnerability of the
child and adolescent in Brazil.
5. The rights of the child and adolescent in the context of
human rights
- In
May 1996, Brazil adopted its National Programme of Human Rights, in compliance
with the recommendation of the World Conference
on Human Rights, held in Vienna
in 1993. In May 2002, the National Programme of Human Rights II was launched,
with the aim of incorporating
targets related to economic, social and cultural
rights.
- In
raising human rights to public-policy status, the human rights programmes
established important goals for the protection, defence
and promotion of the
rights of children and adolescents. As an example, one can mention programmes:
to support and strengthen the
functioning of CONANDA; to encourage family
guidance with the objective of teaching families to resolve internal conflicts
in a non-violent
way; to give continuity to the national campaign for combating
sexual exploitation of children; to stimulate the creation of structures
for the
development of socio-educational programmes for adolescent offenders; to
stimulate the setting up, in the states and municipalities,
of rights councils
and guardianship councils; to invest in training professionals responsible for
implementing the children’s
rights policy in the state and municipal
governments and non-governmental organizations; to set up national and state
information
and monitoring systems for children and adolescents; and to ensure
the implementation and adequate functioning of the agencies that
make up the
system of guarantees of the rights of the child and adolescent, stimulating the
creation of specialist public defence
centres for child and adolescent care
(with their rights violated), police departments for investigating crimes
committed against
children and adolescents and exclusive courts for crimes
against children and adolescents.
C. Child budget and federal Government expenditure on the
policy
of enforcing the rights of the child and adolescent
Evolution of total federal social expenditure (GSF) and
federal expenditure on children and adolescents, 1993-2001
- An
important way of visualizing the performance of the federal Government as a
whole in meeting social needs and in protecting special
groups of the population
- as is the case of children and adolescents - is to analyse federal social
expenditure (GSF), both in absolute
values and its structure and evolution.
Although the efficiency in allocating the resources cannot be measured a priori
only by
the volume of funds invested, it allows one to measure the degree of
commitment of the government to social questions and which areas
(education,
health and social assistance, for example) are considered priority.
- In
this study, the evolution of total GSF is given for the 1993 to 2001 period
together with a brief analysis. Then, the specific
federal expenditure on
children and adolescents (aged 0 to 18) is analysed for the years 2000
and 2001,[3] comparing it with
total GSF and disaggregating it into the respective areas - health, education,
social assistance, citizen’s
rights and sport and leisure. It should be
emphasized that the analysis is limited to the federal sphere, as these data do
not exist
at the state and municipal level.
- In
figure 1 below, using December 2001 deflated values, one can notice for
the 19932001 period: (a) the absolute real evolution of
GSF; (b) a real
increase in GSF taking the 1993 number as a basis; (c) GSF per capita; and (d)
the current GSF number in relation
to nominal GDP.
Figure 1
Evolution of GSF, constant and relative values,
1993-2001
- Thus,
one can verify a real increase of 52.8 per cent in GSF during the period -
reaching R$ 172.7 billion in 2001. However, the
growth of GSF was not uniform
in the period: from 1993 to 1997, expenditures rose 46.8 per cent in real
terms and the real rates
of annual growth (or variation) are very high; while
between 1997 and 2001, one finds annual growth rates which are much less
significant
- from 1997 to 2001, GSF grew only 4.1 per cent in real terms.
- The
GSF per capita follows practically the same evolution trend as GSF in the
period. From 1993 to 1998, GSF per capita rose significantly,
then fell
slightly, remaining on a slightly lower level from then onward. The
relationship between GSF and GDP followed a different
path: it remained at a
relatively stable level in the early years of the period and
rose in
proportional terms from 1996 onward - reaching 14 per cent of Brazilian GDP
in 2001.
- Federal
expenditure on children and adolescents in 2000 and 2001, in turn, is shown in
table 5 below. One can see that total federal
expenditure on this age group
rose 8.9 per cent in real terms from one year to the next. It should be
mentioned, however, that this
growth might have been greater if the level of
budgetary spending - which measures financial spending in relation to the
expenditure authorized after laws and credits - observed in 2000 had been
maintained in 2001.
Table 5
Federal expenditure on children and adolescents,
2000-2001
(millions of 2001 R$)
|
Federal expenditure on children and adolescents
|
(Total in millions of 2001 R$)a
|
Per capita (in R$)b
|
Level of budgetary spending (%)
|
2000 (a)
|
2001 (b)
|
Variation % [(b-a)/a]100
|
2000
|
2001
|
2000
|
2001
|
Social assistance
|
1 320.8
|
1 829.5
|
38.5
|
21.2
|
29.4
|
94.4
|
62.0
|
Education
|
2 980.0
|
3 140.7
|
5.4
|
47.9
|
50.5
|
89.3
|
85.6
|
Citizen’s rights
|
15.9
|
27.7
|
74.8
|
0.3
|
0.4
|
60.9
|
61.5
|
Health
|
7 594.0
|
7 938.3
|
4.5
|
122.1
|
127.6
|
97.3
|
96.2
|
Sports and leisure
|
208.0
|
266.3
|
28.0
|
3.3
|
4.3
|
77.1
|
77.8
|
Total
|
12 118.8
|
13 202.6
|
8.9
|
194.9
|
212.3
|
92.9
|
85.7
|
Source: Elaborated by: DISOC/IPEA.
a Siafi.
b Microdata Pnad 2001 - IBGE.
- Moreover,
one can see that the expenditure in all the different areas also grew during the
period, both in absolute terms and per
capita. However, the variation in each
area occurs in different intensities: the areas which showed the most
significant increase,
such as citizen’s rights, sport and leisure and
social assistance, are the least representative in terms of the total spending
in each year; on the other hand, the education and health areas, which together
represent more than 80 per cent of federal spending
in each year on the
population aged 0 to 18, show the least variation from 2000 to 2001.
Furthermore, as can be seen in figure 2
below, budgetary spending in the two
main areas dropped in 2001, which makes their shares in relation to the total
earmarked for
children and adolescents decline, even though their relative
- expenditures
continue to predominate by a long way. It should also be stressed that the
relative growth in the social assistance
area, which was not greater than it,
was due to a 32.4 per cent reduction in budgetary spending from 2000 to 2001;
finally, one’s
attention is drawn to the low budgetary spending in the
area of citizen’s rights in the two years analysed.
Figure 2
Distribution and level of budgetary spending of
federal expenditure
on children and adolescents by area, 2000-2001
- Measuring
the weight of federal expenditure on children and adolescents in relation to
total GSF in 2000 and 2001, one can see in
figures 3 (a) and (b) an increase in
the proportion of total GSF from 7.1 per cent in 2000 to 7.6 per cent of total
GSF in 2001.
If one considers that GSF rose from 2000 to 2001, then this means
that the variation of federal expenditure on children and adolescents
in 2001 is
greater than that in total GSF, indicating greater attention on the part of the
federal Government with this age group.
Unfortunately there is no historical
series of disaggregated data to verify the trends. There are efforts under way
to generate
such historical data.
- Finally,
disaggregating GSF by area, one comes to the conclusion through figures 3 (c)
and (d) that all the areas that make up federal
expenditure on children and
adolescents increased their relative share in the total expenditure of each GSF
area. The greatest increase
is found with expenditures in the social assistance
area[4] which went from 30.4 to
36.3 per cent of total GSF allocated to social assistance activities in 2001.
The education and health areas,
in turn, vary less, something around 1.5
percentage points.
Figure 3
Proportion of federal expenditure on children and
adolescents
and respective areas in the total GSF, 2000-2001
II. DEFINITION OF THE CHILD
- The
Statute of the Child and Adolescent defines a child as a person up to
12 years of age and an adolescent as being someone between
12 and 18 years
of age (art. 2), dividing, therefore, the concept of child contained in the
Convention into two stages of life and
development.
- Relative
majority is reached at 18 and absolute majority at 21, the age at which persons
are entitled to practise all the acts of
civil life (Civil Code, art. 9).
Brazilian legislation provides for the possibility of emancipation of a minor,
which means bringing
forward the age of majority, and the consequent right to
practise all the acts of civil life (Civil Code, art. 9).
- Since
2003, with the coming into force of the new Civil Code, Law No.10.406
of 10 January 2002, minority ends when the person reaches
18 years.
Emancipation, however, may be reached at 16 through the consent of the
parents, or of one of them in the absence of the
- other,
through the sentence of a judge, after consulting with the guardian, through
marriage, through the full exercise of public
employment, on bestowal of a
universitylevel degree, through civil or commercial stability, or through the
existence of an employment
link, provided that, as a result thereof, the minor
of 16 is self-supporting.
- The
law establishes a minimum age for:
- − Privation
of liberty: a minor of 12 years, a child, cannot be deprived of
liberty (ECA statute, art. 105), being subject to the following measures
for offences: restoring the child
to the parents or guardian, through a signed
undertaking of responsibility; temporary guidance, support and supervision;
compulsory
enrolment and attendance in an official primary education
establishment; inclusion in an official community programme to aid the
family,
child and adolescent; requisition of medical, psychological or psychiatric
treatment, either in hospital or an outpatient
clinic; inclusion in an official
or community programme to aid, orient and treat alcohol and chemical substance
abuse; placement
under institutional care; placement in a foster family (ECA
statute, art. 101). For adolescent offenders, the statute makes
provision for the application of the following socio-educational measures:
warning; obligation to repair
the damage; rendering of community services;
supervised liberty; placement in a semi-boarding or boarding educational
establishment
(statute, art. 112). Internment constitutes a
privationofliberty measure, subject to the principles of brevity, exceptionality
and
respect for the special condition of a developing person. Under no
circumstance shall the maximum period of internment exceed three
years. On
completion of this limit, the adolescent shall be freed and placed under a
regime of semi-liberty or supervised liberty.
The adolescent shall be freed
compulsorily at the age of 21 years (statute, art. 121);
- − Matrimony:
minors of 21 years can only marry with the consent of both parents or guardian
(Civil Code, art. 185). The Civil Code in force
until 2002, prohibited the
marriage of female minors below 16 years and male minors below 18 years
(Civil Code, art. 183, XII).
The new Civil Code lays down that, from 2003
onward, a male and a female of 16 can marry, provided that they have the
consent of
both their parents or their legal guardians, while they have not yet
reached the age of legal majority (art. 1.517);
- − Military
service: the obligation to render military service commences on
1 January of the year in which a male citizen reaches 18 years of age.
To
render military service as a volunteer is allowed at the age of 17 years of
age (Military Service Law/Law No. 4.375). (For further
information, see
the section “Children in armed conflicts” of this report.);
- − Criminal
incapacity: minors of 18 are considered not to be criminally responsible
for their acts (federal Constitution, art. 228, and Statute of the Child and
Adolescent, art. 104);
- − Electoral
registration and voting: it is compulsory for persons 18 and over and
optional for persons over 16 and under 18 years (federal Constitution,
art. 14);
- − Employment:
any kind of night-time, hazardous or insalubrious work is prohibited for minors
of 18 and any kind of work for minors of 16 years,
except for apprenticeships of
persons aged 14 or over (federal Constitution, art. 7, XXXIII and
statute, arts. 60 and 67);
- − Education:
school education is compulsory and free from the age of 7 until the completion
of primary education (Law No. 9.394, 20 December
1996, Law of National Education
Guidelines and Bases, art. 6).
- It
should also be mentioned that organizations from civil society have mobilized
over the following issues related to the minimum
age: (a) resistance to
the lowering of the penal age, emphasizing that the adolescent is at a special
development stage and shall
be held criminally incapable until 18; (b) the
struggle against child employment, as exploitation of cheap labour; (c) the
fight
against sexual exploitation, in its countless forms; (d) the defence
of social and educational inclusion of children and adolescents
in Brazil; (e)
the defence of the prohibition of alcoholic drinks and products with substances
that can cause physical or psychic
dependence.
III. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
A. Non-discrimination
- The
“citizen’s” Constitution of 1988, among its basic principles,
establishes the goal of promoting the well-being
of everyone, without
distinction of origin, race, sex, colour, age and any other forms of
discrimination. It should be said that
the non-discrimination principle, which
imposes, on the one hand, the prohibition of discrimination and, on the other
hand, the promotion
of equality, brings together rationality and the democratic
ideology which guides the constitutional order of 1988. The ECA statute,
in
article 5, endorses the principle of nondiscrimination, determining that no
child or adolescent shall be the subject of any form
of negligence,
discrimination, exploitation, violence, cruelty and oppression, any violation by
act or omission of their basic rights
being punishable in accordance with the
law.
- In
the field of basic rights and guarantees, the 1988 Charter innovates by
establishing, in article 5, XLII, that the practice of
racism constitutes a
crime not giving the right to bail or prescription and subject to imprisonment,
according to the law. Law 7716/89
defines and punishes the practice of racism.
That is to say, from being considered a mere misdemeanour in the 1951 Afonso
Arinos
Law, racism was now a crime, a clear demonstration of the constituent
assembly acting to eliminate racial discrimination. The 1988
Charter also
establishes that the law shall punish any discrimination which infringes basic
rights and liberties.
- Concerning
children and adolescents particularly, the constitutional text reaffirms the
principle of non-discrimination in article
227, in establishing that it is the
duty of the family, society and the State to ensure, with absolute priority,
basic rights to
the child and adolescent, protecting them from any kind of
negligence, discrimination, exploitation, violence, cruelty and
oppression.
- The
1988 federal Constitution also breaks with the essentially civil nature of its
precursor, which discriminated against children born out of wedlock (called
“illegitimate”), particularly in questions of inheritance. The text
abolishes once and for all such discrimination,
specifying that children,
whether born in or out of wedlock, or through adoption, will have the same
rights and status, prohibiting
any discriminatory designations concerning
parentage.
- Discrimination,
however, can be identified in certain cultural and social practices, in a
diffuse and not formally recognized way.
It is important to consider the
question of the AfroBrazilian population, which is practically a majority in
many Brazilian states.
Although Brazil had never adopted racist legislation,
the abolition of slavery, which only occurred at the end of the nineteenth
century, left blacks in a socio-economic and cultural position that was, and
continues to be, inferior to that of the general population.
For example, the
average income of blacks and whites is markedly different. While in 1999 the
average Brazilian white person had
a per capita monthly income of R$ 352,
the average Brazilian black person had a per capita income of only
R$ 156. This difference
remained stable throughout the 1995-1999 period,
as table 6 below shows.
Table 6
Average monthly income according to colour and year
(R$)
|
All
|
Whites
|
Blacks*
|
1995
|
268
|
363
|
163
|
1996
|
268
|
363
|
162
|
1997
|
270
|
368
|
163
|
1998
|
273
|
374
|
164
|
1999
|
257
|
352
|
156
|
* IBGE. PNAD, 1995-1999. Elaborated by DISOC/IPEA from
microdata.
- Following
the mobilization of the Afro-Brazilian population, certain measures of an
affirmative character have been adopted recently
by the Government. The 1988
Constitution had already recognized the definitive rights of ownership to the
land occupied by the descendants of the original quilombo communities
(formed by rebel African slaves, who set up independent and free territories).
At the moment there are 743 identified
communities; 36 already have land titles,
which benefits 5,764 families that descend from quilombos.
- The
federal Government has recently adopted a series of measures designed to reduce
racial discrimination in Brazil: (a) it issued
Provisional Decree No. 63 of 26
August 2002, creating the university diversity programme, in the Ministry of
Education sphere, with
the aim of promoting access to higher education of
persons belonging to socially underprivileged groups, especially Afro-Brazilian
and native Brazilian populations, in partnership with government and
non-governmental organizations that operate in the educational
field; (b) the
Ministries of Justice and Agrarian Development have established plans of
affirmative action for Afro-Brazilians which
aim at increasing their
participation in the federal public service; (c) the Ministries of Foreign
Relations and Justice, the National
Council of Scientific and Technological
Development (CNPq) have started to grant scholarships to Afro-Brazilians to
attend preparatory
courses for diplomatic careers.
- As
for children and adolescents, besides government support through the financing
of cultural affirmation programmes, generally speaking
carried out by
non-governmental organizations, the following measures directed at combating
racism should be mentioned:
- − Inclusion
of the race/colour question in the school census and in various official
statistical surveys, in order to support
initiatives for promoting greater
opportunities for blacks;
- − Reformatting
of the Ministry of Education’s school TV programming, with a view to
revising the history of Brazil concerning
the African contribution to the social
formation of the country;
- − Reassessment
of all textbooks distributed or recommended to primary school pupils,
eliminating publications that contain concepts
or images that reinforce
stereotypes or any kind of race, colour or gender prejudices; and
- − Elaboration
of the National Curricular Standards, in line with the objective of promoting
the black race and combating discrimination.
- The
cultural plurality theme included in the National Curricular Standards concerns
the ethnic and cultural characteristics of different
social groups that coexist
in Brazil, the socioeconomic inequalities and the discriminatory social
relations that permeate the society,
providing the student with the possibility
of learning about Brazil as a complex and multifaceted country.
- The
curricular reforms implemented in Brazil include the need to combat gender and
race stereotypes or any types of discrimination,
promoting respect and tolerance
for differences. Besides this, the Government of Brazil is committed to
introducing nondiscriminatory
subject material in relation to women and other
themes that promote gender equality in teacher training courses.
- In
terms of the indigenous population, which comprises around 374,000 people
(approximately 50 per cent children and adolescents),
their rights and
guarantees regarding the culture and specificity of each people, as well as the
respect for such differences are
provided for in articles 231 and 232 of the
federal Constitution. The Government of Brazil, aware that land is the key
factor in the indigenous question, has demarcated and regularized 102.2 million
hectares. Other initiatives, particularly in the health and education fields,
of vital importance for indigenous children and adolescents,
are described later
on in this report. Efforts have been made to publicize the native-Brazilian
question nationwide, with a view
to combating discrimination and prejudice,
which are still to be found, and seeking to give proper value to the
country’s rich
sociocultural diversity.
- One
important alteration introduced by the new Civil Code, Law 10.406/02, should be
highlighted. This concerns the citizenship of
the Brazilian Indian, since it
abolishes the previous status of being a relatively “incapable”
citizen and also State
guardianship.
- Despite
this and other advances obtained, it should be noted that representatives of
civil society and native-Brazilian leaders point
to the persistence of the
following basic problems: diseases transmitted by the whites; the process of
acculturation; the oftenprecarious
situation of their reserves; the lack of
institutional support for Indian schools, in the sense of fully ensuring their
traditions,
languages and values.
- In
relation to children and adolescents with special needs, there are still great
difficulties to overcome to eliminate architectural,
urbanistic and attitude
barriers. Nevertheless, considerable efforts are being made both at the
Government and society level, to
care for those with special needs, particularly
within the educational system.
- Despite
the resistance, both from teachers and from the parents of disabled
students (fearful of prejudice and rejection) and the
parents of the other
students, there
has been a significant increase in the number of enrolments
of special-needs students in the municipal and private school networks,
as
the table below shows. In 1988, municipal schools had around 11,000
students; in 2001 around 54,000 were enrolled, which represented
a 367.5 per cent increase in enrolments. In the private system,
the increase was 177.5 per cent. Considering the school network
as a whole,
enrolment in special education grew 94.5 per cent between 1988 and
2001.
Table 7
Enrolment in special education by administrative
sector,
Brazil, 1988 to 2001
|
1988
|
1996
|
1999
|
2001
|
Growth 1988/2001 (in percentage)
|
Enrolments
|
Percentage
|
Enrolments
|
Percentage
|
Enrolments
|
Percentage
|
Enrolments
|
Percentage
|
|
Total
|
166 290
|
100.0
|
201 142
|
100.0
|
311 354
|
100.0
|
323 399
|
100.0
|
94.5
|
Municipal
|
11 388
|
6.8
|
29 591
|
14.7
|
48 422
|
15.5
|
53 242
|
16.5
|
367.5
|
State
|
82 770
|
49.8
|
90 688
|
45.1
|
87 427
|
28.1
|
76 412
|
23.6
|
-7.7
|
Federal
|
2 605
|
1.6
|
938
|
0.5
|
832
|
0.3
|
840
|
0.3
|
-67.8
|
Private
|
69 527
|
41.8
|
79 925
|
39.7
|
174 673
|
56.1
|
192 905
|
59.6
|
177.5
|
Source: MEC/INEP/SEEC. Excluding rural population of the north
region (except Tocantins). Number of special-needs students that receive
schooling in exclusively specialized schools or in special classes in regular
schools.
- In
relation to special education, representatives of civil society point to the
need for public school teachers to receive better
training for different
special-needs students, besides stressing the need to invest more in the ongoing
training of teachers, so
that their work is of a higher quality and with more
effective educational results.
- As
for the question of gender, many important advances have taken place for
Brazilian girls and women. In the health field, knowledge
and use of birth
control methods have been growing significantly. Important measures have been
taken to humanize prenatal care and
increase and improve assistance at
childbirth. However, the quality of this assistance is still a problem, as one
continues to find
extremely worrying maternal and infant mortality rates due to
perinatal causes in some regions of the country. Bearing in mind this
situation, various
- initiatives
have got under way in all the states of the Federation and in the Federal
District, such as the implementation of the
maternal mortality committees for
investigating and analysing the deaths of women of childbearing age, with a view
to taking action
to reduce such deaths.
- The
maternal mortality rate witnessed a decline of around 28 per cent in the
nation’s capitals between 2001 and 2002. In 2001,
out of each 100,000
live births, there were 71 deaths of women during gestation, delivery and
post-delivery. In 2002, the estimate
is that this number declined to 50. These
numbers were announced by the Minister of Health, Barjas Negri, during the
ceremony presenting
the Oswaldo Cruz Medal of Merit and the Medal of the Order
of Medical Merit. In all, 60 professionals that had contributed to promoting
hygiene and public health were decorated by the minister.
- The
reduction in the maternal mortality rate is revealed in the survey carried out
by the Faculty of Public Health of the University
of São Paulo (FSP-USP),
financed by the Ministry of Health and the Pan-American Health Organization
(PAHO). This is the first
survey carried out in all the Brazilian state
capitals and has assumed great importance as it identifies the true cause of the
deaths
verified. More than a statistic, maternal death is an important
indicator of the quality of life and the social reality of a country,
as well as
political determination in the public health area. The Ministry of Health was
faced with a question of undefined proportions.
The number of deaths is still
underreported due to such facts as the existence of clandestine cemeteries,
where persons are buried
without any official record, the difficulty of access
to notary publics and even because of the inadequate completion of the death
certificate by doctors who, very often, omit that the woman died as a result of
problems related to gestation.
- In
carrying out the research, efforts were made to verify, in situ, the true cause
that led to the woman’s death. This was
done through interviews with
family members of the victims and investigations of medical reports. This
brought the data much closer
to reality. Without the survey, due to
underreporting, this rate would have been lower. The study identified that the
number of
women that die through maternal causes is 62 per cent greater than
that verified in the death certificate. In developed countries
like France,
Germany, United States and Sweden, the underreporting percentages are at the
same level.
- Strategies
to reduce maternal death in a continentsized country, with
approximately 3.2 million women pregnant each year, must be
able to
meet the needs of pregnant women in more than 5,500 municipalities. To this
end, commencing in 1998, women’s health
was given priority among
Ministry of Health policies. It is known that in
Brazil 65 per cent of maternal deaths occur during childbirth.
For this reason, investments were made in improving the quality of medical care
during delivery. The Ministry of Health started
to limit the number of
Caesarean sections, as the risk of death in this case is five times greater than
that of normal childbirth.
Today, out of each 100 deliveries, 25 are by
Caesarean, compared with 33 recorded in 1997.
- It
also began to pay for anesthesia in normal childbirth and increased the amount
paid by the Single Health System (SUS) for all deliveries
by 160 per cent. A
specialization project was created for obstetric nurses, which produced 1,100
new professionals. Furthermore,
the federal Government invested R$ 100 million
to set up the System of Alert to HighRisk Pregnancy in all the states and
created
the Galba de Araújo Award for maternity wards providing humanized
health care.
- Another
important strategy for combating maternal mortality was introduced in
June 2000: the Programme for Humanizing Prenatal Care
and Childbirth. The
initiative sprang from a desire to ensure access and quality of prenatal,
delivery and post-delivery care, as
well as neonatal care. By means of
financial incentives to municipalities that join the programme, the Ministry
intends to provide
every pregnant woman with the right to at least six pre- and
one postchildbirth consultation. All the basic exams are also guaranteed
for a
pregnant woman as well as a bed in a maternity ward. The municipality receives
as an incentive R$ 50 and the hospital R$ 40
for each pregnant woman who
has undergone the established procedures of the programme.
- The
Government of Brazil has also tried to give emphasis to infirmities that affect
specific groups (racial, ethnic and of a sexual
orientation, among others),
seeking to ensure access to treatment and assistance, particularly of children
and adolescents. It has
also staged a full campaign to disseminate primers and
educational material to instruct health professionals, family members and
the
infirm, designed to produce greater awareness of the problem and combat
prejudice.
- In
the educational area, a substantial increase was verified over the last two
decades in female schooling which, between 1992 and
1999, exceeded that of males
- a trend also verified in the data on illiteracy. Average schooling of
females went from 4.9 years,
in 1992, to 5.9 years, in 1999, while
that of males went from 4.8 to 5.6 years in the same period, as table 8 below
shows.
Table 8
Average years of study of the population aged 10 or
more,
by sex and region
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
1992
|
1999
|
1992
|
1999
|
1992
|
1999
|
Brazila
|
4.9
|
5.8
|
4.8
|
5.6
|
4.9
|
5.9
|
Northb
|
5.0
|
5.8
|
4.9
|
5.6
|
5.1
|
5.9
|
North-east
|
3.5
|
4.3
|
3.2
|
4.0
|
3.7
|
4.7
|
South-east
|
5.5
|
6.5
|
5.5
|
6.4
|
5.5
|
6.5
|
South
|
5.4
|
6.2
|
5.4
|
6.2
|
5.4
|
6.3
|
Centre-west
|
5.1
|
5.9
|
4.9
|
5.7
|
5.2
|
6.2
|
Sources: PNAD 1992: microdata; PNAD 1999: microdata - Summary of
Social Indicators, 2000, IBGE.
a Excluding the rural population of Rondônia, Acre,
Amazonas, Roraima, Pará and Amapá.
b Excluding the rural population.
- Among
the socio-economic factors that explain this phenomenon, the most influential is
the entry of women into the labour market.
Growing professionalization has
worked as a stimulus for Brazilian females to seek a better level of schooling,
even as a way of
compensating for wage discrimination which, continues to
exist, albeit at a lower level. In 1993, the average remuneration of women
in
relation to men was 59 per cent, while in 2001, it had risen to
70 per cent.[5]
- In
terms of the higher female schooling rates in Brazil, it should be said that
representatives of civil society point to the need
to analyse the following fact
which unfortunately also works toward increasing this difference: while child
labour for girls takes
place basically in the domestic sphere which, to some
extent, makes her freer to go to school, child labour for boys takes place
above
all in the streets, to the detriment of school attendance, with an additional
aggravation of exposure to situations of risk,
such as substance abuse and petty
larceny.
- Despite
recognizing the unmistakable advance in the situation of Brazilian girls during
the period examined in this report, representatives
of civil society also
emphasize the need to vigorously combat the following problems: discrimination
resulting from child domestic
labour; sexual exploitation in tourism,
particularly in beach resorts and frontier towns; sexual violence in the form of
rape and
harassment; ill-treatment at home; and early maternity.
B. The higher interest of the child
- The
federal Constitution lays down in article 227 that it is the duty of the family,
society and the State to ensure the rights of the child and adolescent
as an
absolute priority. The child and the adolescent are defined by the ECA statute
as developing persons, with special needs and
who require full protection.
- The
absolute priority conferred on the child results in:
- − Preference
in receiving protection and help under any circumstance;
- − The
right to joint accommodation for mother and newborn child and the fulltime
presence of one of the parents or person responsible,
in cases when a child or
adolescent is interned in a health-care establishment;
- − Precedence
in the use of public services or services of public relevance;
- − Being a
preferential target in the formulation and execution of public policies;
- − Priority
in the allocation of public resources for programmes and activities related to
the protection of the child and adolescent
(statute, art. 4).
- The
ECA statute emphasizes that the laws shall be construed in accordance with their
social end, the demands of the common good, the
individual and collective rights
and duties and the special condition of the child and adolescent as a developing
person (art. 6
of the statute). It should be said that, in their capacity as
actual rights-bearers at a special stage of development, children
and
adolescents will not only have a guarantee of absolute priority, inspired by the
fact of being of higher interest, but will have
the right to special protection,
in view of their vulnerability.
C. Rights to life, survival and development
- The
statute lays down in article 3, that “the child and adolescent enjoy all
the basic rights inherent to a human being, without
detriment to the integral
protection provided for by this law, guaranteeing them, by law or other means,
all the opportunities and
facilities, to allow their physical, mental, moral,
spiritual and social development, under conditions of freedom and
dignity”.
- In
relation specifically to life and survival, the statute establishes in article
7, that “the child and adolescent have the
right to the protection of life
and health, through the implementation of public social policies which allow
birth and healthy and
harmonious development, under dignified conditions of
existence”.
- The
enforcement of these rights runs into serious obstacles in the Brazilian
situation. Despite the cultural changes that have been
taking place in terms of
viewing the child and adolescent as developing human beings and rights-bearers,
the progressive legislation
directed at their protection and the considerable
efforts by the Government and society, fulfilment of this principle is still far
from being achieved.
- The
lives of a great number of children and adolescents are marked by poverty,
difficult access to and deficient quality of public
services, under-age
employment and exposure to situations of violence. The Government is
endeavouring itself to reverse this situation,
through its economic policy,
social policies and legislative and administrative measures.
- In
1994, the Government of Brazil introduced an economic plan, known as the Real
Plan, which was designed to stabilize the Brazilian
economy by combating
inflation and balancing public accounts. These objectives were achieved and
with constant tuning, resulting
from changes in the world economy or domestic
questions, stability has been maintained.
- A
recent study[6] shows that the
percentage of poor people in the Brazilian population declined from 39 per
cent (62.5 million) in 1977, to 34 per
cent (50 million) in 1998, stabilizing at
this level. The Real Plan had an undeniable influence on this decline, reducing
the maladies
of income concentration, yet not sufficiently.
- According
to IBGE, the proportion of children and adolescents living in a poverty
situation, in families with an income of up to half
a minimum wage, in 1989, was
50.5 per cent, while in 1995 it was 40.4 per cent. In the north-east region,
63.3 per cent of children
lived in this type of family, while in the south and
south-east regions, the proportion was around 26 per cent.
- However,
the mark of social inequality in Brazil still manifests itself, for example:
(a) when one verifies that in 2001, only about
45 per cent of the homes of
families that earned up to half a minimum wage had mains water supply, a
sewage system and garbage collection;
(b) through a Gini index of 0.572 in
2001.[7] This clearly shows
that there is still a lot to do to ensure that everyone in Brazil has a minimum
civilized standard of living.
- In
the last decade, Brazil has undergone considerable and varied changes in the
demographic, political and macroeconomic fields, and
in terms of State reform,
among others. This has had some effect on the situation of children and
adolescents. To tackle the difficulties
that persist has been a constant
concern of the Governments and society during these last 10 years. Some
examples of these efforts
are: (a) the progressive coming together of the
Government sector and representatives of civil society in the furtherance of
social
policies, allowing a better interaction and integration of social
assistance initiatives; (b) the Minimum Income, Scholarship and
Food Grant
Programmes, which transfer public resources in money to poor families; (c) the
Community Health Workers Programme (more
than 150,000 workers in 4,662
municipalities) and the Family Health Programme (more than 11,000 teams in the
Programme all over Brazil);
(d) the projects of the Community Solidarity
Programme directed at combating poverty and social exclusion; (e) the Programme
for
Eradicating Child Labour; among others.
D. Respect for the child’s opinion
- The
1988 Charter establishes in the field of basic rights and guarantees, freedom of
expression, but anonymity is not allowed. It
also means being free to express
intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication activity.
- Article
16 of the statute guarantees the child the right to freedom of opinion and
expression, among other rights. The child that
is capable of making his own
judgements will be guaranteed the right to express his opinions freely
concerning all matters related
to his interest. Such opinions will be duly
considered according to the child’s age.
- The
child will have the opportunity to be heard in every judicial or administrative
process that affects him, directly or through
a legal representative. When
the competent authority determines that the child and adolescent will be placed
with a foster family,
whenever possible they will be previously heard and their
opinion taken into account (art. 28). No adolescent can be adopted without
being allowed to express his opinion in respect of such a measure (art. 45).
Even in relation to children, it is recommendable that
their opinion be taken
into account, to which end the judicial authority can make use of the assistance
of specialist technicians.
- In
relation to school, the statute lays down that the child or adolescent shall
have the right to contest assessment criteria and
are entitled to appeal to
higher levels of school authority (art. 53, II, III and IV). Adolescents
deprived of liberty have the
right to have a personal interview with the
representative of the Public Prosecution Service, to petition directly any
authority
and to meet privately with their defence counsel (art. 124).
- The
important contribution of organized civil society to enforcing the principle of
respect for the opinion of the child and adolescent
should be stressed. Of
particular importance are the efforts of many non-governmental organizations to
develop activities that promote
juvenile protagonism as an exercise of
citizenship. Juvenile protagonism and active participation in
the guarantee process are vital
to the promotion and defence of the rights
of the child and adolescent.
IV. CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
A. Name and nationality
- Article
12 of the federal Constitution, modified by Constitutional Amendment No. 3
of 9 June 1994, establishes that native-born Brazilians are:
those born in the Federative
Republic of Brazil, even if born to foreign
parents, provided that the latter are not in the service of their country; those
born
abroad to a Brazilian father or Brazilian mother, provided that either of
them is in the service of the Federal Republic of Brazil;
and those born
abroad to a Brazilian father or Brazilian mother, provided that they come to
reside in the Federal Republic of Brazil
and opt, at any time, for
Brazilian nationality. Naturalized Brazilians are: those who,
in accordance with the law, acquire Brazilian
nationality, the only
condition required being residency for one uninterrupted year and moral
fitness for those coming from Portuguesespeaking
countries; foreigners of any
nationality resident in the Federal Republic of Brazil for more than
15 uninterrupted years and without
a penal conviction, provided that they
request Brazilian nationality.
- Paragraph
2 of the same article lays down that the law shall not make a distinction
between native-born and naturalized Brazilians,
except for the cases provided
for in the Constitution itself.
- The
right to a name is a universal public social convention for identifying the
human being by peoples and nations the world over.
The name of the child and
the adult person is a fundamental part of the legal instrument of parentage and
identification of the
Brazilian, within the sociocultural order and
relationship, in both national and international domains. Although recognized
as a
universal right, the existence of under-registration, (a topic dealt with
in the next item) impedes the full exercise of this right.
B. Preservation of identity
- The
statute prescribes in article 10 that hospitals, maternity homes and other
health-care establishments, public and private, are
obliged to identify the
newborn child by recording his finger and footprints and the fingerprint of the
mother, without detriment
to other regulatory norms established by the competent
administrative authority. Such establishments are also obliged to supply
a
declaration of birth in which the circumstances of the birth and neonatal
development are recorded. Non-compliance with these
obligations shall subject
the offenders to the respective penalties (arts. 228 and 229 of the
statute).
- Thus,
these procedures (foot and fingerprints of the newborn and fingerprints of the
mother and provision of the live birth declaration,
DNV) are adopted in all
hospitals and maternity homes in the country, ensuring the identification of all
children born on Brazilian
soil.
- The
federal Constitution (art. 5) ensures the civil registration of birth and death
certificates for all poor Brazilians free of charge. The Statute of the
Child
and the Adolescent (art. 102) also guarantees the right to civil registration of
birth, prescribing that the measures for protecting
children and adolescents
shall verify that this is duly performed.
- The
civil registration of birth is the first document for the exercise of
citizenship, attesting the official existence of the individual.
It should be
made in a notary public by the parents (the registration can be made by just the
mother or the father, with the latter
being entitled to be absent from work for
one day for this purpose).[8]
In the event that there is no civil registration of birth, the judicial
authority, in the light of the available evidence shall
provide the registration
of birth of the child and adolescent, without any cost and with absolute
priority (statute, art. 102).
- In
December 1987, Law 9,534 was passed, which provides for the civil registration
of birth for all Brazilians free of charge. According
to this law, the first
birth certificate and death certificate is free of charge for
everyone,[9] thus ensuring
the right to an official civil registration of every child or adolescent,
despite the precarious state of the document
- printed paper - on which the
child’s data is entered and registered.
- Although
the law facilitates civil birth registration to the maximum, the number of
children and even adults who do not possess a
birth certificate is still
considerable, particularly on the periphery of large cities, in rural areas and
in the lands of the indigenous
population. According to the Ministry of Health
and IBGE, around 3 million children are born annually in Brazil, of which, up to
2,000, about 20 per cent had no civil birth registration, as seen from
table 9 below. This percentage was approximately 30 per cent
of live
births in the mid-1990s. Besides other implications which limit the exercise of
citizenship, this leads to underreporting
of births, deaths and other health
indicators, hampering the formulation of social policies directed at this age
group.
Table 9
Estimate of under-registration of births
|
Estimates
|
Registrations
|
Children not registered
|
Percentage
|
Brazil
|
3 489 993
|
2 745 935
|
752 328
|
21.32
|
North
|
363 459
|
188 224
|
175 236
|
48.21
|
North-east
|
1 102 288
|
709 771
|
392 517
|
35.61
|
South-east
|
1 319 444
|
1 236 235
|
83 210
|
6.31
|
South
|
469 017
|
415 822
|
53 195
|
11.34
|
Centre-west
|
243 952
|
195 783
|
48 170
|
19.75
|
Source: IBGE. Estimate: Celso Simões/2002.
- The
Government of Brazil has been giving great emphasis to the importance of birth
registration in the first year of life. In 1999,
the National Birth
Registration Campaign carried out by the Executive Office of the President of
the Republic and CONANDA, which
fully publicized the importance of the document,
oriented and encouraged parents to seek this right and explained how easy it was
to obtain. The creation of birth-registration
posts[10] in maternity homes
and wards has been one of the ways to facilitate and expedite child
registration. The
- procedure
is simple: the mother or father, in possession of the Declaration of Live Birth
supplied by the hospital, goes to the post
installed there, registers the
child and receives the birth certificate. By mid-2002, there were 51
birth-registration posts in
the maternity homes of 15 states in
Brazil.
- An
incentive was also introduced for maternity homes associated with the Single
Health System (SUS) which provide the birth registration
before discharge from
the hospital. To this end, a new code (99.085.01-1) was included in the table
of payments for special procedures
of the SUS, worth R$ 5, for maternity
homes that proceed in this way.
- As
for the recognition by the state of parentage, it is a highly personal,
inalienable and imprescriptible right, which may be exercised
against the
parents or their heirs, without any restriction, respecting the confidentiality
of the court (ECA, art. 27).
- The
law facilitates to the maximum recognition of paternity, which can be done at
any time, even after the death of the child. Children
born out of wedlock can
be recognized by the parents, jointly or separately, in the birth registration
itself, by will, through a
legal document or any other public instrument, no
matter the origin of the parentage. Recognition can precede the birth of the
child
or succeed his decease, should there be any descendents (statute, art.
26).
- It
should be remembered that the law guarantees the Brazilian child and adolescent
the right to be raised and educated in the family
home and exceptionally in a
substitute family, with the right to family and community life ensured (ECA,
art. 19).
- When
extended education occurs in schools or similar institutions, the question of
preserving cultural identity and social traditions
is given priority; the
socializing process reinforces the values, character and personality of the
learner.
C. Freedom of expression
- Freedom
of expression is a right established by the Brazilian federal Constitution. Its
free and unimpeded manifestation, represented in its various forms, is also an
express guarantee, in accordance with article
5, paragraph IX of the
Constitution, which determines that the expression of intellectual, artistic,
scientific and communication activities shall be free, independently
of
censorship or permission.
- The
ECA statute explicitly states, in article 16, that the child and adolescent are
guaranteed freedom of expression. The said text
states that the right to
freedom comprises, among others, the following aspects: opinion and expression
and participation in political
life, according to the law. Brazilian
legislation gives the adolescent aged between 16 and 18 the choice of voting in
all electoral
processes and makes it compulsory for all Brazilians aged between
18 and 70.
- Brazil
today is a representative democracy with universal suffrage, regular elections
and mandates and active electoral courts, and
also making use of electronic
polling stations. There are about 115 million voters, of which 2 per cent are
adolescents between
16 and 18 years of age. The press is free, in all the
different media, however, magazines, publications, videotapes can only be
sold
or rented to children and adolescents if the age rating is appropriate (statute,
art. 78).
- It
should be noted that representatives of civil society stress that, although
Brazil is a firmly established representative democracy,
the use of the
mechanisms of participatory democracy needs to be intensified. The 1988
Constitution establishes the following mechanisms for the direct participation
of the will of the people: the referendum, the plebiscite and
popular
initiative.
D. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
- As
has already been stressed in the topic related to respect for the opinion of the
child and the adolescent, freedom of expression
of thought, a pivotal
manifestation of the respect for individual liberties, is guaranteed by the 1988
Brazilian Constitution, which lays down, in article 5, paragraph IV, that
the expression of thought is free, with anonymity being barred. The right of
reply is also protected with paragraph V of the same article prescribing that
the right of response, proportional to the offence,
besides indemnity for
material, moral or personal damage, is guaranteed.
- In
fact, the federal Constitution (art. 5) guarantees all basic liberties:
manifestation of thoughts, of conscience and belief; the practise of religion;
the expression
of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication
activities, independently of censorship or permission; of movement; of peaceful
assembly and association.
- Also
in the constitutional area, the Brazilian Political Charter, in article 220,
guarantees the expression of thought, declaring
that the manifestation of
thought, creation, expression and information, in any form, process or vehicle,
shall not be subject to
any restriction, observing the provisions of the
Constitution.
- The
Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) makes it clear, in turn, that the
child and adolescent enjoy all the basic rights inherent
to the human being
(art. 3) and affirms that the child and adolescent have the right to liberty,
respect and dignity as bearers of
civil, human and social rights, guaranteed in
the Constitution and in the laws (art. 15).
- The
statute specifies that the right of the child and adolescent to liberty
comprises the following aspects: to go, come and be in
public areas and
community spaces; opinion and expression; belief and religious worship; to play,
practise sports and have fun; to
participate in family and community life; to
seek refuge, help and guidance (art. 16).
- Religious
freedom is fully respected and religious syncretism is part of Brazilian
culture. Even deprived of freedom, the adolescent
has the right to receive
religious support, according to his beliefs, providing that he so desires
(statute, art. 124).
- It
should be mentioned that representatives of civil society point to the
persistence of prejudice in many cultural and religious
aspects and in terms of
social class, which leads to a distancing between the law and concrete social
reality.
E. Freedom of association and holding peaceful
meetings
- One
of the most important innovations in the Convention is undoubtedly the right of
children and adolescents to participate in all
questions that concern them, as
well as the right to organize themselves for peaceful and legal ends.
- In
the case of Brazil, these rights are expressed in the Statute of the Child and
Adolescent. Article 16 of the statute guarantees
the child the right to
participate in family and community life and political life.
- It
is worth mentioning the participation of Brazilian children and adolescents in
their own struggle for their rights in the Constitution, when they submitted a
document with more than a million signatures, collected all over the country, to
the National Constituent
Assembly. At the time the Bill that would result in
the statute was passing through Congress, the presence of young people in the
nation’s capital was remarkable, first during the second National Meeting
of Street Children, held in Brasilia in 1989, and
the fourth National Conference
on the Rights of the Child and Adolescent, in 2001, also in Brasilia.
- The
so-called “juvenile protagonism” was encouraged by various
non-governmental organizations and also through more advanced
programmes of
formal and informal education. Many schools have extremely active student
unions. Themes which arouse considerable
interest are the ecological movements
and sports, for example. The fact that young persons have the right to vote at
16 means that
many of them are politically active, joining the youth sections of
the political parties.
- Strategies
that lead to young people participating in the community are considered to be of
great educational value and constitute
a useful and efficient mechanism in
preventing violence, substance abuse and the practise of misdemeanours.
- The
Ministry of Justice’s National Programme for Peace in Schools, created in
1999 with the aim of reducing violence in schools
promotes, in partnership with
civil society, social mobilization activities, training programmes for teachers
and police who operate
in the schools and particularly initiatives that
stimulate juvenile protagonism. In this respect the formation of student unions
and observatories, the staging of national and regional meetings, publications
and other forms of dissemination are all encouraged.
Although such practices
are still not yet universal, which would be desirable, there is a consensus that
they should be implemented
in the widest possible way.
- A
significant new development, in relation to juvenile participation was the
involvement of young persons in children’s conferences,
municipal, state
and national, dealing with denunciations of the violation of rights, as well as
policy proposals and programmes
to overcome it. To strengthen juvenile
political participation, a proposal was made that this social segment should
participate
systematically every two years, with the support of the states and
civil society, in municipal, state and national conferences on
the rights of the
child and adolescent.
F. Protection of private life
- The
Constitution (art. 5) guarantees the inviolability of the intimacy, privacy,
honour and image of individuals, as well as the inviolability of
confidentiality
of correspondence and telegraph and telephone communications. The law lays down
that the violation of this right
can lead to indemnity for moral or material
damage. The Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) clarifies that the right
to respect
signifies the inviolability of the physical, psychic and moral
integrity of the child and adolescent, comprising the preservation
of image,
identity, autonomy, values, ideas and beliefs and personal spaces and objects
(art. 17).
- Legislators
also took great care to preserve the right to privacy and not stigmatize the
child or adolescent in a situation of conflict
with the law. The adolescent who
is deprived of liberty is entitled to retain possession of his personal objects
and have access
to a place for their safekeeping. The adolescent is also
entitled to have a personal meeting in private with his counsel (ECA, art.
124).
- It
is forbidden to make public the judicial, police and administrative acts
concerning children and adolescents who are charged with
committing an offence.
Any news concerning the fact cannot indicate the child or adolescent, and it is
forbidden to photograph them
or to reveal their name, nickname, parentage,
relatives and address (ECA, art. 143). Any infringement of these norms
constitutes
an offence subject to a fine or apprehension of the publication or
suspension of the station’s programming or publication of
the periodical
(art. 247).
- To
photograph or publish scenes of sex involving children or adolescents is a crime
subject to imprisonment of one to four years and
a fine for offenders (ECA, art.
241). In recent years the Government of Brazil has been vigorously combating
child pornography on
the Internet by means, for example, of a broad campaign on
all government sites and in the media in general inviting the public to
denounce
such occurrences, and also through the dedicated action of the Federal Police,
the Public Prosecution Service and the Federal
Prosecuting Attorney’s
Office.
- The
activities of organized civil society in relation to the theme have been
concerned with identifying and denouncing places in Brazil
where there have been
cases of violation of the right to the protection of private life.
G. Access to relevant information
- The
Constitution guarantees access to information to all (art. 5). The child and
adolescent have a right to information, culture, leisure, sports,
entertainment,
spectacles and services that respect their special situation as a developing
person (ECA, art. 71).
- The
Public Administration should regulate public entertainment and spectacles
informing the general public of their nature, the age
groups for which they are
not recommended, times and places unsuitable for their presentation (ECA, art.
74). Every child or adolescent
shall have access to entertainment and
spectacles, classified as suitable for their age group (ECA, art. 75).
-
Magazines and publications designed for the juvenile public cannot contain
illustrations, photographs, articles or advertisements
about alcoholic
beverages, tobacco, or guns and ammunition (ECA, art. 79). Magazines,
publications and videotapes containing material
improper or unsuitable for
children and adolescents must be sold in a sealed wrapper, with a warning
concerning the contents. The
advertising and presentation of shows must
indicate the age group for which it is suitable. Non-compliance with these
obligations
shall subject those responsible to the penalties of the law (fine,
suspension of the show, closing of the establishment, apprehension
of the
publication) provided for in articles 252 to 258 of the ECA.
- The
right to information is protected in the event of conflict with the law.
Adolescents are entitled to full and formal knowledge
of the indictment (ECA,
art. 111, I) and to be informed of their legal situation whenever they request
it (art. 124, IV). It is
the duty of the establishment where adolescents are
interned as a result of being deprived of their liberty periodically to inform
internees about their legal situation (art. 94, XV). Notification of the
sentence that applies in the internment or semi-internment
system will be made
to the adolescent and his defence counsel and the adolescent shall manifest
whether he wishes to appeal the sentence
or not (art. 190).
- In
relation to the right to relevant information, representatives of civil society
have pointed to the need for the principles established
by the Statute of the
Child and Adolescent to be observed rigorously by the various sectors of
society. In this respect, one should
mention the existence of campaigns to get
the mass media in general to eliminate from their programming all types of
speech, images,
cartoons, comic strips, etc. which can promote violence and
discrimination of any type, including that related to social
inequality.
H. The right not to be submitted to torture or other cruel,
inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment
- The
federal Constitution determines that no one shall be submitted to torture or
inhuman or degrading treatment (art. 5, III). The practice of torture is
a
crime whose perpetrator is without the right to bail and ineligible for pardon
or amnesty (art. 5, XLIII). There shall be no penalties:
of death, except in
case of a declared war; of a perpetual nature; of forced labour; of banishment;
or of a cruel nature (art. 5,
XLVII). The ECA expressly prohibits any form of
violence, cruelty and oppression against the child and adolescent (art. 5), as
well
as any inhuman, violent, terrifying, harassing or embarrassing treatment
(art. 18).
- Since
1989, Brazil has been a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,
as well as the Inter-American
Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Torture.
- The
punishment for anyone submitting a child or adolescent under their authority,
guardianship or supervision to harassment or coercion
is imprisonment for six
months to two years (art. 232). The Statute of the Child and Adolescent
contains a specific article on the
punishment of someone who submits a child or
adolescent under their guardianship or supervision to torture. With the
introduction
of law No. 455 of 7 April 1997, which defines the crime of torture
and the corresponding penalties, article 223 of the statute was
revoked.
According to the new law, the practice of torture is punishable by imprisonment
of two to eight years and is increased
from a sixth to a third if committed
against a child or adolescent. Conviction shall lead to the loss of the
position, function
or public employment and a ban on exercising such for twice
the length of time as the sentence applied.
- The
ECA (art. 263) made alterations to the Penal Code by increasing the penalty
applicable in the following offences, if the victim
should be a child or
adolescent: (a) to harm the physical integrity or health of another; (b) to
expose to danger the life or health
of a person under one’s authority,
guardianship or supervision, for the purposes of education, schooling, treatment
or custody,
whether depriving the person of food or indispensable care or
subjecting the person to excessive or unsuitable work, or abusing methods
of
correction or discipline.
- Minors
under 18 years are held to be criminally incapable for their actions, but from
the age of 12 are subject to deprivation of
liberty and internment in special
institutions exclusive for adolescents. Under no circumstance can the
period of internment exceed
three years (ECA, art. 121, para. 3), and
solitary confinement of the internee is expressly prohibited (art. 124,
XVI, para. 1).
The institutions for internment must preserve the identity of
the adolescent and offer an environment of respect and dignity (ECA,
art. 94,
IV). The State has the duty to take care of the physical and mental integrity
of the internees (art. 125).
- Cases
of suspected or confirmed mistreatment against a child or adolescent must be
communicated without exception to the Guardianship
Council, to the Juvenile
Court or Public Prosecutor (ECA, art. 13). The directors of primary education
establishments have the duty
to communicate to the Guardianship Council (or to
the authority that replaces it) any cases of mistreatment involving their pupils
(art. 56). The doctor, teacher or person responsible for a health or teaching
establishment or crèche that fails to communicate
to the competent
authority the cases that he is aware of involving suspected or confirmed
mistreatment against a child or adolescent
has committed an offence subject to a
fine (art. 245). Remaining silent may characterize the crime of omission and/or
connivance.
- Despite
the legal obligation of health professionals and school directors to report to
the competent authority cases (suspected or
confirmed) of domestic violence
against children and adolescents, the number of denunciations by such
professionals is low.
- In
cases of ill-treatment, oppression or abuse practised by parents or the person
responsible, the judicial authority can determine,
as a precautionary measure,
the removal of the aggressor from the common domicile (ECA, art. 130). The
judicial authority can suspend
or take away legal custody from the parents or
person responsible or cancel the guardianship or safekeeping of the child or
adolescent
(art. 129).
- In
2001, the Ministry of Justice carried out a wide campaign concerning the right
not to be submitted to torture, having created Dial
Torture, a
free-of-charge telephone service (0800 7075551) operating through a
national-alert exchange and 20 monitoring exchanges
scattered throughout the
country, capable of watching over and investigating occurrences.
- As
for the part played by organized civil society, one should highlight their
importance in the process of combating violence, negligence
and exploitation of
children and adolescents, including their work in the domestic sphere. Besides
forwarding denunciations, various
organizations run programmes for the
protection and rehabilitation of victimized children and adolescents. The
Government of Brazil,
particularly the Department for the Child and Adolescent
of the Ministry of Justice, have been forming partnerships with such
organizations
and also with the subnational governments, especially involving
the Guardianship Councils, assisting them technically and financially.
- It
should also be noted that representatives of civil society have denounced the
incarceration conditions of adolescents in some institutions
and highlighted,
according to the guidelines set forth in the ECA, that it is necessary to
stimulate the application, on the part
of the competent authorities, of
socio-educational measures instead of incarceration. The denunciations
presented involve the occurrence
of overpopulation in correctional facilities;
repression of rebellions; ill-treatment and torture. (In the “adolescents
in
conflict with the law” section of this report, paragraphs 568-588, one
finds additional information on the subject.)
- Reference
to the theme can be found in the document published in 2001 by the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other
cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment. The Special Rapporteur in question visited
Brazil in 2000 (E/CN.4/2001/66/Add.2)
at the invitation of the Government of
Brazil, having been granted broad and free access to all the facilities that he
wanted to
visit, as well as the power to interview in private anyone he wanted.
When making its invitation to the United Nations Special Rapporteur,
the
Government of Brazil stressed its commitments to the implementation of a human
rights policy in the country, which implies eliminating
the occurrence of
violations in correctional institutions.
V. FAMILY ENVIRONMENT AND OTHER TYPES OF GUARDIANSHIP
A. Direction and orientation of parents
- The
federal Constitution (art. 227) and the Statute of the Child and Adolescent
(art. 19) guarantee to the child and adolescent the right to family life.
The
family, the basis of society, enjoys special protection from the State. The
stable union between a man and a woman is recognized
as a family unit. The
Constitution also recognizes as a family unit the community formed by either of
the parents and their descendents (art. 226). The parents have
the duty to
assist, raise and educate their children while they are minors and the children
after reaching majority age should help
and support their parents in old age, in
need or infirmity (art. 229).
- There
is currently a new conception of family in Brazil. The relationships between
parents and children and between the different
members of the family group have
been altered. The patriarchal organization has been weakened and the woman now
has certain rights
that were formerly denied her, with a consequent assignment
of duties. Spouses now have similar attributions, even though the legal
apparatus does not always find its counterpart in daily life.
- The
changes in the Brazilian family are of great importance in understanding the
social structure. For this reason, part of contemporary
literature seeks to
answer the following question: What are the transformations which the Brazilian
family has undergone in recent
years? The most important changes, according to
recent studies by IPEA,[11]
have taken place in the composition of the nucleus and the periphery, as well as
in the size, of families. In the following section,
these variations will be
commented on in greater depth.
- The
transformations in the composition of Brazilian families have been analysed
recently, according to two main types of changes:
“those related to the
composition of what is called the nucleus and periphery, and those concerning
the size”.[12] The
term nucleus means the couple and their children (natural or otherwise), while
periphery refers to all the other members of
the
family.[13]
- In
terms of the changes related to the composition of the nucleus/periphery, there
has been an increase in the heterogeneity of the
nucleus and homogeneity of the
periphery of families. The nucleus (couple and children) is now more
diversified, among other factors,
due to a reduction in the number of couples,
even though this is still the predominant type, as one can see in table 10
below.
- The
size and composition of families have become more homogenous in comparison with
what they were 20 years ago. Generally speaking,
not only has the average
number of children (which includes stepchildren and adopted children) gone down,
but also the number of
persons in the position of “other parent” in
relation to the head of the domicile, as is shown in the following table.
All
this leads to the “formation of a new domiciliary pattern with a
proportional increase in minor and different set-ups
from the standard model of
the nuclear family headed by a
couple”.[14]
Table 10
Distribution of people and household arrangements,
by type of set-up,
Brazil, 1978, 1988 and 1998 (in percentage)
|
1978
|
1988
|
1998
|
Persons
|
Set-ups
|
Persons
|
Set-ups
|
Persons
|
Set-ups
|
Couple
|
86
|
80
|
83
|
76
|
79
|
72
|
Childless couple
|
6
|
11
|
6
|
11
|
7
|
12
|
Childless couple without other relatives
|
4
|
9
|
5
|
10
|
6
|
10
|
Childless couple with other relatives
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
Couple with children
|
80
|
68
|
77
|
65
|
72
|
59
|
Couple with children without other relatives
|
62
|
55
|
61
|
54
|
57
|
50
|
Couple with children and other relatives
|
19
|
13
|
16
|
11
|
15
|
10
|
Female
|
11
|
14
|
13
|
17
|
17
|
21
|
Childless female
|
2
|
5
|
2
|
6
|
3
|
7
|
Childless female without other relatives
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
4
|
1
|
5
|
Childless female with other relatives
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
Female with children
|
9
|
9
|
11
|
11
|
14
|
14
|
Female with children without other relatives
|
5
|
7
|
6
|
8
|
7
|
9
|
Female with children and other relatives
|
4
|
3
|
5
|
4
|
6
|
5
|
Male
|
3
|
6
|
4
|
7
|
4
|
8
|
Childless Male
|
2
|
5
|
2
|
5
|
2
|
6
|
Childless male without other relatives
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
4
|
1
|
5
|
Childless male with other relatives
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
Male with children
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
Male with children without other relatives
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
Male with children and other relatives
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
Total
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
Total (in millions)
|
110.0
|
22.5
|
141.3
|
33.3
|
158.1
|
41.9
|
Source: (Medeiros & Osório,
2001:23)[15]
Table 11
Proportion of population according to the
relationship
with the head of the household, Brazil, 1978 to 1998
|
Head
|
Spouse
|
Child
|
Other
|
Aggregated
|
Pensioner
|
Domestic
|
Domestic’sRelative
|
Total
|
1978
|
20.5
|
16.4
|
51.7
|
7.8
|
1.1
|
1.6
|
0.9
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1979
|
20.2
|
16.0
|
51.5
|
8.1
|
0.6
|
2.5
|
1.0
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1981
|
21.8
|
17.0
|
52.1
|
7.6
|
0.5
|
0.3
|
0.6
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1982
|
22.3
|
17.4
|
51.4
|
7.5
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.6
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1983
|
22.6
|
17.5
|
51.4
|
7.3
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.6
|
0.03
|
100.0
|
1984
|
22.8
|
17.6
|
50.8
|
7.5
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.6
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1985
|
23.1
|
17.7
|
50.7
|
7.3
|
0.4
|
0.2
|
0.6
|
0.03
|
100.0
|
1986
|
23.0
|
17.7
|
50.1
|
7.8
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.6
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1987
|
23.3
|
17.8
|
49.4
|
8.2
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.6
|
0.03
|
100.0
|
1988
|
23.6
|
17.9
|
49.1
|
8.2
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.5
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1989
|
23.9
|
18.0
|
48.7
|
8.2
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.5
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1990
|
24.2
|
18.3
|
48.4
|
8.0
|
0.5
|
0.2
|
0.5
|
0.04
|
100.0
|
1992
|
24.8
|
18.5
|
47.3
|
8.4
|
0.5
|
0.1
|
0.4
|
0.03
|
100.0
|
1993
|
25.0
|
18.5
|
47.0
|
8.5
|
0.5
|
0.1
|
0.4
|
0.03
|
100.0
|
1995
|
25.6
|
18.7
|
45.9
|
8.8
|
0.5
|
0.1
|
0.4
|
0.02
|
100.0
|
1996
|
25.8
|
18.8
|
45.4
|
9.1
|
0.4
|
0.1
|
0.4
|
0.03
|
100.0
|
1997
|
26.1
|
18.8
|
45.0
|
9.2
|
0.4
|
0.1
|
0.3
|
0.03
|
100.0
|
1998
|
26.5
|
19.0
|
44.5
|
9.2
|
0.4
|
0.1
|
0.3
|
0.02
|
100.0
|
Source: Special Tabulation by IPEA, based on microdata from the
PNAD/IBGE.
- The
growth of families composed either of a woman or a man and their children
(single parent) has been due mainly to divorce or widowhood.
The phenomenon is
predominantly female, since men tend to remarry when they separate or become
widowers. Besides the drop in fecundity,
the reduction in the size of families
can be attributed to other factors such as separation, children who start to
live in their
own household or elderly persons who are less likely to join other
family members in their old age.
- Due
to economic need and also because of their own personal projects, women have
started to exercise functions in the formal and informal
labour market. In some
social strata there is a greater concern about family planning. In such strata,
therefore, the family has
been slowly witnessing a reduction in the number of
its members.
- Child
custody is exercised on an equal footing by the father and the mother, either
of them being entitled in the event of any disagreement
to appeal to the
judicial authority to resolve the dispute (Statute of the Child and Adolescent,
art. 21). The parents have the
duty to support, protect and educate their
children while they are minors (federal Constitution, art. 229 and ECA, art.
22).
- Many
Brazilian adolescents from low-income families prematurely assume their own
independence, with the parents no longer significantly
influencing their
education. Very often there is also an inversion of the legal logic, with
children and adolescents starting to
support their families.
- The
competent authority will apply protective measures to the child and adolescent
whenever the rights recognized by law are threatened
or violated through the
absence, omission or abuse of the parents or person responsible (ECA, art. 98).
In accordance with article
129 of the ECA, the following measures may be applied
to the parents or persons responsible:
- − Compulsory
attendance at an official or community family counselling programme;
- − Inclusion
in an official or community programme for aiding, guiding and treating
alcoholics and drug addicts;
- − Compulsory
psychological or psychiatric treatment;
- − Compulsory
attendance at guidance courses and programmes;
- − Obligation
to enrol the child or pupil in the regular school system and monitor school
attendance and assiduity;
- − Obligation
to submit the child or adolescent to specialist treatment;
- − Warning;
- − Loss of
safekeeping;
- − Removal
of guardianship; or
- − Suspension
or removal of custodial power.
- In
the event of any unjustified non-compliance with the duties and obligations in
relation to minor children, the judicial authority
can decree the suspension or
loss of child custody (ECA, art. 24).
- The
lack of material resources does not in itself constitute a sufficient motive for
the loss or suspension of custodial power. If
no other motive exists, which in
itself would authorize the decreeing of the measure, the child or adolescent
will be maintained
in his family of origin, which will be compulsorily included
in official assistance programmes (ECA, art. 23). The statute emphasizes
this
concern, seeking, through the creation of Guardianship Councils and other
bodies, to orient, support, and find appropriate solutions
for each family.
- In
relation to this question, it should be added that representatives of civil
society highlight the need to form a policy guideline
in Brazil which can
promote the family, so that it can full1y exercise its duties to children and
adolescents in line with new developments
in contemporary life. They equally
stress that the family set-up found in recent years has had some de-structuring
impact on the
social and personal relationships of children and adolescents,
both in the domestic area as well as other aspects of their lives:
the
neighbourhood, the school, institutions in which they take part, etc. Such a
phenomenon is contributing toward an increase in
aggression and
violence.
B. Responsibilities of the parents
- Parental
authority is a social function and forms part of a series of instrumental
factors structured to ensure the fulfilment of
duties and enforcement of rights.
It is a common function of both parents and has the objective of fully
protecting their children.
The title to parental authority is conferred on both
the parents, whether they are married or not, although in the latter case,
it is
required that the father has recognized the child. The exercise of parental
authority falls to the mother and the father jointly
or to one of them, in the
absence of the other. The parents should, in principle, be capable of fully
exercising parental authority
over their minor children in personal, educational
and maintenance areas.
- According
to Dalmo de Abreu Dalari, an important Brazilian jurist, “The family is
juridically responsible for the child and
adolescent, but at the same time, also
has responsibility to the community and society. If the family fails in
fulfilling its duties
or acts in an improper way, it can cause grave harm to the
child or adolescent, as well as everyone that benefits from their good
behaviour
and who might suffer the adverse consequences of possible psychological or
social maladjustment.”
- Brazilian
legislation includes the international norms related to the rights and
protection of the family and the child, emphasizing
the action of the State in
relation to family care. Thus, the State has been implementing a whole series
of interrelated initiatives,
such as the Guardianship Councils, the rights and
funds councils, directed at the child and adolescent. All the institutions
related
to childhood - the executive, judiciary, NGOs and the community - should
work together in an integrated way, respecting the differences
and attributions
of each.
- In
relation to this question, it should also be mentioned that representatives of
civil society stress that the implementation of
both Government and
non-government policies, directed at the child, adolescent or family, is highly
fragmented. The multiplicity
of guidelines does not produce the necessary unity
to ensure the special development of childhood and adolescence in Brazil,
particularly
when faced with the breakdown of family ties and
relationships.
C. Separation of the parents
- Brazil
has been witnessing in recent decades a constant increase in separations among
couples, which has had a significant influence
in the lives of children. The
question is being studied, both from the academic point of view and in practice,
in an interdisciplinary
way, in an attempt to understand the problem better and
assess its consequences.
- Recent
research has drawn attention to the continuous stress which many families are up
against after separation and divorce. Some
of this stress is rooted in
convergent social and economic questions which the communities are struggling to
deal with, particularly
those related to the serious economic disadvantages of
women and children after family rupture.
- There
are no national statistics available concerning the number of families involved
in judicial disputes related to custody and
visiting rights. In Brazil, child
custody comes under the Civil Code and the Statute of the Child and Adolescent.
In this respect,
the higher interest of the child at the expense of that of the
adult prevails in the legislation, which stresses the importance of
the child
living a common life with both the parents. In some locations, there are
psychologists and social assistants in the family
courts who guide and aid
families in the search for a more adequate way of dealing with the
children.
- Nowadays
there is a growing recognition, mainly among mental health and law
professionals, of the need to study and classify the repercussions
of
separation, divorce and family disruption. Among these, neglect and the various
forms of abuse and mistreatment of children are
all too common.
- Mediation
in the family law area has attracted the attention of groups of scholars in
Brazil. In various Brazilian states there are
specialized centres for family
counselling. These interventions are designed to foster the self-determination
of the family, helping
it during a crisis to find a solution that meets the
needs of their children and also their own.
- In
extreme cases, which involve risks to the child or adolescent’s integrity,
such as neglect, ill-treatment and sexual abuse,
with evidence of psychosocial
malfunctioning of the parents, the judge can decree the suspension or loss of
custodial power.
- The
daily consequences of these contemporary situations reflect on the
relationships, equilibrium and performance of children and
adolescents in their
school life, in the family itself, and among their group of friends. Very often
it leads to abnormal or even
wrongful behaviour, which affects the network of
everyday relationships and might even lead to substance abuse or practice of
violence,
placing children and adolescents in a situation of personal and social
risk.
D. Family union
- Today
in Brazil, there are successive efforts, both at the municipal level and at the
state and federal levels towards trying to preserve
family ties, once the
children, for different reasons, are separated from family life. In the case of
children and adolescents who
are separated from one of their parents when the
couple separate or divorce, the legislation provides for systematic meetings
between
them and the party they were separated from, in an effort to preserve
family ties.
- In
situations of extreme family disorganization, which can endanger the integrity
of the child and adolescent, the policy is to separate
the children from the
parents temporarily. It is recommended, however, that fraternal ties be
preserved and family life and organization
be reestablished. Professionals in
the field should expedite the social and juridical processes to define the
situation of each
child, as it is known that prolonged separations cause serious
harm. Experience shows that the sooner the intervention of the State
and the
community occurs, the greater the chance that families do not
disintegrate.
E. Illegal travel and illegal retention
- The
movements of an adult person in Brazil, as laid down by law, are free; they may
freely enter the country, remain in it and leave
it (federal Constitution,
art. 5, XV). Regarding children and adolescents, however, the Statute
of the Child and Adolescent regulates the cases in which
they can travel
unaccompanied.
- Authorization
for international travel is granted by the judicial authority and is
indispensable when the child or adolescent is travelling
unaccompanied. In
cases where travelling occurs in the company of one of the parents, the
authorization of the other is required,
in a document certified by a notary
public (ECA, art. 84, II). This determination is designed to protect the
child and adolescent
and prevent them from being taken out of the country in
situations of family breakdown.
- These
measures are strictly controlled by the Federal Police in frontier regions,
ports, highways and airports. As Brazil is a continent-sized
country, in some
cases of abduction and kidnapping among family members, particularly when the
union involves competing claims from
another nationality, it is difficult to
exercise this control.
- The
Ministry of Foreign Relations, together with the judicial authorities, have
dealt with the cases submitted to them, through the
action of the Brazilian
diplomatic corps overseas (embassies, consulates, etc.).
- To
combat the illegal transfer of children and adolescents and their retention
abroad, the Brazilian State issued Decree 3413 on 14
April 2000, concerning the
Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child
Abduction.[16] Article 1 of
the said Convention explicitly states that the objective is to ensure the
immediate return of children illegally transferred
to any signatory State or
improperly retained therein and effectively enforce in the other signatory
States the rights of safekeeping
and visiting found in one signatory State.
- Article
7 of the same Convention establishes that the signatory States shall take every
measure, among other objectives: to locate
a child transferred or retained
illegally; to prevent any further harm to the child, or prejudice to the
interested parties, taking
or ordering preventive measures to be taken; to
ensure the voluntary delivery of the child or facilitate an amicable solution;
to
institute or propitiate the opening of a judicial or administrative process
to obtain the child’s return or, as the case may
be, which allows the
arrangement or effective exercise of visiting rights; and to ensure on the
administrative plane, when necessary
and opportune, the safe return of the
child.
- The
same Convention also guarantees the right to institute a petition procedure for
the return of the child. Article 8 lays down that
any person, institution or
agency that considers a child to have been transferred or removed in violation
of a right of safekeeping
can report the fact to the central authority of the
state where the child normally resides or the central authority of any other
signatory State, so that assistance is rendered to ensure the return of the
child.
- Federal
Police Directive No. 815 of 28 July 1999, instituted a registration
certificate for national and foreign organizations that
work with the
international adoption of Brazilian children and adolescents, as well as the
respective request forms. Bearing in
mind that Brazil is obliged to prevent and
repress illegal acts involving international adoption and the illegal transfer
of Brazilian
children and adolescents abroad, the elaboration of this directive
is designed to make registration by national and foreign agencies
that work with
international adoption an obligatory requirement for them to operate in
Brazil.
- One
should add that article 85 of the ECA lays down that “without prior and
express judicial authorization, no child or adolescent
born in Brazil can leave
the country in the company of a foreigner that resides or is domiciled
abroad”.
- Express
judicial authorization will result in legally executed international adoptions,
the adopted person being prohibited from leaving
the country, however, until the
legal norms are complied with. Accordingly, Brazilian legislation, in
ECA article 239, establishes
a penalty of four to six years’
imprisonment and a fine for trafficking children and adolescents.
- It
should be observed that representatives of civil society stress that, despite
all the legal provisions, unsolved cases involving
children and adolescents
still go missing in the country.
F. Payment of food support
- The
obligation to provide food has both an ethical and juridical meaning, as
human beings, in view of their very fragility, come into
the world without
being able to support themselves and have to go through a long learning and
training process as an individual.
The child, therefore, needs the protection
and support not only of the parents and family but also the community, in order
to be
able to develop as a person.
- The
Inter-American Convention on Support
Obligations[17] was
promulgated in Brazil through Decree 2.728 of 17 December 1997. This
Convention has the objective of determining the law applicable
to food support,
as well as international legal cooperation and competence, when the food
creditor is domiciled or normally resides
in a signatory State and the food
debtor is domiciled or normally resides and has his assets or income in another
signatory State.
The Convention applies to food support obligations for minors
considered as such and the obligations derived from the matrimonial
relations
between spouses or exspouses.
- The
1988 federal Constitution sets forth in article 227 that it is the duty of the
family, society and the State to guarantee the child and adolescent, with
absolute
priority, the right to life, health and food. Also in article 5,
paragraph LXVII, the Constitution establishes as one of the cases of civil
imprisonment for debt, that of the voluntary and inexcusable nonfulfilment of
food support.
- Law
6.515/77, known as the Divorce Law, regulates the cases of dissolving the
conjugal relationship and marriage, its results and
respective processes and
provides for other measures. In article 20, it lays down that for the
maintenance of the children, the
spouses judicially separated shall contribute
in accordance with their resources. The spouse separated from the children is
responsible
for providing food support.
- Law
5.478/68 outlines the whole procedure of petitioning for food support, to make
it simple and rapid. Article 1 stipulates that
the petition for food support
shall follow a special procedure, independent of the prior allocation of the
suit and the previous
concession of the benefit of gratuity by the court. The
fact that prior allocation and the previous concession of the benefit of
gratuity are not required already shows the intention to make the application
for food support simpler and quicker.
- The
Penal Code institutes, in article 244, the crime of failing to provide without a
reasonable cause the subsistence of the spouse
or a child under 18 years or who
are incapable of working or an invalid or sickly parent, not supplying them with
the necessary resources
or failing to pay the judicially agreed, fixed or
increased food support; failing, without reasonable cause, to aid a child or
parent
who is gravely infirm. The same provision also stipulates that anyone
who, being solvent, frustrates or eludes in any way whatsoever,
including by
abandoning employment or function without any justification, the payment of
judicially agreed, fixed or increased food
support, shall be guilty of criminal
conduct.
- Brazilian
legislation has accordingly strict norms concerning food support. The amount
should be fixed according to the needs of
the family and the means of the person
responsible. The main objective of such maintenance is to guarantee the basic
rights of the
child, with the courts being responsible for its enforcement. The
obligation to provide food support falls within the scope of the
family. In
some cases, it will extend for a lifetime as, for example, those involving
physical and mental disability.
G. Children deprived of family environment
1. Neglected
children and children’s homes
- Children
deprived of a family environment present development problems and constitute a
challenge to society and Government. Furthermore,
the problem is aggravated
when it occurs in environments where the living conditions, food, education and
health are inadequate,
and further complicated by situations of domestic
violence, mental illness, unemployment, alcoholism and other factors.
- There
is also a very high number of families in Brazil headed by women. In many
cases, the woman becomes the only adult responsible
for educating and
maintaining the offspring. According to IBGE, however, in 1999 there were
7,758,132 women with children residing
in private homes in Brazil (PNAD,
1999).
- The
situation of the child placed in a home in Brazil constitutes a serious
psychosocial problem, as there are various and simultaneous
factors which impair
the institution’s performance of the substitute role of the family.
Babies and infants placed in homes
present
- development
disorders due to the lack of affective care and the premature separation from
the mother or person responsible. Childcarers
in the home can never be a
satisfactory maternal substitute, which for the child means a figure to identify
with and a model of behaviour.
This leads to the child not interacting
adequately with the environment.
- The
collective care of small children separated prematurely from family life very
often produces irreversible consequences for their
psychic-affective
development, since the lack of affective care deeply affects psychic
structures.
- In
recent decades, successive Governments have endeavoured themselves to expand the
social assistance network for these families,
giving priority to basic policies.
Investment in the social area can, in the medium term, through the setting up of
an open service
and educational network, lead to a reduction in the need to
provide children’s homes.
- There
is no consolidated study in Brazil about the number and the situation of
children’s homes existing today. A survey in
this respect is in its
initial stage as part of an agreement between various federal Government
agencies which deal with the question
of childhood and CONANDA. It is possible,
however, to identify a number of successful experiences in reorganizing
children’s
homes programmes, with the introduction of smallsized houses
and without any institutional apparatus. The homes, thus conceived,
are
designed just to substitute parental functions and all the activities of the
children and adolescents (education, health, sports,
etc.) are supplied by
community services. The homes we are familiar with do not have a pedagogic
project to guide and cater for
children and adolescents, and for this reason
CONANDA is proposing to discuss these questions nationally and define parameters
for
the years to come.
- Among
the protective measures, the possibility of the child remaining in the care of a
substitute family has two alternatives: either
the family becomes the legal
guardian of the child, being responsible for it for a period of time or the
child is adopted. Only
the judicial authorities can decide on placement in a
substitute family.
2. Boys and girls who live and work in the street
- One
of the problems that most perturbs society, in the context of children and
adolescents deprived of family life, concerns those
that have made the street
their survival zone, the so-called “street-children”. This problem
has manifested itself strongly,
particularly since the late 1970s.
- Various
studies and surveys have been carried out in the country in order to estimate
the numbers, the causes of the phenomenon and
the most efficient methods
“to take the children off the street”. Today it is known that the
number of children and
adolescents who actually live on the streets, without any
family ties, is much lower than the estimates which put it in the millions.
In
the city of São Paulo, the largest in South America, for example, a
survey carried out by the Municipal Secretary for
the Family and Social Welfare
showed that about 3,000 children and adolescents frequented the street - but did
not live in it - and
that only 466 actually lived in the
street.
- The
majority of them spend the day on the street, selling small items, sweets and
candies, engaging in petty crimes and begging.
At night, they return home, many
to a family dwelling. However, the situation of those who sleep out on the
street in the big cities
is dramatic; there they are exposed to all kinds of
exploitation, substance abuse and child prostitution. Although the basic cause
is related to poverty, other factors equally play a part: illtreatment and
abuse, changes in patterns of behaviour, crises and family
ruptures, and the
lack of education, sport and leisure compatible with the needs and aspirations
of young people.
- The
way of dealing with the problem, prior to the 1988 Constitution and the ECA, was
marked by repressive action, the rounding-up of children and adolescents and
their placement in homes and shelters.
Only in the mid-1980s did a group of
technicians from the institution then called FUNABEM, with the support of
UNICEF, question
Government actions, which were not only inefficient but harmful
and unjust, and began to look at alternative experiences of childcare
that were
being carried out in the country under the auspices of nongovernmental
organizations. The activities of this pioneer group
were given the name of the
“Project for Community Alternative Care for Street Children” by the
Pastoral do Menor of the Archdiocese of São Paulo.
- In
1985, one of the most influential non-governmental organizations for the
enforcement of children and adolescents’ rights
in Brazil was created:
the National Street Children Movement, which together with other human rights
NGOs, particularly Pastoral do Menor, began to play an important role in
elaborating article 227 of the Constitution, the Statute of the Child and
Adolescent (ECA) and disseminating the principles and dictates of the
Convention. The Movement also
made a contribution, through the experiences of
its militants, to reformulating public social assistance programmes. The
Movement
has already staged National Meetings of Street Children, which have
been helping to increase the participation of children and adolescents
in
discussing their own problems and making society aware of the question of
children who are excluded and are victims of violence.
H. Adoption
1. National adoption
- Adoption
is a legal and social measure designed to protect the child. It is authorized
with a single objective: the higher interest
of the child. In Brazil, the
judiciary is the only power authorized to carry out this procedure.
- Adoption
is an exceptional measure which should be provided to any child in a personal
and family situation which justifies it, without
detriment to the child’s
individual characteristics, or to any social, racial and cultural situation or
physical and mental
health problems. It is an exceptional measure, since
priority should be given to the child’s right to remain in his family
of
origin. Adoption, placing the child in an environment outside the original
family, is thus the last resort, and the child’s
harmonious development
within the family of adoption must be guaranteed.
- The
1988 Constitution guarantees adopted children the same rights and duties laid
down for biological children, including the right to family name and
inheritance (art. 227, para. 6). It is, therefore, the legal
alternative for guaranteeing children the right to affective ties and
references
which allow them to join a new family lineage.
- A
child can only be adopted after all the legal processes have been concluded,
including a judicial decision in respect of the loss
of custodial power executed
by the court or with the voluntary consent of the parents. In the latter case,
the parents’ decision
should be declared in a judicial proceeding and
ratified by a judge.
- To
make an adoption, it is necessary to know the candidates, their motivation,
their way of life, personality, conjugal and family
situation, as well as their
place of residence, etc. Once the psychosocial study has been completed, the
judge will pass sentence
on their suitability and the candidates will be
registered while they await the judicial decision. The adoption team shall only
propose adoption for children whose family ties have been juridically
severed.
- Whenever
there is a convergence of interests between qualified candidates and children or
adolescents eligible for adoption, the team
shall formalize a proposal,
providing data on the child’s background, sex, age, race, health,
schooling, etc. This is the
time when the manifest desire of the candidates and
the child or adolescent’s situation are matched together. Brazilian law
lays down that, at 12 years, the child shall express his feelings towards the
adoption. Postadoption monitoring is carried out through
interviews with
parents and children.
2. International adoption
- The
International Convention Relative to the Protection of Children and to
Cooperation on the Subject of Intercountry Adoption, concluded
in The Hague on
20 May 1993 and which came into force in Brazil through Decree 3,087 of 21 June
1999, deals with cooperation between
the country where the process of adoption
is made, that is to say, where the child or adolescent lives (country of
origin), and the
country where the child or adolescent is going to, that is to
say, the country of origin of the adopting couple (country of destination).
- The
Hague Convention seeks through a standardization of procedures and legislation,
legality and transparency in adoption processes,
particularly those involving
international adoption, to ensure full rights and the exercise of such to all
adopted children. The
Convention derives from the perception that the
unilateral initiatives adopted by States are inadequate. Besides the
International
Convention on Cooperation, the Brazilian State has
also adopted the Inter-American Convention on Conflict of Laws concerning
the
Adoption of Minors. This Convention was promulgated by Decree 2,427
of 17 December 1997.
- International
adoption is an exceptional measure after all attempts at adoption in the country
of origin have been exhausted, and
thereby guaranteeing the right of the child
to live in his own country (Statute of the Child and Adolescent, art. 31).
- Candidates
for adoption should find the competent authorities in their respective home
countries and undergo a psychosocial study.
Such a study shall assess among
other things, the capacity of the candidate family to assume the responsibility
of caring for the
child on a satisfactory and enduring basis. After selection,
they will receive from the central authority of their own country authorization
to adopt in a foreign country.
- The
procedures for receiving dossiers from foreign candidates in Brazil are not the
same in all the states of the federation. There
are four basic ways of
applying:
- − The
foreign candidate sends the dossier to the state judiciary adoption committee
(CEJA) of the Brazilian State selected;
- − The
foreign candidate sends the dossier to a lawyer who, in turn, represents him
visàvis CEJA;
- − The
international associations, previously accredited in the Central Authority in
Brasilia, submit the dossiers to the CEJAs;
and
- − The
state signs an agreement with international adoption associations previously
accredited by the central authority in Brasilia.
The dossiers of children
available for adoption are sent to the country of domicile of the parents.
These associations then have
the task of locating the family that is considered
to offer the best conditions for adopting that child.
- Preparing
the child and the family for adoption allows them to realize what the
implications are, among which the changes that might
occur and the possible
difficulties to be faced as, for example, the first steps in the adoption
procedure.
- The
meeting between foreign adopters and adopted child takes place in Brazil over a
period of 15 days for a child under two years
of age and 30 days for older
children. The legislation prohibits adoption through powers of attorney, the
presence of both the spouses
being required. During the getting-to-know stage,
the adopters receive provisional safekeeping and are accompanied by the
respective
adoption teams, with the aim of observing, assisting and advising on
the interaction between parents and children.
- Foreign
associations, through qualified services, should send postadoption monitoring
reports on the development, adaptation and possible
difficulties of the family
and child in the new country of domicile.
- In
recent years, a growing number of adopted persons have been interested in
knowing about their biological antecedents and personal
history. For this
reason, it is of the utmost importance that the adoption services maintain a
document storage system which contains
this information. The stage of inquiring
about antecedents should be accompanied by qualified professionals.
- It
should be reported that representatives of civil society point to the occurrence
of repudiations of international adoptions made
illegally by legal guardians.
It should also be stressed that despite the tendency on the part of control and
inspection agencies,
as is the case of the Guardianship Councils, to give
preferential treatment to domestic adoptions, this has not always been the
case.
I. Periodic examination of internment conditions
- On
this question, Brazilian legislation is innovative and establishes that
government and nongovernmental organizations responsible
for children’s
homes will be inspected by the judiciary, public prosecution service and
Guardianship Councils. This means
to say that the Children’s Court judge
responsible for judicial guardianship should verify, in conjunction with the
public
prosecution service and civil society that the care provided by agencies
responsible for children and adolescents is adequate.
- In
article 96 of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA), investment and
disbursement plans will be submitted to the state or
municipality, according to
the origin of the budget allocations. The ECA is innovative in demonstrating
the concern of legislators
with the efficiency of the norm, which depends on the
good faith of those investing the resources.
- Inspection
by the competent agencies also has the objective of observing the conditions
found in children’s homes, the pedagogic,
psychological, and medical care
programmes, and also staff training, with a view to providing comprehensive care
to the child and
adolescent temporarily or permanently deprived of family
life.
- The
ECA provides penalties for institutions that do not comply with legal
provisions. According to article 191 of ECA, the procedure
for verifying
irregularities in a government and non-governmental organization shall be
instituted by judicial authority or on the
initiative of the public prosecution
service or the Guardianship Council. If there are serious reasons for such, the
judicial authority,
after consulting the Public Prosecution Service, can issue a
preliminary order for the temporary dismissal of the director of the
respective
organization. The penalties range from a fine and warning to the provisional or
final dismissal of the director of a
government agency (art. 193).
J. Abuse and neglect, psychological recuperation and social
integration
- Nowadays,
a lot is said about violence against the child and adolescent, as it very often
takes place within the family itself, sustained
by a “pact of
silence” which includes a large number of victims. Physical, sexual and
psychological violence causes
serious harm to a person’s development,
which may impair the capacity for affective relationships and integral
development.
- The
intervention of society in this drama presupposes clinical and psychological
care and juridical and social measures to protect
the victim. The care in such
cases should be multidisciplinary and revolve around the victim and family
members, as affective ties
play a vital role in the psychic life of the child.
In this way, the treatment aims at interrupting the transgenerational phenomena
of abuse, mistreatment and negligence.
- Other
factors like poverty, bad income distribution, absence from school, child
labour, slave labour, lack of leisure, among others,
are forms of structural
violence against the child, hampering his
development.
- Many
adolescents, particularly girls, are obliged to sell their own body as if it
were a product and, as a consequence, are subject
to premature and unwanted
pregnancies and a high number of sexually transmitted diseases. This question
has been denounced as sexual
exploitation throughout the country.
- In
certain large Brazilian cities, children and adolescents are used by organized
crime and the drug traffic. In this way, they become
collaborators and members
of criminal gangs. According to a UNESCO
study,[18] 70.3 per cent of
deaths among children and adolescents in 2000 were due to violent causes.
Although Governments are trying to put
a stop to such practices in certain
regions, like the city of Rio de Janeiro, the situation is proving very
difficult to control.
- The
federal Constitution and the ECA legislate on the responsibility of the family
and the State, as well as the guarantees of the basic rights of the child
and
adolescent and on the punishment in cases of abuse, violence and sexual
exploitation. The law also provides for the removal
of the aggressor from a
shared home, thus avoiding the need for placement in an outside institution
(ECA, art. 130).
- The
community has an important role in identifying and preventing violence against
the child, since the ECA (art. 13) determines that
in cases of suspected and
confirmed mistreatment against the child and adolescent, it is obligatory to
communicate such occurrences
to the competent authorities. Article 245 also
provides for punishments for childcare professionals that fail to do so. In
this
way, the “pact of silence” is broken.
- The
states of the Federation are in the process of organizing specialized care
services with a view to providing proper treatment
for the victims.
Universities and research centres have been studying and diagnosing the
situation, suggesting protective measures,
orienting public policies and
training professionals that work in the area.
- There
exists a series of services in Brazil organized according to the resources of
each State and municipality, such as: maltreatment
committees in paediatric
hospitals, DialDenunciation, Legal Aid Services for Children, etc., but which
are still not fully used,
either due to lack of information or omission.
- Serious
situations are reported to the authorities: the Public Prosecution Service or
the judiciary. A psychosocial and psychiatric
study carried out by
professionals assists the judge on the appropriate course to take. Many of
these cases involve loss of custodial
power and the children are sent for
adoption or some other type of solution (extended family, children’s
home, etc.).
- Concerning
this question, it should be noted that representatives of civil society
highlight the importance of providing university
or specialized and technical
training for all state employees or NGO agents involved in the question, so as
to give them the expertise
to deal with such complex themes as abuse and
neglect, psychological recuperation and social integration.
VI. BASIC HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
A. Children with special needs
- Brazilian
society and the State, in particular, have been organizing themselves to face
the challenge of increasing the well-being
of children and adolescents with
special needs. The special protection of children and adolescents in these
circumstances finds
support in the federal Constitution, in the Statute of
the Child and Adolescent, in Law 7853/1989 and in Law 8.462/1993. In
terms of government policy, there are prevention
and specialized assistance
programmes, as well as social integration programmes.
- It
is important to put the concept of special needs and its consequences on the
wellbeing of persons that have them in its proper
context. It is equally
important to identify the different forms of intervention: those that are
brought to bear on the causes,
which are preventive and prior, therefore, to the
presentation of the problem; direct intervention to correct or attenuate an
existing
problem; and interventions that seek to increase the wellbeing of
persons already with special needs. Although different, they are
complementary
actions.
- The
concept of special needs arises from the impossibility of the individual to
carry out certain tasks considered basic to a full
social life. The well-being
of the person with special needs is not only conditioned by the degree of
special needs, but above all
by how society deals with the question of special
needs. Thus, for example, a paraplegic person can lead a full social life,
provided
that he has locomotion facilities to go to and move around inside the
places that he or she wishes to visit, and is welcome without
prejudice in the
family, work and leisure environments.
- Public
policies should, therefore, always move in two concomitant directions: on the
one hand, to combat cultural and physical barriers
that can decrease the
well-being of people with special needs; and on the other, to promote activities
that target the causes. A
special needs condition has one or more causes, which
might be biological (prenatal, perinatal and post-natal) and external
(accidents).
- In
relation to combating cultural and physical barriers, the last decade has proved
to be extremely promising, with the following
events being of particular
importance:
- − The
1988 federal Constitution gave greater protection to the rights of persons with
special needs;
- − Institutionally,
CORDE (National Coordination for the Integration of Persons with Special Needs)
was created, whose aim is
to coordinate sectoral policies and promote greater
integration of disabled persons;
- − The
inclusion of questions on special needs in the 1991 and 2000 demographic census,
to provide more data on this segment
of the population;
- − The
foundation of CONADE (National Council for the Rights of Persons with Special
Needs) as well as state and municipal councils,
opening up a channel of
communication between the agents involved in the sector, including civil
society;
- − In 2002
a soap opera on the TV station with the highest audience rating tackled the
issue of Down’s syndrome, looking
at the possibilities of social
integration of sufferers, helping to reduce prejudice towards the problem;
- − In 2000
two federal laws were passed (10.048 and 10.098), which require the elimination
of physical and architectural barriers
for the access and use of persons with
special needs to public buildings, means of transport, financial institutions
and public toilets.
Law 10.098 requires that municipalities include these norms
in their respective municipal building codes; and
- − In the
educational and pedagogic policy area, efforts are being made in favour of a
more inclusive education for persons with
special needs in the regular school
system (see section of the report on education).
- Given
the vulnerability of the human being from conception up to
approximately 6 years of age, a period which can be decisive in terms
of acquiring some kind of special need, public policies in the health area
are reverting basically to attacking the causes. In this
respect a number of
auspicious occurrences should be mentioned:
- − Poliomyelitis
was eradicated in Brazil in 1994;
- − The
Single System of Health (SUS) will perform early diagnoses on a compulsory basis
to prevent and treat dysfunctions in
children, with neonatal screening being of
particular importance, which detects situation of risk such as phenylketonuria,
congenital
hyperthyroidism, blood diseases and cystic fibrosis; and
- − All the
programmes directed at pregnant women and childbirth are of fundamental
preventive importance (detailed data in “Basic
health and healthcare
services” section of this report).
- A
system of consistent and periodic information concerning persons with special
needs is of vital importance, both for monitoring
the condition and how it
develops (the degree and characteristics) and to study the efficiency of the
above-mentioned policies.
In this respect, the demographic census (the only
periodic home survey with information on persons with special needs) represented
a big change in the last decade in terms of identifying the situation of persons
with special needs in Brazil.
- The
1991 census is considered to have underestimated the scale of the problem by
recording only accentuated levels of special needs
(deafness, only cases where
the person is totally deaf; blindness, only cases where the person is totally
blind; and so forth).
Using a different methodology the 2000 census seeks to
deal with the question in the widest possible way, and thus tries to include
extremely reduced forms of special needs as, for example, the existence of some
permanent eyesight difficulty (the simple need to
wear glasses can, for example,
be thus interpreted by someone answering questions in the 2000 census).
- Table
11 below shows the impact of these changes and of the need to work cautiously
with both the censuses simultaneously. The methodological
difference imposes
serious difficulties on any attempt to compare the data and make any attempt to
characterize the evolution of
the situation in the period covered by this report
highly problematic.
- The
2000 census data shows that about 24.5 million Brazilians, that is to
say 14.5 per cent of the population, suffer from some special
need which, as was noted above, might be mild, more accentuated or severe. It
should be mentioned that the total given in table
11 (34,475,254) does not
mean the number of people, as one person may have more than one special
need. In the 2000 census, the number
of people that present at least one
special need is 24,537,984.
Table 11
Population with special needs, by type of special
needa - 1991 and 2000 censuses
|
1991 census
|
2000 census
|
|
145 854
|
16 573 937
|
|
173 581
|
5 750 809
|
Tetraplegia, paraplegia or permanent hemiplegia
|
457 177
|
955 287
|
Lack of members
|
145 178
|
466 936
|
Locomotion deficiency
|
-
|
7 879 601
|
Mental deficiency
|
658 911
|
2 848 684
|
Total occurrencesb
|
1 580 701
|
34 475 254
|
Source: IBGE.
a For the 2000 census the first three alternatives were
used.
b The total does not represent the number of people, as
one person may have more
than one special need.
In the 2000 census, the number of people who presented at least one special
need
was 24,537,984 (14.5 per cent of the population).
- Table
12 below shows the distribution of children and adolescents, by type of special
need and age group for the 1991 census. In
the 0 to 6 age group, children with
some kind of mental disorder account for 46.3 per cent of persons with special
needs, while infantile
paralysis accounts for 23.2 per cent. In the subsequent
age groups, special mental needs are more significant, 57.3 per cent and
57.6
per cent, respectively. It should be stressed that many of the
- special
mental needs are only perceived at a more advanced age, because it is mainly
when the child starts to attend school that such
disturbances are noted, hence
the increase in the 7 to 17 age group.
Table 12
Children and adolescents with special needs, by
type
of need and age group - 1991 census
|
0 to 6
|
Percentage of age group
|
7 to 12
|
Percentage of age group
|
13 to 17
|
Percentage of age group
|
0 to 17
|
Percentage of age group
|
Visual
|
6 880
|
9.7
|
6 059
|
4.8
|
4 919
|
3.7
|
17 857
|
5.4
|
Hearing
|
10 859
|
15.3
|
17 291
|
13.8
|
15 009
|
11.4
|
43 160
|
13.1
|
Tetraplegia, paraplegia or permanent hemiplegia
|
16 509
|
23.2
|
25 807
|
20.6
|
30 833
|
23.4
|
73 148
|
22.3
|
Lack of members
|
3 965
|
5.6
|
4 394
|
3.5
|
5 160
|
3.9
|
13 518
|
4.1
|
Mental
|
32 887
|
46.3
|
71 791
|
57.3
|
76 054
|
57.6
|
180 732
|
55.0
|
Total
|
71 099
|
100.0
|
125 341
|
100.0
|
131 974
|
100.0
|
328 416
|
100.0
|
Source: IBGE.
- The
1991 census has been little disseminated among policy formulators in the
specialneeds area. Only one study by CORDE, in partnership
with IPEA (Institute
of Applied Economic Research) and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme),
“The disabled person in
Brazil - 1991”, processed some information
from the 1991 census concerning persons with special needs, from various
socio-economic
standpoints.
- Unfortunately,
at the time this report was produced, the micro-data from
the 2000 census were still not available to make a more insightful
comparison between the information captured at the beginning and end of the
1990s.
- It
should be mentioned that the measures adopted to guarantee children and
adolescents with special needs the right to education are
dealt with in the
sub-item on “Special Education”, which forms part of the section
“Education, including professional
training and guidance” of this
report (para. 427). The sub-item “Non-discrimination”,
(para. 90) which forms part
of the section “General
Principles”, also presents important information for characterizing the
situation. “Social
security and services and child shelters”,
(paras. 400-415) in turn, presents social assistance programmes directed at
children
and adolescents with special needs.
- In
relation to the representatives of civil society, it should be mentioned that,
although recognizing the great advances in this
area, they identify special
needs in training technicians and specialists to work with the specificity of
each type of special need
and ensure the full development of children and
adolescents with special needs.
B. Health and health-care services
1. The Brazilian health
system
1.1. The National Health Policy
- In
Brazil, health is a universal right guaranteed by the Constitution. The
Brazilian Health Policy is based on the 1988 federal Constitution, which
established the principles and guidelines for health care in the country,
provided through the Single Health System (SUS).
This system, which was
regulated in 1990,[19] makes
free, universal and equal access to the activities of promoting, protecting and
recovering health its guiding principle. The
activities of the SUS are
implemented through an interconnected, regionalized and hierarchized network of
health services, under
the responsibility of the three levels of government:
federal, state, and municipal. The SUS also has the following operation
guidelines:
decentralized management, integrated care services and community
participation.
- To
coordinate the activities of the SUS at the three government levels, two levels
of negotiating and contracting operate on a regular
basis. The first of them,
at the federal level, with equal representation of the Ministry of Health and
state and municipal departments
of health and the second, at the state level,
with equal representation of the state department of health and the municipal
departments
of health in the state.
- Social
participation within the SUS is found mainly in two formal instances: the
Health Councils and the Health Conferences. The
councils are permanent in
character and help to formulate strategies and control the implementation of
health policy, including economic
and financial aspects. The conferences are
held every four years, with the wide participation of all social segments that
are interested,
with the purpose of analysing progress and deficiencies in the
health area and putting forward guidelines for public policies in
the sector.
The councils and the conferences have representatives from the different levels
of government, service providers, health
professionals and users, the latter
with equal participation in relation to the other segments as a
whole.[20] The councils are
organized at the federal and state levels and in 98 per cent of Brazilian
municipalities.
- The
health of the child and adolescent does not constitute a specific theme of the
Councils, but occupies much of the councils’
concerns and of the different
committees that assess and propose strategic guidelines for ensuring the full
rights of the Brazilian
population. In this respect such rights are dealt with
in a wide-ranging way, not being restricted to the assistance field, but
involving the broad concept of promoting health, quality of life and the
specific protection of health in risk situations.
- In
the 1996-1999[21] period, the
essential objectives in the health area turned again to improving the sanitary
hygiene situation - with emphasis on reducing
infant mortality - and the
political-institutional reorganization of the sector, with a view to
streamlining the operational capacity
of the SUS.
- The
four-year plan for the subsequent period (2000-2003) reinforces the previous
objectives and emphasizes measures that seek to ensure
access to health care,
humanize the services and consolidate the decentralization process in the
management of the
SUS.[22]
1.2. The institutional organization of the health
sector
- The
healthcare sector in Brazil is made up of a complex network of services,
involving suppliers and financing agencies belonging
to the public sector, or
linked to the private sector, whose participation occurs on a supplementary
basis. About 75 per cent of
outpatient and hospital assistance supplied to the
population, comes from the
SUS,[23] which operates
nationwide. The remaining 25 per cent relates to services provided by private
profit-making companies and by community
and philanthropic institutions. The
SUS network comprises its own - government - facilities and private
establishments contracted
to supply services, which correspond to 80 per
cent of the hospital units that make up the SUS. It is estimated that 25 per
cent
of the Brazilian population are covered by at least one health
plan.[24] The medical
assistance provided by private plans has been subject since 1998 to regulation
and inspection[25] by a
specific federal agency that liaises with consumer protection
bodies.[26]
- As
for basic care, in 1998, a Minimum Healthcare Allocation
(PAB)[27] was established
within the SUS, designed to fund basic level activities. The introduction of
the PAB doubled the volume of resources
allocated to basic care, and helped to
correct distortions in the per capita expenditure on outpatient
procedures.[28] It also
sought to promote the better use of public resources and increase the efficiency
of the SUS, particularly in relation to
people in situations of poverty that
live in the north and northeast regions and in cities in the interior of the
country. The PAB
consists of two allocations of resources: one fixed, defined
by a per capita amount for each municipality; and the other variable,
designed to stimulate strategic activities, with an emphasis on family health
activities and Community Health Agents, combating nutritional
deficiencies,
basic pharmaceutical assistance, epidemic disease control, and sanitary
hygiene.
2. The health profile and health care in childhood and
adolescence
- Investments
in the health area are part of a Government strategy directed at overcoming the
poverty and social exclusion that a considerable
part of the Brazilian
population are subject to, and which has become the path toward constructing a
more just and equitable nation.
In this respect, the 1990s are marked by a
switch in social policy by the Government of Brazil with the aim of eliminating
waste
and increasing efficiency, promoting decentralization, expanding cover to
everyone and, above all, restructuring benefits and services
in order to
increase their redistributive effect through basic initiatives.
- The
health profile of children and adolescents in the period covered by this report,
not only influenced but also was influenced by
these social policies and by
Government programmes and initiatives implemented in the health area
- In
order to provide a better basis for elaborating this report, as well as to
substantiate the analyses of information concerning
health care for the child
and adolescent in Brazil, a study was conducted by the Ministry of Health,
coordinated by specialists from
the Osvaldo Cruz Foundation’s
National School of Public Health, concerning the evolution of the health profile
of
- this
segment of the population. The study in question is presented in a summarized
form in annex I, “Study of the Health Profile
of the Child and Adolescent
in the 1990-2002 Period”,* which forms part of this report. The
reflections and considerations
presented next on the health of the child and
adolescent were taken from this study.
2.1. The health of the child
- An
evaluation of children’s health in Brazil allows one to identify striking
advances throughout the period examined by the
present report. Particular
prominence should be given to the fact that the great majority of the targets
assumed by the Government
of Brazil concerning health at the General
Assembly’s Special Session on Children held in 2001 as a follow-up to the
World
Children’s Summit of
1990,[29] were met, attesting
the priority given by the country to implementing programmes directed at this
segment of society.
- In
terms of the infantmortality situation, it should be stressed
that:
- − Mortality
in the under-10 age group declined considerably throughout the country. The
infant mortality rate witnessed a decline
of around 40 per cent in only 10
years, going from 48.3 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 29.6 in 2000. Results
of this magnitude
reflect a very considerable effort on the part of the
Government and society. Although the decline in infant mortality in the
northeast
was slightly greater than in the other regions, regional disparities
still persist;
- − The
most significant decline occurred in post-neonatal infant mortality, due in the
main to a reduction in deaths caused by
infectious intestinal diseases and
severe respiratory infections; and
- − The
decline in the share of mortality caused by diarrhoea, pneumonia and
malnutrition in all the geographical regions, associated
with malnutrition, lack
of sanitation and primary care deficiencies, stood out as an important indicator
of the improving health
situation of children in Brazil.
- Striking
advances were also obtained in relation to the morbidity indicators and other
threats to the health of the child:
- − There
was a reduction in the occurrence of infectious intestinal diseases and
parasitic diseases in the infant population;
- − Considerable
progress was achieved with immuno-preventive diseases, with a sizeable reduction
of all those included in the
vaccination calendar, the eradication of
poliomyelitis and the interruption of measles transmission in Brazil being of
particular
importance;
- − Neonatal
tetanus still persists in Brazil, associated with poverty, particularly in areas
in the north and in the north-east.
However, the incidence has been declining
steadily for more than a decade, with a substantial reduction of cases (94
per cent) in
- − the
1990 to 2002 period. In 2000 only 41 cases were reported in the country.
Much has been done in the areas of greater
risk, particularly concerning
the intensification of the vaccine against tetanus and the greater agility of
the epidemic-control
services;
- − The
decline in protein-calorie malnutrition that was verified resulted in a
decrease in the deaths of newborn babies due to
retarded foetal growth
or foetal malnutrition;
- − Anthropometric
surveys among children under 5 years in the 1974 to 1996 period show a
progressive reduction in chronic undernourishment
in the country. In
absolute terms, the estimated number of children affected decreased
from 3,865,815 to 1,640,493. However, there
are significant variations in
the rate of decline throughout the country - with a lower rate of decline in the
northeast region -
which reflects, to some extent, the differentiated process of
economic and social development experienced by the macroregions of
Brazil. This
unevenness is also expressed in the differences between rural and urban
areas;
- − A
significant reduction was recorded in the prevalence of goitre over the last
three decades, the current rate in the school
population (1.4 per cent) being
below the normal limit set by the WHO (5 per cent). This result attests the
progress in controlling
the deficiency in the last three decades, since the
estimated prevalence in a previous national survey was
14.6 per cent;
- − The
data on buccal health in the school population in urban areas show a marked
decline in the prevalence of dental caries,
with a reduction in the CPO index
(which measures the proportion of caried and lost teeth) from 6.67 in 1986,
to 3.06 in 1996; and
- − The
decline in the prevalence of children and adolescents living with HIV should
also be mentioned. This went from 6.3 per
cent of total cases in 1991 to
3.7 per cent in 2000. The greatest favourable impact of these
data stems from the reduction, around
50 per cent, of the vertical transmission
rate (from mother to child), as a consequence of the universal introduction
of antiretroviral
therapy in 1996. Controlling vertical transmission is
particularly important in reducing cases in childhood, since it is the
predominant
form of exposure in the under13 age group, responsible in 2001
for 99 per cent of the total number of new cases in the known exposure
category.
The next challenge, therefore, for reducing the rates of incidence in childhood
is to expand the diagnostic coverage of
pregnant women - in prenatal care
or at childbirth - so as to allow for the immediate introduction of
antiretroviral therapy in the
mother and other necessary prophylactic
measures.
- The
positive changes observed in the child health profile can be attributed in the
main to the social policies implemented by the
Government, besides a series of
specific programmes directed at this segment of the population. Moreover,
commencing in the 1970s,
and with
- greater
intensity in the 1980s, the Brazilian State invested in improving basic
sanitation and increasing the supply of health services,
particularly in the
basic network, with a view to bringing the Single Health System within the reach
of everyone.
- It
should be added that increasing urbanization, improvements in the education
level of women, greater female participation in the
labour market and greater
access to birth control methods have led to a sharp drop in fecundity, with
direct and indirect effects
on health and mortality in the first year of
life.
- Despite
the substantial progress that has been made, there is still room for an even
greater reduction in infant mortality in Brazil.
Measures that can impact
strongly perinatal causes - the most important category - can be implemented in
the basic health-care sphere,
particularly in prenatal care.
- One
cannot overlook either the role played by medical assistance provided by the
hospital during childbirth. With hospitals providing
more than
95 per cent of deliveries nowadays, problems persist concerning the
quality of care provided in some regions of the country,
as well as deficiencies
arising from an inadequate strategy of referencing for risky pregnancies, which
require a rapid referral
to services of greater complexity.
- The
decentralized structure of the SUS undoubtedly represents a notable advance in
universalizing and improving access to health care.
It still lacks, however,
more efficient and consolidated referencing mechanisms, so as to make certain
that services of medium and
high complexity, available in more developed
municipalities, are more easily accessible to the population of municipalities
of smaller
size and/or lower per capita income.
- The
registration of a large number of deaths, without specifying the basic cause
among infants of under 1 year, demonstrates the lack
of medical assistance in
some parts of the country. Although a significant decline in this type of
registration was observed in
the 1990s, in some north-eastern states more than
30 per cent of child deaths do not specify the basic cause.
- The
occurrence, even today, of cases of congenital syphilis in some regions of the
country, despite the high national rate of prenatal
care and the standardization
of simple and efficient diagnostic procedures and prophylaxis available in the
public health system,
constitutes one more indicator of the varying quality of
medical assistance and justifies the need to intensify efforts in this respect.
- Generally
speaking, it can be said that although the prevalence of chronic malnutrition
has declined progressively in the last decade,
severe levels of malnutrition are
still to be found among a significant part of Brazilian children who reside in
rural areas and
come from a lower socio-economic level in the north and
north-east regions. As for the other nutritional problems, such as
hypovitaminosis
A and iron-deprivation anaemia, there are no population-based
data in this respect - their occurrence, however, has been demonstrated
in
various Brazilian studies. The solution to questions related to diet and
nutrition are not restricted to the health area. A
number of important
strategies have been adopted, however, by the Ministry of Health to tackle the
- problem
as, for example, the setting up of the Incentive Programme for Combating
Nutritional Deficiencies (ICCN), which promotes the
nutritional recovery of
children from 6 to 23 months, the Food Grant Programme, which transfers
resources by means of a magnetic
card directly to families with pregnant women
and children at nutritional risk, besides implementing more general measures of
food
enrichment in the country.
- In
terms of the 5-to-9 age group, external courses predominate as a factor of
mortality - with traffic accidents and drowning accounting
for the most frequent
causes - pointing, as a result, to the need for a greater emphasis on prevention
policies.
- It
should be noted also that of all the aspects of the child health problem the
most crucial one, as evidenced by the epidemiological
findings, is the
persistence of inequalities in the risk of illness in the first years of life,
which points to the need for special
attention in this area. The advances
achieved in this respect in the 1990s suggest that Government action directed
specifically
at groups of the population with the greatest risk of illness and
death, in a concerted effort with the community and the initiatives
of organized
civil society, can provide alternatives for tackling the inequality of health
conditions among Brazilian children.
2.2 The health of the adolescent
- The
approach to the adolescent health question is much more complex and differs in
essential ways from the approach to children’s
health. The model of
health care for the adolescent was reformulated at the end of the 1990s,
becoming decentralized, although still
interlinked, and with the objective of
achieving the interaction of different agencies to provide comprehensive health
care for the
adolescent. Efforts have been made to ensure the healthy
development of the Brazilian adolescent through educational initiatives
in
health and disease prevention, always in partnership with states and
municipalities, in order to not only redefine the risks,
but also strengthen the
protective factors.
- A
study carried out by the Ministry of Health to provide data for the present
report shows that there has been progress in the area.
An evaluation of the
socio-demographic and epidemiological data related to adolescents shows,
however, an extremely worrying picture
concerning violence, particularly among
male adolescents, and the growth of pregnancy rates in adolescence, particularly
in the less
favoured socio-economic classes.
- Adolescents
account for approximately 20 per cent of the country’s
population - if we take the 10-to-19 age group - and they
represent
3 per cent of general mortality, with a striking predominance of male
deaths due to external causes, particularly in accidents
or as victims of
violence. Proportional mortality due to external causes in this group
progressively increased in the 1980 to 1999
period, from 55 per cent
to 68 per cent. One also finds a progressive increase in the annual
statistics of adolescent deaths due
to homicide in the 1979 to 1999 period:
during these 20 years, the number of homicides increased from 1,018 to 6,373,
among males
and from 212 to 678 among females.
- The
gravity of these data points to the need to reinforce initiatives to prevent and
combat this situation, which go far beyond the
scope of the health sector. Only
integrated efforts by the
- different
government spheres - both at the federal level and the municipal and state
levels - will be able to provide a clear diagnosis
of the main causes, outline
specific policies to combat them and mobilize the necessary resources and
actions to this end.
- In
relation to adolescent pregnancy, the data show that in 1999, 754,000 children
were born to girls and adolescents aged 10 to 19
(23 per cent of the
total), a higher proportion to that observed in 1996 (22 per cent).
About 27,500 live births in 1999 (0.8 per
cent of the total) were
babies born to girls in the 10 to 14 age group.
- Besides
the social onus - individual and collective - that pregnancy in adolescence
represents, the risks and complications related
to it are much greater and more
frequent, both for the newborn and the mother. The prevalence of low weight at
birth among children
of mothers in the 10-to-14 age group
(13 per cent) was greater than that among children of mothers
aged
15-to-19 (9 per cent), which in turn was greater than the national
average (8 per cent). In the 19982000 period, childbirth
represented 20 per cent of the total hospitalizations of the SUS and
complications due to abortion 2 per cent. In the 15-to-19 age
group, hospital
admissions due to childbirth reached 71 per cent, whilst complications
from abortion accounted for more than 5 per
cent of the total
number of hospitalizations. The data related to live births also show that
adolescents make much less use of prenatal
care than other pregnant women.
- The
problem of pregnancy in adolescence is even more alarming when one finds that it
affects mainly the socially underprivileged segments
of society - being more
frequent in rural areas and among poor and less educated women.
- An
important question for the health care of adolescents in Brazil concerns their
sexual behaviour. One finds today within Brazilian
society greater sexual
permissiveness and increasingly precocious sexual initiation, making the
Brazilian adolescent more susceptible
not only to unplanned pregnancy, but also
more vulnerable to sexually transmissible diseases.
- A
recent study coordinated by the Ministry of Health to assess high-risk sexual
behaviour, carried out among youths who enlist for
military service, clearly
shows that high-risk sexual behaviour becomes greater as the socio-economic
level of the individual decreases,
being more marked among those with incomplete
schooling and who are self-supporting. One finds, therefore, that in precarious
family
and social situations, young persons expose themselves to greater risks
in relation to their sexual practices, presenting an opposite
tendency to those
who live with their parents and attend school. One of the greatest challenges
facing the optimization of programmes
and interventions at the national level
has been, therefore, to ensure that measures have a generalized impact,
particularly on those
who are susceptible.
- Notwithstanding
the difficulties, some studies provide promising results concerning the
increasing use of contraceptives during the
period under study, in all the
regions of the country, indicating that preventive actions against sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs)
are being adequately implemented. Besides specific
campaigns in the mass communication media, special mention should be made to
the
introduction of questions related to sexuality and drug use in the
- school
curricula and the policy of making contraceptives easily available, as a
stimulus to adopting safe sexual behaviour. Important
preventive initiatives
have also been directed at street children and adolescents in conflict with the
law that are serving socio-educational
sentences.
- Another
positive result concerns the preventive actions and assistance carried out by
the Ministry of Health in controlling HIV/AIDS.
The reduction in the rates of
incidence of HIV infection among the child and adolescent segment is
significant, as well as the increase
in life expectancy of children and
adolescents living with HIV. From 1991 to 2001, the number of cases reported of
persons under
19 years infected by HIV was only 4.9 per cent of the
total cases reported. It is estimated, however, that half the total population
currently infected contracted the virus while in the 15-to-24 age group, which
justifies maintaining and intensifying preventive
action among young
people.
- Particular
mention should be made to the financing by the Government of a series of
projects developed by civil society, which provide
support to individuals living
with HIV/AIDS, offering them accommodation, social and psychological support and
helping to minimize
the difficulties they are facing, including children and
adolescents orphaned through AIDS.
- How
to deal with the health care of the adolescent in Brazil is not an easy
question. In a context of social contrasts, the greatest
negative impact falls
on this segment of the population, caused by such factors as violence, sexual
behaviour and drug use (the latter
being dealt with in the section “The
undue use of drugs - legal and illegal”, paras. 641-649).
- No
single institution is capable of performing all the actions necessary to ensure
the health and development of adolescents and youths.
Alliances and
partnerships are essential to create the conditions for protecting the welfare
and maximizing the potential of all
young people. Important initiatives have
been taken at the three levels of government to implement projects that promote
the organization
of service networks (Youth Spaces), whereby the states and
municipalities develop a common agenda on behalf of the health and development
of youths with the participation of government and civil society, in order to
provide adolescents and youths with a better quality
of life.
3. Government actions directed towards infant and adolescent
health
- The
reality of Brazilian sanitation is highly complex as a result of regional
differences, the geographic extension and social inequalities
of the country,
which create a situation in which the sanitary conditions found in developed
countries coexist side by side with
the sanitary conditions of poor countries.
This setting presents the Government with a major challenge in its efforts to
manage
the health system and confront the critical questions in the area.
- Nonetheless,
significant progress has been achieved in recent decades as a consequence of
improvements in the organization of the
health system and the implementation of
a series of programmes and initiatives, some specifically directed to the infant
and adolescent
population, others of broader application. A majority of these
programmes are directed, first and foremost, towards improving the
conditions of
life and health of the low-income population, within the scope of the
compensatory social policies implemented in the
country throughout the period
under consideration in this report.
- The
information concerning public expenditures on health presented in the first
section of this report, entitled “Child budget:
federal Government
expenditures on the policy of enforcing the rights of the child and
adolescent” (paras. 76-84) indicates
the priority given the issue and the
investments channelled to that area.
- The
programmes and initiatives presented below constitute some examples of the
actions that, taken together with the public assistance
provided through the
Single Health System (SUS) and the countless initiatives developed by the states
and municipalities - in accordance
with the principle of autonomy of each level
of government and the identification of local priorities - can lead to new
approaches
for confronting problems related to health, social inequality and
exclusion, improving and humanizing assistance and have successfully
introduced
changes in health conditions in Brazil, particularly among infants.
Basic health assistance
- The
Government’s main strategy for strengthening basic health assistance is
the Family Health Programme (PSF), developed by
the municipal health
secretariats in a manner agreed to with the states and the Ministry of
Health.
- The
PSF considers the organization of the workload of local teams that include a
doctor, dentist, nurse, nursing assistant and five
community agents. In
May 2002, there were 15,523 family health teams in the country, serving 50
million individuals in 4,914 municipalities.
By the end of 2002, the
PSF will have reached 70 million
individuals. Although not necessarily
linked to the PSF teams, nearly 166,000 Community health agents regularly visit
73 million
individuals in 4,610
municipalities.[30]
The Alvorada Project
- The
project was created for the purpose of articulating and integrating the actions
of various areas of the federal Government, in
cooperation with states,
municipalities and civil society, with a focus on improving the living
conditions of the neediest populations,
particularly municipalities with a Human
Development Index (HDI) below 0.500 and areas suffering from prolonged
droughts.
- The
Alvorada Project reaches 2,361 municipalities and a total of 42,705,000
individuals, that is, almost 25 per cent of the country’s
total
population. Within the scope of the Ministry of Health, the Alvorada Project is
composed of a food grant, basic sanitation,
prenatal and birth humanization
programmes, and the community health agents family health programmes, among
others.
Infant Mortality Reduction Programme (PRMI)
- Launched
in 1995, the purpose of the
PRMI[31] was to expand the
capabilities of the health sector to provide full assistance to children
ages birth to 5 years by means of different
mechanisms, giving priority to poor
families in 915 of the highest risk municipalities. Beginning in the second
half of the decade,
the conditions for providing assistance for labour and birth
were emphasized as a result of the progressive trend in infant mortality
cases away from the postneonatal stage to the neo- and perinatal
stages.
Assistance for pregnancy and labour
- In
Brazil, prenatal assistance reaches 93 per cent of pregnant women,
without great variations from region to region. To improve
the quality of
assistance throughout pregnancy, the prenatal and birth humanization programme,
currently in place in 3,920 municipalities,
was created. It transfers an
additional R$ 90 per pregnant woman to municipalities that have fulfilled the
prenatal assistance programme.
- In
1999/2000, approximately US$ 100 million was invested in 226 maternity wards
throughout the country for purposes of implementing
a high-risk pregnancy
assistance system, including physical adjustments and adaptation of the
equipment used to provide obstetric
services, the construction of intermediate
and intensive neonatal care units and training for health-care professionals.
The accreditation
of maternity wards has also been promoted, in order to improve
the quality of the assistance offered. Other actions have been developed
to
improve the service provided to pregnant women by means of the implementation of
procedures to humanize the assistance extended
during labour, including
remuneration for a natural birth witnessed by an obstetric nurse and
authorization to have a companion present
during the hospital stay. An award in
the amount of US$ 10,000 was established in 1998 for maternity wards that
provide humane assistance.
- In
addition, initiatives were launched to restrict unnecessary practices during
surgical births in SUS hospitals (approximately 40
per cent of all
births in 1995), thereby stimulating natural births. The measures adopted led
to a 22 per cent drop in Caesarean
sections in the SUS between 1997
and 2001.
- Neonatal
triage consists of an exam of the newly born child between the second and
seventh days of life for purposes of diagnosing
morbid conditions for which the
child presents no symptoms to that point, but which may have a serious impact on
the neonate’s
later development if they are not diagnosed and treated
early.
- The
right to diagnoses of metabolic anomalies is assured in the chapter on health in
the Statute of the Child and Adolescent
(ECA).[32] Responsibility
for performing the exams has gradually been assumed by the Ministry of Health,
which from January to June 2002 conducted
1,070,010 tests, a figure
equivalent to 71 per cent of the estimated live births in the
country.
- The
programme considers the diagnosis of congenital hyperthyroidism, phenyketonuria,
hemoglobinuria and cystic fibrosis. The conditions
for assisting diagnosed
children, specifically with the provision of special drugs and food, have also
been established within the
scope of the SUS.
Humane assistance to newly born underweight
children
- The
Mãe-Canguru Method involves a strategy to provide differentiated neonatal
care to newly born children weighing less that
2.5 kilos, which, in combining
the latest technical knowledge with integrated and humane assistance, provides
for a better bond between
the mother and the child, the active participation of
the mother in the underweight child’s care, a faster recovery time for
the
child and earlier release from the hospital. The newly born underweight child
remains in constant direct contact with the mother
from the earliest stages, in
a vertical position, allowing her to maintain the baby warm and breastfed in a
more comfortable and
regular manner. In Brazil, there are 260 maternity wards
that offer high-risk management and are capable of using the Mãe-Canguru
Method.
Strategy for Providing Assistance for Prevalent Infant
Diseases (AIDPI)
- The
purpose of the strategy is to promote a rapid and significant reduction in
infant mortality, while introducing a new approach
to children’s health.
Originally developed by the World Health Organization/Pan American Health
Organization (WHO/PAHO) and
the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF), the strategy is characterized by its simultaneous and integrated
consideration
of the set of diseases that are most prevalent in infancy, rather
than the traditional focus centred on looking at each disease separately.
- In
Brazil, the Ministry of Health incorporated the AIDPI into the Children’s
Health Assistance Policy in 1996 in such a manner
as to direct it principally to
primary care, with an emphasis on providing full assistance to sick children
under the age of 5 through
the basic health plans and the family health
programme teams. The next goal is to expand the strategy and incorporate it
into the
activities performed by the family health teams’ community health
agents.
Infant Growth and Development Follow-Up
Programme
- Part
of the Children’s Full Health Assistance Programme (PAISC) prioritizes the
five basic actions for children between the
ages of 0 to 5. The initiative
shifted the traditional focus of assistance to the child, based on pathology, to
a new type of care
assuring that full assistance is provided by the
children’s health services and in which growth and development constitute
the primary pillars of care. The Ministry of Health standardized the
“child’s card” Cartão da Criança to serve
as an instrument for following the progress of the individual child’s
growth and development.
- The
Birth Registration Project for children between the ages of 0 and 12 years led
to the implementation of registration centres in
maternity wards linked to the
SUS and established financial incentives for each registration executed in those
maternity wards, so
as to reduce the number of unregistered children in the
country.
The National Maternal Breastfeeding Incentive Programme
(PNIAM)
- Created
in 1981, the PNIAM coordinates actions undertaken by Government and civil
society in the area of health, nutrition, education,
communication, legislation
and work with the aim of promoting breastfeeding in Brazil. The success of the
programme has been internationally
recognized.[33] The
Declaration of the Innocenti, issued in Italy by government policy-makers and
agencies in the area of health and the United
Nations establishing that all
Governments set 1995 as the target for having in place a National Maternal
Breastfeeding Committee
and a National Multisectoral Maternal Breastfeeding
Committee made up of representatives of Government, non-governmental
organizations
and health-care professional associations, was based on the
Brazilian experience. At the 54th World Health Assembly
- in 2001,
Brazil proposed a draft resolution recommending that maternal breastfeeding no
longer be the exclusive practice for a period
of four to six months, but rather
for six months, a standard adhered to in the country for over 10 years. The
Brazilian proposal
was approved unanimously by the WHO member-States present at
the Assembly.
- A
national policy to promote and support breastfeeding has led to a progressive
increase in the number of children in the country
fed with mother’s milk.
Although ideal levels have not yet been reached, significant progress was made
in the 1990s. According
to information gathered from national surveys, in the
urban areas of Brazil the average time of maternal breastfeeding went from
5
months, in 1989, to 6.7 months, in 1996, and 9.9 months, in 1999. In 1996,
37 per cent of babies in Brazil continued breastfeeding
after their
first year of life, while 15 per cent still breastfed after their
second year of life.
- Brazil
is considered the country with the highest rates of maternal breastfeeding in
the world. At the heart of these results lie
various actions developed by the
Ministry of Health, in conjunction with the health secretariats and civil
society, aimed at promoting,
protecting and supporting maternal breastfeeding.
Among these, the following bear mention:
- − Friend
of the Child Hospital Initiative (IHAC): Launched on a global scale by WHO and
UNICEF in 1992, the initiative aims
to fulfil the “ten steps to successful
breastfeeding” in maternity wards. In Brazil - where there are 223 Friend
of
the Child Hospitals distributed throughout 24 Brazilian
states[34] and subject to
yearly reevaluations - five additional quality criteria were established, among
them a maximum acceptable rate of
Caesarean sections; and
- − Friend
of the Basic Breastfeeding Centers Initiative (IUBAAM): The purpose of the
initiative is to mobilize all 37,400 basic
health centres in the country to
adopt the IUBAAM’s “ten steps to successful
breastfeeding”.
- With
161 banks in operation, Brazil’s Network of Human Milk Banks (BLH) is the
largest and most complex in the world. The objective
of the BLH network is to
provide support to mothers in promoting and managing maternal breastfeeding,
including activities for collecting
excess lactic production, pasteurizing and
controlling the quality of the human milk collected and its subsequent
distribution to
newly born, underweight, premature and sick children, who cannot
be breastfed by their mothers, all free of charge. Between 1998
and 2001, the
network collected 318,195 litres (84,058 gallons) of human milk, provided by
217,562 donors, thereby enabling the provision
of milk to 393,537 newly born
children. Additionally, 2,058,396 mothers were assisted. It was for these
efforts that Dr. João
Arpígio Guerra Almeida, coordinator of the
Network of National Human Milk Banks, accepted, on behalf of Brazil, the
“Sasakawa
Health Award” from WHO at the 54th World Health Assembly
in 2001.
- The
Friendly Postal Worker Project (Projeto Carteiro Amigo) trained 15,830
postal workers in 468 Brazilian municipalities delivered basic guidelines and
information on health to nearly 2 million
pregnant and nursing women in 2001
alone. The Firefighters for Life Project (Projeto Bombeiros da Vida),
which encompasses 10 Brazilian states, establishes a partnership between the
Network of Human Milk Banks and the Fire Brigades
that is responsible for
carrying out residential collections of milked human milk and advising women who
are nursing on how to manage
breastfeeding.
- World
Breastfeeding Week was launched by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action,
in 1992. The initiative brings together various
segments of society to
participate in maternal breastfeeding campaigns and addresses different themes
every year, including education,
human rights, work, communication and
health.
- The
Brazilian Guideline for the Commercialization of Foods for Lactating Women and
First Infancy Children, Dummies, Pacifiers and
Feeding Bottles (NBCAL) is
national legislation on the commercialization of foods for lactating women and
infant children, dummies,
pacifiers and feeding bottles that is quite advanced
in relation to the equivalent International Code. It provides the legal
foundation
for oversight activities in the protection of fundamental rights of
children who are breastfeeding and offers protection against
the seductive
practices of the associated industries that attempt to induce women to stop
breastfeeding prematurely.
- The
Live Library in SUS Network Hospitals Project, created in cooperation with the
NGO Fundação Abrino and CITIBANK,
aims to humanize the care
provided to the child in the hospital and outpatient setting through the
introduction of libraries and
the reading of educational books and
children’s literature and the participation of professionals and trained
volunteers.
- The
National Immunization Programme (PNI) is responsible for the progress made by
Brazil in controlling diseases that are preventable
by immunization. PNI has a
basic vaccination calendar that includes 13 essential vaccinations so as to
ensure the epidemiological
control of immunosuppressive diseases, which are of
primary interest and concern. These vaccinations are subject to rigorous
quality
controls and supplied and administered free of charge to the entire
population through the public network.
- In
the 1995 to 2002 period, PNI’s vaccination drives reached
95 per cent of children under the age of 1 for the Diphtheria,
Tetanus
and Pertussis (DPT) vaccine and 100 per cent for the poliomyelitis,
BCG and measles vaccines. Poliomyelitis was eradicated
in 1994, and no
indigenous cases of measles have been recorded in the country since 2001, while
diphtheria, whooping cough and the
most serious strains of tuberculosis have
been maintained in check. Through 2003, the vaccination of women in their
child-bearing
years will be expanded, in order to reduce the incidence of
neonatal tetanus as much as possible.
- Among
the various strategies adopted by the PNI, the health campaigns represent the
most important. The successful efforts against
yellow fever and smallpox that
date to before the 1970s and, subsequently, the campaigns against
poliomyelitis and measles are notable
examples in the history of Brazil’s
public health-care sector. The establishment of intersectoral links and
partnerships with
civil society, within the principles that guide the SUS, bear
special mention.
- In
2000, the National Immunization Programme acquired a total of 322 million doses
of immunobiological drugs, including vaccines,
immunoglobulins and sera, of
which 193 million (60 per cent) were produced in the country. To
guarantee the quality of the products
procured, including those imported, an
extensive quality programme was implemented with the collaboration of the
national laboratory
of reference and the sanitation monitoring
system.
- The
domestic immunobiological industry is composed of public laboratories with a
tradition in the manufacture of vaccines and sera
used in official programmes.
Between 1995 and 2000, the Ministry of Health invested US$ 120 million to
develop the capabilities
of the laboratories, to the extent that by the end of
this period the products offered fully served the needs related to vaccinations
against tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, yellow
fever, human and canine rabies, as well as heterologous
sera (antiophydic,
anti-tetanus, anti-diphtheria and antirabies).
- The
Special Immunobiological Reference Centres (CRIE) were implemented by the PNI to
guarantee immunizations to populations with special
needs, congenital or
acquired immunodeficiency carriers or other similar morbid
conditions.[35] PNI has 36
CRIEs distributed throughout the 27 state capitals and some important regional
cities. The CRIEs also aim to provide
support for specialized clinical and
laboratory research in case serious adverse events associated to the vaccination
procedures
are reported.
- The
Adolescent Health Programme (PROSAD) was established in 1990. The
programme represented a milestone in the provision of health assistance to the
adolescent population
of Brazil. In 1999, following the World Conference of
Ministers responsible for youth issues, the programme was expanded to the
Adolescent and Youth Health Area (ASAJ). The programme’s main purpose is
to reduce “morbi-mortality” among youths
and promote their
health and full development. To this end, some basic directives have been
established, such as actions centred on decentralizing
care and transferring it
to the municipal level, assuring monitoring by society at large, community
participation, particularly the
adolescent and youth segments and integration
among the different bodies.
- ASAJ
gives priority to actions that structure the public health-care network in a
manner that ensures specific assistance for this
segment of the population. Its
objective is to reduce healthrelated vulnerabilities and hardships by means of
the organization of
actions and services, at all levels of complexity within the
SUS, into an integrated set aimed at promotion, prevention, and recovery
using
individual and collective procedures, specific to each case, thereby
guaranteeing broader access for youths and adolescents
to health services that
address their specific development needs.
Prevention of accidents and violence in childhood and
adolescence
- In
1998, the Ministry of Health convened specialists with extensive knowledge in a
series of debates on external causes of death in
Brazil, establishing the
Technical Scientific Committee on Adolescents and Violence and the Committee on
the Prevention of Accidents
and Violence in Childhood and Adolescence, for
purposes of developing a National Policy for the Reduction of Morbimortality
Arising
from Accidents and Violence. The corresponding document was approved by
the National Health Council, in 2001.
- With
respect to children and adolescents, the Ministry of Health, pursuant to the
directives set forth in the policy, stimulates the
promotion and adoption of
healthy behaviour and environments, interdisciplinary and intersectoral
assistance to the victims of accidents
and violence, the training of human
resources to provide special and differentiated service, educational campaigns
and the mandatory
notification to the Tutelage Councils of all SUS health
professionals suspected or known to have mistreated children and
adolescents.
- The
Food and Nutrition Policy. The 1990s represented a milestone in public food and
nutrition policies, especially with respect to
the participation of civil
society which, in conjunction with the Government, developed proposals to
address poverty and hunger.
This process was launched in 1992 with the
Citizen Actions against Hunger and Misery and for Life campaign. One
of the cornerstones
of the movement is its annual call for
society at large to participate in the “Christmas without
Hunger” effort, which
in 2001 distributed 4,000 tons of
nonperishable food throughout Brazil.
- At
the same time, with the establishment of the National Council on Food Security
(CONSEA), in 1992/1993, the federal Government moved
closer to civil society,
expanding the debate on food security. In 1995, CONSEA was replaced by the
Council on Community Solidarity,
which redirected the focus of food and
nutritional security towards the fight against
poverty.[36]
- Beginning
in 1999, the Ministry of Health approved the National Policy on Food and
Nutrition (PNAN), which includes general directives
for stimulating universal
access to food through intersectoral actions, as set out in the Intersectoral
Food Commission, guaranteeing
and securing the quality of food, expanding and
refining the Food and Nutrition Monitoring Service and promoting healthy food
habits
and lifestyles. To this end, the measures deserving mention include
ensuring nutritional labels on marketed products and the development
and
dissemination of food guides to the Brazilian population, the training of human
resources to run the specific activities in the
areas of food and nutrition and
the prevention and control of nutritional disturbances and diseases associated
with food and nutrition.
- In
order to address protein-energy malnutrition, the two main focal points of
the Ministry of Health are the Incentive Programme for
Combating
Nutritional Deprivation (ICCN) and, more recently, the Food Subsidy
Assistance Programme. The purpose of the ICCN is to
assist in the
nutritional recovery of children between the ages
of 6 and 23 months. The federal Government transfers
financial resources
so that municipalities can purchase whole milk and soy oil.
The municipalities can use a portion of the resources to perform activities
to
promote maternal breastfeeding and healthy food habits, in addition to the
purchase of supplemental nutritional supplements, such
as iron and
vitamin A, intended to carry out the most important food and nutritional
measures for the region from an epidemiological
standpoint.
- Launched
in September 2001, the Food Subsidy Assistance Programme directly transfers
resources by means of an electronic card so that
families can purchase food.
The programme’s beneficiaries are pregnant women and children who are at
risk from a nutritional
standpoint; these fall within the ages of 6 months and 6
years and 11 months and come from families with a monthly per capita income
of
up to R$ 90. The requirements for remaining in the programme include full
participation in a set of basic measures provided by
the health services, such
as immunization, prenatal care, in addition to educational actions regarding
maternal breastfeeding and
nutritional guidance. In October 2002, the
programme reached 3,760 Brazilian municipalities through the distribution
of 1,300,361
vouchers (or beneficiaries). The total amount directed to the
programme is R$ 572 million per year, while the annual goal is to
reach 3.5 million beneficiaries. The programme initiated a new strategy
for confronting malnutrition, founded on a simplified operational
procedure
whose scope is not limited to nutritional benefits, but, above all, to an
increase in basic health actions.
- Since
1994, the Ministry of Health has distributed capsules containing megadoses of
vitamin A to children from the ages of 6 to 59
months living in high-risk
areas as part of an effort to control vitamin A deficiency. On average,
2.1 million megadoses have been
administered per year, reaching
approximately 65 per cent of children between the ages of 6 and 11
months and 45 per cent of children
between the ages
of 12 and 59 months. In 2001, the strategy was
expanded to include puerperal women immediately following labour.
The Ministry
of Health has also developed other measures to control vitamin A
deficiency, such as educational efforts to promote the consumption of
foods rich in vitamin A and the development of technologies to supplement
foods
that are accessible to the population with vitamin A.
- To
control iron deficiency, the strategy adopted involved iron sulfate supplements.
Since 1995, community health agents have distributed
2.2 million bottles of
iron sulfate to children living in the poorest regions of the north-east.
This measure has been connected to educational actions to promote the
consumption of foods rich in iron. More recently, the Government,
food industry
associations, academic institutions, international organizations, consumer
protection and food security movements signed
the “Social Commitment to
Reduce Anaemia Arising from a Lack of Iron in Brazil”. On the basis of
the directives approved,
the Ministry of Health is in the process of regulating
the requirement that wheat and corn, including its derivatives, flours be
fortified with iron (30 per cent of recommended daily allowance) and folic acid
(70 per cent of RDA). Experiments at the international
level indicate that the
mandatory addition of these substances is an effective measure within the
context of a set of strategies
aimed at reducing irondeficiency anaemia and
diseases of the neural tube among the population.
- Iodine
deficiency is controlled by means of the universal iodination of salt,
sanitation enforcement and inspection actions of commercialized
salt, in
addition to educational actions carried out by community health agents for the
purpose of promoting the consumption of iodized
salt.
- The
Buccal Health Programme created in 1989 is based on the same principles as the
SUS, its focus centred on combating the main buccal
pathologies, especially
dental cavities and gum disease. The Government spent US$ 2.5 million, at
the time of its implementation,
on a plan to increase fluoridation in drinking
water and to expand access to fluoridated products for nearly 12 million
children.
Some important experiments were carried out in the states and
municipalities based on the vision of full assistance that included
measures
aimed at buccal measures. In December 2000, these were incorporated into the
Family Health Programme. The family buccal
health teams are composed of
dentists, technicians and assistants. By September 2002, these teams
offered the opportunity for access
to basic buccal health prevention, promotion
and assistance to approximately 25 million Brazilian citizens.
Family Planning Programme
- The
use of contraception in Brazil has been a common practice since the second half
of the 1970s. In 1996, when the most recent demographic
and health survey
(DHS) was conducted in the country, 55 per cent of women of childbearing age
used some form of contraception.
This percentage rose to 76 per cent when only
those women in stable relationships was considered.
- The
most frequently employed method of contraception was female sterilization,
followed by the pill. The public sector provided contraception
to 43 per cent of women. To expand access by low-income women to
information and an expanded array of contraceptive methods, in
2000 the Ministry
of Health initiated the implementation of a plan, developed in conjunction with
states and municipalities, to gradually
serve the potential demand for
contraception in the SUS, assuming responsibility for the centralized
procurement, quality control
and distribution of these inputs to the states and,
beginning in 2002, to some municipalities that fulfil certain criteria.
- The
first delivery of material from the programme took place at the end of
July 2002 and included 4,568 municipalities and 20,000
basic kits. On
the basis of this strategy, the intention is to serve 1.4 million women in 2002
and 3.8 million in 2003. The programme’s
initial coverage is
intentionally directed to small cities, where the economic hardships of the
population and the municipalities
are more acute. Mediumsized and large (with
more than 50,000 residents) cities are receiving quantities below their
demand potential,
which the cities themselves must supplement with their own
resources. An operational study evaluating the strategy is in
progress.
- Although
the programme is intended to expand access to contraception by adolescents, this
group represents a small portion of the
actual population served, as a
consequence of the difficulties related to the lack of preparation among
healthcare professionals
and cultural attitudes that limit the expression of
adolescent sexuality. In the last decade, the rate of teenage fertility has
grown, as in various other countries, requiring the development of a large-scale
intersectoral programme to address the problem.
National Prescription Drug Policy
- Brazil
has one of the 10 largest prescription drug markets, accounting for
about 3.5 per cent of the global total. In 1998, the National
Prescription Drug Policy[37]
was passed to guarantee the safety, effectiveness and quality of prescription
drugs, and rationalize the population’s use of
and access to essential
products. Implementation of the policy presumes decentralized management of
resources based on a national
list of essential drugs and a minimum set of
mandatory products for the public network. Financing of basic pharmaceutical
assistance
is shared by the three levels of Government. The purchase and
distribution of drugs are the responsibility of the states and municipalities,
with the federal Government having the duty to make those products considered to
have strategic importance available, among them
special antiretroviral,
haemoderivative and antimicrobial products. To expand access by the whole
population to drugs, the production
and commercialization of generic
products[38] has been
encouraged, the average cost of which is 40 per cent below market
prices.
Control of sexually transmittable diseases (STDs), AIDS and
syphilis
- The
Brazilian Programme for Controlling STD/AIDS has achieved international
recognition, especially because of the success it has
had in confronting the
AIDS epidemic in Brazil. The actions aimed at children and adolescents have,
with respect to health assistance,
focused primarily on actions designed to
prevent the transmission of HIV and syphilis from the mother to the newly born
child, referred
to as vertical transmission.
- The
number of pregnant women infected with HIV in the country is estimated to stand
at 17,198, an estimate arrived at on the basis
of an incidence of
0.6 per cent obtained from sentinel studies performed in maternity
wards. In spite of the progressive increase
in the number of parturients (women
in labour) receiving AZT injections at the moment they give birth in the last
four years, this
specific treatment reached only 34.8 per cent of
HIVpositive women in labour in 2001, manifesting, moreover, uneven reach
throughout
the regions and cities of Brazil that varied from rates as low
as 20 per cent to rates as high as 75 per cent.
- In
this context we can add the Birth-Maternity Project, which seeks to diagnose
women in labour who have not been tested for HIV and
syphilis during pregnancy.
It makes available the necessary resources to better assist the mother-child
pair through the training
of healthcare professionals and the required inputs
for ensuring the prophylaxis of the vertical transmission of HIV (quick test
for
HIV, chemoprophylaxis with AZT for the mother and the baby, recommended type of
birth, lactation inhibitor and provision of infant
formula) and the reduction of
morbimortality through congenital syphilis (serologic tests for syphilis and the
treatment of the disease
in the mother and an investigative diagnostic of the
newly born child). It is hoped that with these measures projected new
cases
of infection by HIV in Brazil will fall
by 50 per cent. Between
1994 and 2002, it is estimated that 3,371 infections were
prevented. In addition, an effort is under way to reduce the number of
deaths due to congenital syphilis, found in approximately 120 cases
per 100,000 live births, and
the delayed effects of syphilis in
children.
- Brazil’s
policy on universal access to anti-retroviral drugs, established in the
early 1990s and consolidated in 1996 by means
of a federal
law,[39] makes highly active
antiretroviral therapy (HAART) available to all patients infected with HIV for
whom treatment is recommended,
including children and adolescents.
- Through
December 2001, 113,000 individuals were in treatment, 6,100 of which were
under the age of 13. Currently, the Ministry of
Health
distributes 15 antiretroviral drugs throughout the public health
network in 30 different cocktails, 11 of them specifically
for paediatric use.
The treatment of individuals under the age of 13 follows the parameters
established in the Ministry of Health’s
“Guide for the Clinical
Treatment of HIV Infection in Children”, and the anti-retroviral therapy
has clinical criteria
similar to those recommended for adults. Laboratory
monitoring of individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the public health system is
accomplished through the nationwide network of credentialled laboratories that
are capable of performing tests to assess T-CD4+ cell
counts and the
quantification of the viral load and then proceeding to the genotyping of
HIV-1.
- The
network of specialized services for individuals living with HIV/AIDS has been
consolidated in the public system through the training
and credentialling of
hospitals, outpatient clinics and other forms of assistance, such as day
hospitals and residential therapeutic
assistance programmes.
- All
these alternatives offer assistance to children infected or at risk for vertical
transmission of HIV. To fulfil the growing demands
of adolescents living with
HIV/AIDS, the
- services
referred to above are being implemented with a view to providing more qualified
assistance and adopting strategies to optimize
adherence to antiretroviral
treatments by children and adolescents.
- Among
the main prevention strategies are the cooperative initiative established
between the Ministry of Education and the National
Committee on STD/AIDS, which
provides for the introduction of questions relative to sexuality and drug use in
the National Curriculum
Parameters and the continuing training of teachers,
including the development of educational material on the subject of
“sexual
orientation and sexually transmittable diseases”. Today,
this programme has been adopted in 2,900 municipalities
and 20,000
study groups, with 250,000 teachers, and will permit
preventive actions to be better internalized in schools in all regions of the
country.
- Other
significant actions have been articulated and developed jointly with
institutions that work with children and adolescents outside
of the school
environment, such as the National Street Boys and Girls Movement, institutions
exclusively geared towards adolescent
offenders completing social and
educational rehabilitation programmes, and the development of preventive actions
with “men
who engage in sexual relations with young men”. This is
done primarily because, although a 1 per cent reduction in the notified
cases of
AIDS has been registered, an analysis of data pertaining to 2000 and the first
three quarters of 2001 shows that the majority
of new AIDS cases in this
exposure category refer to the youth population.
- The
policy of offering complementary contraception deserves mention, given
that changes in behaviour are tied to access to information, guidance and
safe sex, in which protection is a central issue. A study conducted by
the “Global Sex Survey” 199 (Durex), Ministry of
Health/CEBRAP,
indicated that 48 per cent of adolescents used contraception the
first time they engaged in sexual intercourse, and of these, 71
per cent had
higher levels of education.
- The
programme also developed various strategies for involving and creating
partnerships with civil society, not just through information
campaigns but
through the organization of support houses, as well, which are aimed at
individuals living with HIV/AIDS and offer
housing, social and psychological
support, among other activities. These initiatives have succeeded in minimizing
the difficulties
confronted, above all by children and adolescent orphans of
AIDS victims. The national and state STD/AIDS committees have financed
countless projects developed and coordinated by nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs), including actions specifically directed at
children and
adolescents.
National Smoking Control Programme
- The
actions to control smoking make up part of the strategies aimed at preventing
people from starting to smoke, especially children
and adolescents; actions to
encourage people to quit the habit, including support provided for them to seek
treatment in the SUS
network; safeguarding of non-smokers from exposure to
tobacco smoke, and the regulation and control of tobacco products, their
advertising
and marketing.
- The
programme places special emphasis on educational actions and on mobilizing
society with respect to the topic through the promotion
of healthy lifestyles.
Specific educational actions, such as public awareness campaigns and the
dissemination of information by
the media can combine with continuing
educational actions essential for translating the disseminated information into
changes in
individual attitudes and behaviour.
- Legislative
and economic actions operate as mediating and enabling instruments for
educational actions with the aim of informing citizens
about the risks of
smoking and protecting them from exposure to environmental pollution caused by
tobacco, as well as inducements
to consume tobacco products contained in
advertisements. There is also an effort under way to make it more
difficult for young people
to gain access to tobacco products through the
support of measures that have the effect of raising prices and controlling the
channels
used for selling such products, principally the black market.
- The
Government passed a federal
law[40] restricting publicity
campaigns and prohibiting advertisements and the sponsorship of cultural events
by the tobacco industry, as
well as the consumption of tobacco products on
aeroplanes and other public transport vehicles.
Participation of civil society
- The
health-care sector in Brazil has gained broad experience through its dialogue,
interaction and partnerships with civil society
in all its areas, which has
unquestionably contributed to the success of its actions, particularly those
centred on the health of
children and adolescents. Numerous examples can be
found in programmes, such as maternal breastfeeding, STD/AIDS, women’s
health - including of adolescent women - nationwide vaccination campaigns, the
fight against malnutrition, the prevention of accidents
and violence, the
control of smoking and the fight against drug use, just to name a few.
- Among
the NGOs that have entered into partnerships with the Ministry of Health,
special mention must be given to the Pastoral da Criança
(Children’s Pastoral), an ecumenical entity connected to the Catholic
Church that acts principally in the development of basic
health initiatives,
nominated by the Government of Brazil for the Nobel Peace Prize
in 2001.[41] The
Pastoral da Criança is present in 32,743 communities, organized
into pockets of poverty throughout the countryside and in cities, in 3,555
municipalities,
in every Brazilian state, and has more than 153,000
volunteers originating directly from the targeted communities who provide
assistance to 1,635,461 needy children
under the age of 6 and
to 76,842 pregnant women from a total of 1,135,969 families. It is
probably the largest NGO in the health
field worldwide.
- The
Pastoral da Criança has achieved surprising results in reversing
infant “morbimortality”, even in areas of extreme poverty, by means
of the
adoption of very simple basic health measures (at an average monthly cost
of less than $1 per child), the extension of full citizenship
rights
and self-esteem and participation by the community in solving its own problems,
awakening, in this way, the power of transformation
in its members. Fully 90
per cent of the resources spent in developing the Pastoral da
Criança’s actions derive from the Ministry
- of
Health, which stands as a testament to the success of mutually beneficial
partnerships established between the Government and civil
society. (This report
addresses health care for indigenous persons in section VIII. “Special
protective measures”,
“D. Children belonging to minorities or
indigenous groups”.)
C. Social security and services and children’s
shelters
- The
1988 Constitution establishes that all persons have the right of access to the
social security system, made up of social security (monetary benefits),
health care and social assistance. The principles of universal coverage,
the distribution of benefits and the progressive financing
of the systems are
also set forth in the Health care (1990), Social Security (1991) and Social
Assistance (1993) Laws. Brazil’s
social security system covers all the
basic contingencies prescribed in ILO Convention No. 102, Social Security
(Minimum Standards),
1952.
- The
Brazilian Constitution establishes that the State must promote basic social
security for workers in the private sector, as well as health care and social
assistance. In Brazil the execution of health care (organized within the Single
Health System) and social assistance policies are
the responsibility of the
states and municipalities, while social security policies are developed by the
federal Government and implemented
by the National Social Security Institute
(INSS). The model adopted provides for free health care and social
assistance that do
not require individuals to pay into the system to have access
to it. The civil service also enjoys coverage for social services
provided
through separate systems. In the case of the social security regimes for the
civil service, however, the law establishes
that the benefits offered may not
diverge from those provided by the INSS to private sector workers.
- Based
on 1998 data, it is estimated that the Single Health System (SUS) covers
nearly 90 million persons, while another 35 to 40 million
use private
healthcare services and 35 to 40 million have difficulty in
accessing the system. Social security, which is mandatory
for salaried and
self-employed workers, also extends its coverage to family workers in rural
areas who do not contribute individually.
In this way, of the little more
than 20 million monthly benefits paid at the end of 2001, nearly 7 million
consisted of rural retirement
and pension benefits, in addition to another 2.1
million monthly monetary assistance benefits. Various studies have shown that
social
security contributes greatly towards the prevention of higher poverty
levels in Brazil.
- In
addition to health services, there are at least three monetary benefits provided
by social security that directly affect children
and adolescents:
pensions for orphans, the family salary and the maternal salary. Those
under the age of 18 years (21 if they are
students) can benefit directly from
pensions paid following a death, as is the case with orphans when the
deceased has no spouse,
including with regard to rural retirement
pensions for which there was no contribution. The amount of the pension
corresponds to
80 per cent of the retirement payment to which the
deceased was entitled at the time of death, in addition to 10 per cent per
dependant
up to a maximum of 100 per cent. In 2000, of
the 291,710 pensions granted, 26,391 were to young people up to the age
of 19 years.
- In
the case of the family salary, families with children receive benefits
proportional to the number of children 0 to 14 years of
age or disabled
dependants they have. However, the family salary provides a comparatively low
sum (less than 6 per cent of an official
minimum salary per child), which makes
the benefit somewhat unattractive to the middle class. In spite of this, to
supplement the
budget of the poorest families, the family salary is useful. To
receive the payment, families must demonstrate regular attendance
in school by
the children between 7 and 14 years of age.
- Another
benefit provided by social security that has a direct impact on early infancy is
the maternity salary, which witnessed an
expansion in coverage beginning
in 2000 and reaches urban salaried, independent and rural workers.
The maternity salary is paid
every four months to the recipient at the time the
child is born or adopted (for children up to the age of 8 years).
Throughout
2000, 829,156 women received the maternity salary from the INSS. In
September 2002, there were 144, 585 registered beneficiaries.
- A
fourth benefit offered by social security, to which children and adolescents
have direct access, is the inmate-assistance programme,
granted to dependants,
including minors or incapacitated persons, of inmates imprisoned in the closed
or semi-open regime whose salary
does not exceed R$ 468.47. The sum of the
inmate assistance programme corresponds to 100 per cent of the amount
of the retirement
benefit to which the beneficiary would have the right to
receive if he or she had been placed on permanent disability at the time
of his
or her arrest. In 2000, 3,019 inmate-assistance payments were granted, of which
almost half - 1,581 (52.4 per cent) - went
to individuals up to the age of 19
years.
- Social
assistance seeks to protect children who are living in poverty or socially
vulnerable or at risk. The Organic Law of Social
Assistance (1993)
revolutionized the structure of public policies with the creation of: (a) a
National Social Assistance Council
(CNAS), which includes representatives of
society at large, NGOs and the government, responsible for the development of
policies;
(b) the State Secretariat of Social Assistance (SEAS), which executes
the policies; (c) a National Social Assistance Policy as the
document of
reference; and (d) a National Assistance Fund, intended to provide transparency
to the expenditures made in the area.
The same Council-Secretariat-Policy-Fund
has been replicated at the state and municipal levels, where the majority of
policy are
implemented on the basis of the principle of decentralization.
- In
this area of social assistance, there is a large number of programmes aimed at
children and adolescents that are coordinated and
co-financed by the federal
Government through SEAS and executed jointly by the state and municipal
governments. Among these programmes,
the most noteworthy include the Day-care
Child Assistance, Assistance for Children in Shelter, Child Labour Eradication
and the Social
and Human Development Youth Agent Programmes. There are two
other programmes coordinated by the SEAS directed towards disabled persons
whose
beneficiaries also include children: Disabled Persons Support Programme and the
Continuous Benefit Provision Programme.
- The
Day-care Child Assistance Programme serves children ages 0 to 6 years, whose
per capita monthly family income is less than half
a minimum wage, in
day-care centres and preschools and develops social and education actions
with families. Through the National
Social Assistance Fund, the federal
Government is present in 4,349 municipalities, or 78.2 per cent
of the total. In 2002, these
units provided regular service to 1,631,182
children.
- The
Support Programme for Children and Adolescents in Shelters endeavours to protect
children and adolescents between the ages of
0 and 18 years (in certain cases up
to 21 years) that have been threatened or had their basic rights violated, by
sheltering them
in specific installations. These shelters are intended to be a
temporary measure, for the ultimate desire is to return the child/adolescent
to
family and community life. In 2001, 94,563 persons were served in shelters
co-financed by the National Social Assistance Fund.
It is not known, however,
how many shelters there are in Brazil or the total number of children who
require support through this
programme but do not receive any.
- It
is also important to mention the Child Labour Eradication Programme (PETI) -
addressed in a section of this report (paras. 612-622)
- which is coordinated by
the federal Government through SEAS. PETI, whose focus is on children ages 7 to
15 years who work in dangerous,
difficult, unhealthy and degrading activities,
is complemented by two other similar programmes: (a) the Sentinel Programme,
which
encompasses a set of combined actions involving specialized social
assistance for child and adolescent victims of sexual violence
through the
payment of grants to the exploited children and adolescents; (b) the Youth
Agent Programme, which, in the context of
preparing young people between
the ages of 15 and 17 years in their social and human development, also
includes income transfers.
In the case of the Sentinel Programme, the transfer
is contingent on the family removing the young person from the situation of
commercial sexual exploitation and participating in the specialized social
assistance offered by the reference centres implemented
by the programme.
In 2001, the Sentinel Programme served 18,310 youths.
- The
Young Agents Programme benefits adolescents between the ages of 15 and 17 years
who live on the outskirts of urban areas and municipalities
with a low Human
Development Index (HDI), through training provided in the area of health,
environment and citizenship for a period
of 12 months. The time at which the
youth begins to act in the community context constitutes an event that is
planned between the
technical team of the local administrator and the young
person, consistent with the theoretical training received. In entering the
project, the adolescent is encouraged and given support to continue attending
school, for which an incentive involving a monthly
cash transfer is offered.
The programme can absorb other social programmes.
- Assistance
policies also include a Disabled Persons’ Support Programme, which is
funded by social assistance institutions aimed
at serving this segment of the
population through the National Social Assistance Fund. Among the beneficiaries
of the transfers
made to households with a per capita monthly income below half
the minimum wage are children and adolescents. Institutions are in
the process
of being financed in 945 municipalities in Brazil, which benefited 120,418
persons, in 1999.
- Another
important income transfer mechanism for that same segment is known as the
Continued Provisions Benefit (BPC). It offers a
minimum monthly salary to
disabled persons whose per capita monthly family income is less than half the
minimum wage. Of the 107,915
BPCs of this type granted in 2000, 41,731
(38.7 per cent) went to persons up to 19 years of age.
- Lastly,
it is interesting to note the proliferation in Brazil in the 1990s, of social
programmes that included income transfers associated
with the formation of
long-term “assets” (education and health). These are intended to
construct a foundation capable
of breaking the vicious cycle of poverty to which
children and adolescents are subjected. These programmes, which are focused on
poor children, include PETI, the Youth Agent, food grants and school grants, all
addressed in other sections of this report. In
conjunction with the Continued
Provisions Benefit and various transferral programmes focused on the poor, a
foundation is in the
process of being built for a broader minimum-income
guarantee programme in Brazil.
D. Standard of living
- Brazil
is considered a developing country according to the most commonly used criteria,
namely per capita income and the Human Development
Index (HDI). With a per
capita income of US$ 6,625 in 1998, calculated on the basis of purchasing power
parity (PPP), Brazil would
occupy 58th position in the international rankings.
The country’s HDI ranking of 0.747, also based on 1998 figures, would
place Brazil in 74th place worldwide, a level very similar to other Latin
American countries (Colombia and Peru), economies in transition
(Kazakhstan,
Georgia and Ukraine) and the second generation Asian “tigers”
(Thailand, the Philippines).
- Contrary
to those countries with aggregate indicators similar to the Brazilian case,
Brazil is highly heterogeneous socially and regionally
marked by profound
internal inequalities in distribution. The Gini index, which measures income
distribution, was 0.59, in 1999,
and remained at 0.60, between 1993 and 1998
(the closer the figure is to 1.00, the more unequal the country is). Life
expectancy
at birth, which averaged 68.4 years, in 1999, was more than
five years higher (70.8 years) in the south, a more highly developed
region, compared to the nine states of the north-east (65.5 years),
historically less developed and with an incomplete health infrastructure.
Illiteracy among individuals 15 years or above reached 26.6 per cent in the
northeast, in 1999, three times the total registered
in the south and south-east
(7.8 per cent), where the most dynamic economic centres are found and intense
income generation takes
place.
- There
is a vigorous debate in Brazil among specialists about the extent of poverty and
indigence and the most adequate methods for
measuring them. For some, poverty
is the inability to satisfy the minimum consumption of a basket of goods and
services, adjusted
to the purchasing power levels in the different Brazilian
states. In measuring poverty on this basis, in 1999 the percentage of
people living in poverty in Brazil was 34 per cent, while those living in
indigence accounted for 14.3 per cent of the total.
- The
Law on Social Assistance, however, uses another method for determining the
economic vulnerability of the potential consumers of
goods and services. It
states that for certain services and/or cash transfers from the social
assistance system, candidates must
prove a per capita family income below
half or one quarter of the official minimum wage. If this measurement is
employed, in 1999,
of the 153.7 million individuals surveyed, 41.1 million,
or 26.8 per cent of the population, lived on less than half of a minimum
wage. Another 16 million, or 10.4 per cent of the population, were found
to live below the level of one quarter of a minimum wage,
according to data of
the National Sampling Survey of Households. This last definition of poverty is
extremely significant, to the
extent that it is the criteria used in the federal
legislation in force.
- According
to this methodology, poverty rates (per capital family income below half a
minimum wage) are higher among children and adolescents
than among adults and
the elderly. As Table 13 below shows, in the age range from 0 to 6 years 41.7
per cent of children have per
capita family incomes below half the minimum
wage, while 38.7 per cent of children between 7 and 14 years of age and 30.8 per
cent
of youths from 15 to 17 years of age find themselves in the same situation.
All the remaining age groups in the population present
figures below the
national average for poverty.
Table 13
Population potentially needing social assistance
(per capita family
income below half the official minimum wage), by age
group, 1999
|
Total population
|
Population with a PCFI below half the minimum wage
|
Percentage
|
0 to 6
|
20 325 582
|
8 469 240
|
41.7
|
7 to 14
|
25 279 377
|
9 790 851
|
38.7
|
15 to 17
|
9 940 120
|
3 065 061
|
30.8
|
18 to 24
|
19 954 672
|
4 773 815
|
23.7
|
25 to 59
|
64 310 328
|
13 664 027
|
21.2
|
60 to 66
|
5 873 959
|
708 235
|
12.1
|
67 and over
|
8 033 118
|
691 809
|
8.6
|
Total
|
153 717 156
|
41 123 038
|
26.8
|
Source: PNAD 1999; prepared by IPEA.
Note: The sum does not correspond to the total population of Brazil
due to the
processing of PNAD microdata.
- Among
the explanations for this phenomenon is that the social security system has been
much more efficient in reducing poverty indicators
among the elderly. In
addition, it is clear that children increase the risk of poverty in the family
and that, despite the significant
efforts undertaken in the 1990s, the benefits
aimed at families with small children remain insufficient in quantity and amount
to
fully combat poverty among those 0 to 17 years of age.
- In
addition to higher poverty rates among families with children, these families
are also at a disadvantage with respect to other
social indicators that reflect
quality of life, particularly those pertaining to housing and sanitation. For
example, while an average
of 88 per cent of the population, according to PNAD
1999, resided in households with potable water supplied from a general
distribution
network, this figure dropped to 69 per cent for children between
the ages of 0 to 6 years. The remaining children accessed well
or spring
water or water from another source. The supply of potable water is particularly
significant to children because of its
role in dramatically reducing infant
mortality.
- It
is important to note, however, that in 1992 the data on water supplies
originating from the general network stood at 82.3 per cent
for the population
as a whole and 59 per cent for
- children
from 0 to 6 years of age, that is, the distance is gradually shrinking as a
result of public investments in basic sanitation.
The same can be seen in the
availability of sewage treatment and regular trash collection in households with
children. While 73.8
per cent of the population had sewage considered
“adequate”, in 1999, only 45.7 per cent of children aged 0 to 6
enjoyed
the same conditions. Whereas the population in general with access to
adequate sewage rose between 1992 and 1999, from 66.1 to 73.8
per cent, for
children aged 0 to 6, this same access rose by only one percentage point in the
1990s.
- To
combat poverty, the Community Solidarity Programme endeavoured, between 1995 and
1998, to extend the reach of basic existing social
services and policies to less
developed regions. Beginning in 1998, the effort to develop a policy to
stimulate integrated local
development has been carried out by the Active
Community Programme - renamed from “Solidarity Community” - while
the
Projeto Alvorada, coordinated by the State Secretariat for Social
Assistance (SEAS), expands basic social services in those states and
municipalities
having the lowest Human Development Indices, as classified by
UNDP. In this way, existing programmes are coordinated and redundancy
in the
structures for providing services are avoided.
- To
finance various policies centred on income transfers coupled with social
investments, such as school grants, food grants and basic
sanitation in
disadvantaged communities, the Fund for Combating and Eradicating Poverty was
established in 2000. The fund collects
contributions from financial
transactions and operates within the mandate of a long-term financial policy to
combat poverty.
- While
the supply of basic sanitation services expanded in the 1990s, particularly as a
result of the “Basic Sanitation”
and “Sanitation for
Life”, it is worth noting, in conclusion, that a permanent solution
requires decisions and guidance
in terms of the reforms to which the sector has
been subject since the last decade. There is a need to set forth a regulatory
milestone,
as well as define a new financing structure for the sector. The same
rationale applies to the deficits identified in the area of
housing in
Brazil.
VII. EDUCATION, RECREATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
A. Education incorporated into professional training and
guidance
- The
1988 Brazilian Constitution establishes education as a right of all Brazilians,
for which the State and the family are responsible. In setting forth the
State’s
duty with respect to education, the constitutional text
guarantees: mandatory and free primary education; progressively universalized
free secondary education; special educational services for
disabled persons, preferably within the normal educational system; day
care
and pre-school for children between the ages of 0 and 6; access to the highest
levels of education, research and artistic production,
according to the
abilities of each individual; regular educational offerings at night adjusted to
the conditions of the student;
and assistance to the primary education student
through supplemental programmes that provide educational material,
transportation,
food and health care.
- The
1990 Statute of the Child and the Adolescent (ECA) reaffirms the right to
education, regulating the constitutional provisions.
Therefore, it establishes
the duty of parents or guardians to enrol their children or wards in the regular
educational system.
Failure to fulfil this obligation constitutes the crime of
intellectual abandonment, prescribed in the Criminal Code, in those situations
in which the parents cease to provide primary education to their school-aged
children.
- Since
1990, the Government of Brazil has undertaken numerous measures to promote
quality and equitable education for all persons,
in an effort to fulfil the
commitments assumed in the Jomtien Conference on Education for
All,[42] as well as, with
regard to the infant-youth population, the provisions established in the
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In all areas of education, significant
progress has been made, beginning with the expansion of the educational system,
which has
contributed to a reduction in illiteracy rates, from 17.2 per cent,
in 1992, to 12.4 per cent, in
2001.[43]
- Today
we can see that illiteracy is concentrated among persons above 40 years of age,
precisely the segment that did not benefit from
the expansion of the educational
system. It is especially evident among populations which the educational
programmes have difficulty
in reaching, given their socioeconomic and cultural
characteristics.
- In
fact, it would not be feasible to strive for the elimination of illiteracy while
a solution to at least the question of universal
access to primary education is
not reached, that is, while the emergence of new illiterate individuals was not
halted. Brazil has
universalized access to primary education for 97 per cent of
children and adolescents between the ages of 7 and 14, the key stage
in the
effort to eradicate illiteracy. It is equally important to note the impact that
mandatory and free universal education has
in ensuring social inclusion,
considering the increase in the number of low-income children and adolescents
who have gained access
to schools.
Table 14
Illiteracy rates among individuals 15 years of age
and above, Brazil and regions, 2000
|
Illiteracy rate by age group (percentage), 2000
|
15 years and above
|
15 to 19 years
|
20 to 24 years
|
25 to 29 years
|
30 to 39 years
|
40 to 49 years
|
50 years and above
|
Brazil
|
13.6
|
5.0
|
6.7
|
8.0
|
10.2
|
13.9
|
29.4
|
North
|
16.3
|
6.8
|
8.6
|
10.5
|
13.9
|
20.2
|
38.3
|
North-east
|
26.2
|
10.7
|
15.0
|
18.2
|
22.9
|
29.9
|
50.1
|
South-east
|
8.1
|
1.9
|
2.8
|
3.6
|
5.1
|
7.7
|
19.9
|
South
|
7.7
|
1.5
|
2.2
|
3.0
|
4.3
|
7.2
|
19.4
|
Centre-West
|
10.8
|
2.2
|
3.5
|
4.9
|
7.5
|
12.2
|
29.8
|
Source: Demographic Census 2000.
Table 15
Rate of schooling for children 7 to 14 years of
age, by per capita
income quintiles (percentage), Brazil, 1992 to
1999
|
2nd quintile
|
3rd quintile
|
4th quintile
|
5th quintile
|
1992
|
74.5
|
82.9
|
87.4
|
92.9
|
97.2
|
1995
|
81.8
|
85.9
|
90.6
|
94.9
|
98.3
|
1999
|
92.5
|
94.2
|
96.0
|
97.0
|
98.9
|
Source: IBGE - Summary of Social Indicators 2000.
- Given
that the elimination of illiteracy is the foundation for guaranteeing the
minimum conditions of social equity and access to
the full exercise of
citizenship, the Government of Brazil in partnership with civil society has
invested in educational programmes
connected to actions for combating poverty
and reducing regional and individual inequalities. The efforts are directed
toward individuals
between the ages of 15 and 29 years and centre on permitting
them to participate in the democratic process and assuring that they
are placed
and remain in the labour market. In this way, the National Curriculum
References for the Education of Youths and Adults
advocates adjusting education
to the living and working conditions of students, an important factor
considering the constitutional
provision, which sets out that the right of
special protection for children and adolescents must include guaranteed access
to schooling
for adolescent workers.
- Emphasis
must be given to the Ministry of Education’s Youth and Adult Educational
Support Programme, which comprises the Projeto
Alvorada[44] and is intended
to expand openings for youths and adults who are not able to complete their
primary education at an appropriate age
or who did not have access to
schools. Nearly R$ 45.6 million have been disbursed
to 1,255 municipalities
in the north and north-east.
- It
is also worth mentioning the Solidarity Literacy initiative, which employs a
simple, innovative and low-cost literacy model. It
is supported by the
Government at the municipal, state and federal levels, as well as the 204
institutions of higher learning. The
initiative receives financing from
101 partner companies, which split the cost of only R$ 34 per month with the
MEC. The MEC’s
investment of R$ 17 per month corresponds to the provision
of educational support materials, as well as a library contribution.
In 1999,
the programme covered 300,000 students in 850 municipalities. With the
current expansion, the programme has been extended
to 2,010
municipalities. In the first half of 2002, it served 708,344 students, and it
is projected that in the second half of the
year another 600,000 students will
be
included.
- In
assessing the results achieved by Brazil in the 1990s, some general observations
about the Brazilian educational system should
be noted. First, the new
structure established by Law No. 9394 of 20 December 1996, referred to
as the Law of Educational Directives
and Bases, or simply LDB, bears
mention. LDB introduced an important milestone in the history of Brazilian
education. The greater
flexibility and autonomy granted the educational systems
inspired the principal reforms carried out in recent years, such as the
conception of the current National Education Plan, as well as the
organization of the Brazilian educational system.
- As
can be seen in the table below, basic education encompasses infant education,
primary education[45] and
secondary education, for a total of 18 years of schooling.
Table 15b
Summary of the structure of the Brazilian
educational system
|
Years
|
Age group
|
Basic education
|
Infant Education
|
Day care
|
4
|
Up to 3 years
|
Pre-school
|
3
|
From 4 to 6 years
|
Primary education (mandatory)
|
8
|
From 7 to 14 years
|
Secondary education
|
3
|
From 15 to 17 years
|
Higher education
|
Courses by area
|
Varies
|
Above 17 years
|
- A
distinct feature of Brazilian education is its extremely decentralized
character.
In fact, in Brazil mandatory primary education, day care,
pre-school and secondary
education fall under the purview of the states and
municipalities. The central Government’s role at the different
levels is
normative - establishing the broad outlines for the
system
- redistributive and contributory - providing assistance and
subsidies to reduce
social and regional inequalities.
- This
decentralization, an intrinsic component of federative systems, is associated
with significant regional diversity. For this
reason, the development of the
educational system has not been uniform in all regions of Brazil, and the
problems of access, attendance
and success in school are very serious in the
poorest areas.
- The
progress made in expanding the educational system reveals how Brazilian
educational policies have sought to increase the population’s
educational
level, promoting social inclusion based on the principles of universality and
equity. The data concerning the gender
question in education indicate positive
results. Among the socio-economic factors that explain this phenomenon, the
most important,
without question, in the entry of women into the labour market.
The growing need for professionalization has served as a stimulus
for Brazilian
women to endeavour to improve their level of
schooling.
- Paradoxically,
another factor that has contributed to higher levels of schooling
among
women, when compared to men, is the premature entrance of young men from
lowincome families into the labour market, meaning,
consequently, that they drop
out
of school, as a result of their engagement in activities incompatible
with the daily school
routine. Although child labour exists among poor
girls, too, in general they prefer to devote their time to household
chores, which
are easier to accommodate to school hours and
activities.
- It
is important to highlight that the reforms implemented in the curriculum, in
Brazil, include the need to combat gender or racial
stereotypes or any other
type of discrimination and promote respect and tolerance with respect to
differences. These questions are
also considered at the time the textbooks used
in the public primary schools are evaluated, resulting in the exclusion of books
that
transmit prejudice based on origin, colour, socio-economic status,
ethnicity or gender. In addition, with regard to teacher training
and
preparation courses, the Ministry of Education is committed to introducing
non-discriminatory content as concerns women, as well
as any other topics that
promote gender equality.
Table 16
Average years of study of persons 10 years of age
or above,
by sex, colour and geographic region, Brazil, 1992 to 1999
|
Year
|
1992
|
1995
|
1999
|
Sex:
|
|
|
|
Men
|
4.8
|
5.0
|
5.6
|
Women
|
4.9
|
5.3
|
5.9
|
Colour:
|
|
|
|
White
|
5.8
|
6.1
|
6.7
|
Black
|
3.4
|
3.8
|
4.5
|
Mestizo
|
3.7
|
4.0
|
4.6
|
Brazil:
|
4.9
|
5.2
|
5.8
|
North
|
5.0
|
5.2
|
5.8
|
North-east
|
3.5
|
3.7
|
4.3
|
South-east
|
5.5
|
5.9
|
6.5
|
South
|
5.4
|
5.7
|
6.2
|
Centre-West
|
5.1
|
5.3
|
5.9
|
Source: IBGE - Summary of Social Indicators 2000.
- Although
access is provided free of charge, unconditionally, to all children and
adolescents, the domestic legal framework includes,
additionally, Law No. 7716
of 5 January 1989, which defines the crimes arising from
discrimination arising from race, colour, ethnicity,
religion or national
origin. A sentence of three to five years will be handed down for anyone who,
through discriminatory attitudes,
refuses, denies or impedes a student’s
enrolment or entry to a public or private education establishment in any
way.
- With
respect to the black and mestizo populations, which comprise respectively 5.4
and 39.9 per cent of the Brazilian population,
illiteracy rates declined
sharply, between 1992 and 1999, falling, respectively, from 28.7 to 21 per
cent and from 25.2 to 19.6 per
cent. However, when compared to the rates of
illiteracy among the white population, 8.3 per cent, the figures show that a
disparity
based on race persists in Brazil.
- With
respect to the financing of education, the Brazilian Constitution determines
that the federal Government must apply, on an annual basis, a minimum of 18 per
cent, while the states, the Federal District
and municipalities must provide 25
per cent, of the revenues derived from taxes and transfers to education. It
also establishes
an education salary, provided as a social contribution and paid
by companies, to serve as an additional source of funding for the
public primary
education system.
- Once
that responsibility for mandatory primary education fell to the states and
municipalities, it became necessary to define the
legal criteria for dividing
the resources and tasks. Constitutional Amendment No. 14 of 12 September 1996
established a new financing
system - the Primary Education Maintenance and
Development and Teacher Appreciation Fund (FUNDEF), which organized the
contributions
flowing from the federal Government, the states and the
municipalities.[46]
- FUNDEF,
which entered into operation in 1998, is aimed at assuring the equitable
distribution of resources in each state, as well
as reducing regional
inequalities through the guarantee of a minimum amount per student/grade.
- Some
considerations on the dimensions of the Brazilian educational system bear
mention. Brazil has more than 57 million students,
if all levels and types of
basic education are considered, which corresponds to almost one third of
the population. In the last
three decades, the system tripled. It is,
therefore, a massive system requiring substantial investments by the
Government, which
accounts for 90.9 per cent of the enrolments in
primary education, 84.2 per cent in secondary education and 37.9
per cent in higher
education. Table 17 below presents the recent evolution in
enrolled students by level and type of education, from 1996 to 2001.
-
In addition to mandatory free education granted by the State, the Brazilian
Constitution ensures that education may be provided by the private sector,
provided it fulfils the general norms governing education in the country
and
receives authorization from and undergoes quality evaluations by the
Government.
Table 17
Initial enrolment by level/type of learning,
Brazil, 1996 to 2001
|
Year
|
1996
|
1997
|
1998
|
1999
|
2000
|
2001
|
Day carea
|
-
|
348 012
|
381 804
|
831 978
|
916 864
|
1 093 347
|
Pre-school
|
4 270 376
|
4 292 208
|
4 111 120
|
4 235 278
|
4 421 332
|
4 818 803
|
Literacy class
|
1 443 927
|
1 426 694
|
806 288
|
666 017
|
674 044
|
652 866
|
Primary education
|
33 131 270
|
34 229 388
|
35 792 554
|
36 059 742
|
35 717 948
|
35 298 089
|
Secondary education
|
5 739 077
|
6 405 057
|
6 968 531
|
7 769 199
|
8 192 948
|
8 398 008
|
Special educationb
|
201 142
|
334 507
|
293 403
|
311 354
|
300 520
|
323 399
|
Youth and adult education
|
2 752 214
|
2 881 770
|
2 881 231
|
3 071 906
|
3 410 830
|
3 777 989
|
Higher education
|
1 868 529
|
1 945 615
|
2 125 958
|
2 369 945
|
2 694 245
|
2 952 374
|
Source: MEC/INEP.
a Through 1999, the data collected on day care included
only those institutions incorporated in the formal education system.
b The figures pertaining to special education include
only specialized schools and special classes. It is important to mention that
students with special educational needs, who are in regular classes, are
recorded within the total enrolment in, respectively, infant
education, primary
and secondary education and youth and adult education.
- The
National Education Council (CNE), a normative and deliberative body, linked to
the Ministry of Education, establishes the minimum
conditions and standards for
educational institutions and the national curriculum directives, which must be
adopted and adapted by
the education systems, except in the case of regional and
local peculiarities.
- In
the light of the education setting described herein, we note that one of the
Government of Brazil’s primary concerns pertains
to the quality of
education. In this sense, beginning in the 1990s, the evaluation practices
were developed with the introduction
of mechanisms, such as: the National Basic
Education Evaluation System (SAEB), the National Secondary Education Exam (ENEM)
and
the National Exam of University Courses (ENC), also known as the
Provão, all under the responsibility of the National Institute for
Educational Studies and Research (INEP), an independent branch of the
Ministry
of Education.
- SAEB
allows for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the education systems, with a
focus on quality, efficiency and equity. Every
two years, data is gathered
that, in addition to verifying the performance of students through the
application of performance tests
intended to verify the competence and abilities
of each student, examine socio-economic and other factors that affect learning.
These factors can be evidenced in four areas: schools, the administration of
schools, teachers and students.
- The
general objective of ENEM is to evaluate the student’s performance upon
completion of basic education. The Provão (“big
exam”), which is mandatory, was created to evaluate the quality of the
undergraduate courses in institutions of
higher education through an annual exam
that tests knowledge of students who are close to graduating.
- In
accordance with the provisions established in articles 28 and 29 of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, which address the
right to education and
the objectives of education, we would like to highlight the following
advancements achieved by Brazil with
respect to: the expansion of infant
education; the increased offering of primary education; the strengthening of
secondary and professional
education; the effort against absenteeism; the
improvement in the quality of teaching, and the support extended to educational
institutions
to introduce topics such as the environment, ethics, citizenship,
health and sexual orientation in the classroom.
1. Early childhood education
- According
to the Law on Educational Directives and Bases (LDB), the purpose of early
childhood education is to assure the full development
of the child through the
age of 6 with respect to all pertinent physical, psychological, intellectual and
social aspects, carried
out in conjunction with family and community actions.
Evaluations in early childhood education take place through the use of
instruments
that record and monitor the development of the child but are not
intended to determine whether the child should continue to the next
level or
not. Thus, attendance at an early childhood education establishment is not a
prerequisite for access to primary education.
Although not mandatory, it is a
public right, the expansion of which is the municipality’s responsibility,
with the support
of the federal and state governments.
- Although
the preliminary results of the 2002 education
census[47] reveal that
nearly 6.1 million children are enrolled in early childhood education,
this is an underestimate, given that most institutions
that offer the service -
particularly non-governmental organizations - are not registered in the
education system.
Table 18
Early childhood education (enrolment in day care
and pre-school),
distribution by age group, Brazil, 2001
|
Total
|
Enrolment by age group
|
3 years or less
|
4 to 6 years
|
Above 6 years
|
Day care
|
1 093 347
|
664 854
|
414 112
|
14 381
|
Pre-School
|
4 818 803
|
188 202
|
4 190 284
|
440 317
|
Total
|
5 912 150
|
853 056
|
4 604 396
|
454 698
|
Source: MEC/INEP/SEEC.
Note: The data on age was obtained from the date of birth provided
to the education census. Therefore, the child’s age in 2001
was
considered.
- Until
recently, day-care centres in Brazil aimed at serving children up to 3 years of
age were under the responsibility of the social
assistance agencies and the
educational system. However, the LDB initiated a more systematic integration of
these institutions,
as required by the 1988 Constitution.
- In
2001, enrolment in day care was concentrated in municipal establishments, of
which 13,084 were registered and served 663,508 children.
For their part,
the 12,088 private registered establishments served 410,661 children.
- Preliminary
data from the education census of 2002 indicate that in the last two years there
has been an increase of 4 per cent in
the number of children enrolled in early
childhood education. In spite of this, it is recognized that this type of
education is
still far too scarce.
- We
can see, therefore, that the implementation of public policies for early
childhood education is currently in progress, and the
education systems are in
transition, whether with respect to the incorporation of day care to the
education system or the precise
definition of this stage of basic education.
For this reason, we find that a portion of the children in day care are of ages
that
correspond to pre-school. This situation is common in all regions of the
country, although more so in the north and north-east,
where there is a larger
population of children between the ages of 4 and 6 years that are served by day
care.
- It
must also be mentioned that in 2001 only 9.5 per cent of the total served by
day-care centres lived in rural areas, which can be
understood by the dispersed
nature of those populations, which requires travelling considerable distances to
find service - a reality
aggravated by the difficulty in offering transportation
to small children - as well as the establishment of family arrangements to
care
for children, a frequent practice in the
countryside.
Table 19
Early childhood education (total enrolment in
day-care centre and pre-school),
percentage distribution by age group, Brazil
and regions, 2000
|
Total
|
Enrolment by age group
|
3 years or less (percentage)
|
4 to 6 years (percentage)
|
Above 6 years (percentage)
|
Brazil
|
5 912 150
|
14.4
|
77.9
|
7.7
|
North
|
420 929
|
10.3
|
79.7
|
10.0
|
North-east
|
1 759 804
|
13.9
|
79.3
|
6.8
|
South-east
|
2 600 454
|
14.3
|
77.1
|
8.6
|
South
|
797 944
|
18.7
|
76.1
|
5.2
|
Centre-West
|
333 019
|
13.5
|
78.2
|
8.3
|
Source: MEC/INEP/SEEC.
- In
a country marked by profound economic and cultural inequalities, pre-school
constitutes a precious instrument for ensuring a satisfactory
basic education.
The efforts undertaken in this area have been extensive, for initial enrolment
in pre-school, in 2002, according
to the preliminary results of the education
census, reached a total of approximately 4.9 million children.
- The
existence, although secondary, of literacy classes, is worth highlighting. The
difficulty in offering regular pre-school education
to all children has led many
states and municipalities to create literacy classes, which must precede and
facilitate entry into the
mandatory primary education system. Currently, a
progressive decline in enrolment in literacy classes has been verified, as
a consequence
of FUNDEF’s efforts to promote the enrolment
of 7year-old children directly in primary education. In 2001, literacy
classes
had 652,866 enrolled students, of which 78.9 per cent were between
6 and 7 years of age.
- This
expansion in service to children under the age of 7 reflects a response to
growing demand, which, for its part, arises from the
greater awareness among the
less advantaged segments of the population concerning the value of a quality
education in the child’s
first years of life.
- It
is also necessary to emphasize that the LDB permits the education systems to
serve children under the age of 7 in the primary education
system. Thus, there
is a considerable contingent of 6-year-old children who are enrolled in primary
education. In fact, when the
rate of service offered children between the ages
of 4 and 6 is analysed, it is clear that the
percentage is low throughout
the country, although between 1991 and 1999, the figure rose from 41.2 to
51.2 per cent. The number
of 4- to 6-year-olds enrolled, regardless of the
level of education in which the child had been placed, grew in the same period
from
almost 4.2 million to 5 million, with rural areas lagging behind in
relation to urban centres.
- In
2000, the Ministry of Education conducted its early childhood education census,
in order to expand its registry of institutions
offering infant education and to
obtain more detailed information on the type of service provided. The results
of this special survey
enabled a more precise diagnostic of early childhood
education in Brazil.
- Finally,
it is worth noting that the integration of early childhood education in the
education systems, as regards the credentialling,
supervision and training of
teachers, does not exempt other sectors from participating in the development of
public social policies
for young children. Considering the age of the children
who require health care and food supplements, it is necessary to merge the
role
of education with social actions in the area of health, the family and civil
society, in a mutual effort.
2. Primary education
- The
Constitution of Brazil outlines a directive for primary education, establishing
the determination of minimum content, as well as assuring a common
basic
education and the respect for cultural and artistic and national and regional
values. For its part, the LDB states that
- its
objective is to form citizens through, among other things: the development of
the ability to learn, for purposes of acquiring
knowledge and skills and
developing attitudes and values, as well as strengthening family ties and mutual
human solidarity and tolerance
on which society is based.
- Of
all the educational levels, primary education has made the most stable and
continuous progress, translating into a significant
increase in the number of
enrolled students. In 1999, net schooling rates for persons between the ages of
7 and 14 reached 95 per
cent, an increase of more than 10 percentage points over
1991. With the rate reaching 97 per cent, in 1999, the target established
by
the World Declaration on Education for All (Jomtien, 1990), which called for
elevating the coverage of school-aged children to
94 per cent by 2003, was
reached and surpassed.
Table 19
Students 7 to 14, rates of schooling for primary
education,
Brazil and regions, 1998/1999
|
Rate of students served
|
Net rate of schooling
|
1998
|
1999
|
1998
|
1999
|
Brazil
|
95.8
|
97.0
|
95.3
|
95.4
|
North
|
93.8
|
95.8
|
90.4
|
93.2
|
North-east
|
92.4
|
95.6
|
90.0
|
92.8
|
South-east
|
97.7
|
98.2
|
97.4
|
97.6
|
South
|
96.9
|
97.7
|
96.2
|
96.6
|
Centre-west
|
95.8
|
97.3
|
93.9
|
95.6
|
Source: MEC/INEP.
- Beginning
in 2000, enrolment in the first cycle (grades 1 to 4) of primary education began
to decline, as a consequence of the better
flow of students, from 58.1 to 43 per
cent, while enrolment in the second cycle (grades 5 to 8) increased from 41.9 to
56.6 per cent.
- The
expansion of access to primary education has been, since 1995, a priority of the
federal Government. National campaigns to mobilize
society and the media, such
as the “Wake up, Brazil! It’s time to go to school”
(Acorda, Brasil! Está na hora da escola) (1995) and “Every
Child to School” (Toda Criança na Escola) (1997) initiatives
contributed significantly to the incorporation of 4 million students in the
primary education system, between
1996 and 1999.
- In
addition, from the time it entered into operation, in 1998, FUNDEF began to
contribute significantly to stimulate the enrolment
of school-aged children, as
a result of the principle of the equitable distribution of public resources, as
seen in the number of
students enrolled in the state and municipal networks.
Thus, FUNDEF has had an important impact on schooling rates in primary
education.
- Between
1991 and 2000, enrolment in the public sector grew by 25.4 per cent, with a
strong increase at the municipal level (95.4 per
cent). The north and
north-east achieved the highest rates of enrolment in primary education,
precisely the regions that manifested
the largest deficits in terms of primary
education coverage. The north/north-east’s higher growth rates occurred
in the final
grades (88.6 and 99.6 per cent, respectively), indicating the
re-entry of children who had left school.
- FUNDEF’s
impact has also led to more qualified and better paid teachers, as the data of
the National Sampling Survey of Households
(PNAD)[48] in the table below
indicates. FUNDEF’s operational rules have had a positive effect on the
remuneration of teachers, given
that it requires that the states and
municipalities channel at least 60 per cent of the Fund’s resources to
teachers’
salaries.
Table 20
Average monthly salary (R$) of primary education
teachers in public schools
(40 hours per week), Brazil and geographic
regions, 1996-1999
Brazil
and geographic regions
|
1996
|
1997
|
1998
|
1999
|
Brazil
|
557
|
585
|
626
|
670
|
North
|
510
|
482
|
516
|
593
|
North-east
|
345
|
354
|
423
|
451
|
Centre-west
|
559
|
551
|
628
|
672
|
South-east
|
709
|
778
|
845
|
893
|
South
|
604
|
665
|
656
|
749
|
Source: Estimates MEC/INEP/SEEC based on PNAD data 1996, 1997, 1998
and 1999.
- The
legal authorization to use a minimum of at least 60 per cent of the resources
directed toward the remuneration of teachers for the preparation of lay
teachers,[49] during the
first five years of FUNDEF’s existence, and the possibility of
using a portion of the remaining 40 per cent for
the same purpose,
beginning in 2002, has resulted in an increase in the qualification of the
teaching profession. Prior to 1998,
only 23 per cent of the educational
networks developed activities aimed at preparing lay teachers, while, in 2000, a
rise
of 73 per cent was verified. Nearly 85 per cent of the
educational networks registered a decline in the number of these teachers
without the necessary qualifications.
- According
to the teachers’ survey, conducted in 1997, the average monthly salary for
teachers in Brazil’s basic education
system was R$ 529.92, although we
must point out that this remuneration is directly related to the level taught by
the teacher.
This difference in salaries is explained, principally, on the
basis of the educational training required of professionals as concerns
the
level at which they teach.
- The
permanent monitoring of the educational system, carried out through annual
surveys of the school census, has shown that the ability
to serve the
educational networks is now
- sufficient
to ensure an opening for every child between the ages of 7 and 14 and most of
the young people between 15 and 17 years
of age. The current problem with
primary education does not lie in a lack of access, but resides, above all, in
extra- and intra-school
factors that make it difficult to maintain students in
school and hinder their progress.
- In
conjunction with the efforts to universalize access, government actions have
also been directed toward assuring success in school,
defined as the progression
of students through the final grade within the projected time. Execution of
this goal requires an improvement
in the quality of education.
- Consequently,
the main problems currently faced are repetition, which leads to age-grade
incompatibility, excess enrolments, due to
students repeating certain
grades, absenteeism, regional differences and the training of inadequate
teachers.
- The
gross rate of schooling at the primary education level of 130.5 per cent, as
calculated in 1999, indicates that a very large proportion
of students
present an acute age-grade distortion, that is, their age exceeds that for each
grade. This phenomenon has two principal
causes: the first is late entry,
after 7 years of age, which occurs more frequently among rural populations; the
second, and more
important, is repetition, which is responsible for absenteeism
and overenrolment witnessed in the first grades of the primary education
networks. Because of repetition, student take an average of 10 years to
complete the 8 years of mandatory education.
- The
age-grade distortion has at least two other very serious consequences: the
first has to do with the increased costs incurred
by the education system; the
second has a direct impact on students, namely the delays caused in their
schooling, which affects their
self-esteem and performance, as demonstrated by
the results of the evaluations recently conducted by the INEP. The tests
applied
by SAEB and ENEM revealed that the performance of students tends to
deteriorate as the age-grade distortion grows.
- The
percentage of students over 14 years of age who are enrolled in primary
education increased significantly between 1991 and 1999,
although this growth
levelled off from 1998 to 2000. This trend reveals the re-entry of
students who had left school in previous
years, indicating their desire to
return and complete their mandatory schooling.
- However,
in spite of the fact that the problem continues to be serious, highly positive
progress has been made with regard to the
flow indicators. The age-grade
distortion rate fell in the country from 64.1 per cent in 1991, to 46.6 per cent
in 1998, and to
37.3 per cent in 2001. The reduction was more pronounced in the
initial grades, a trend that is clearly associated with the initiative
in many
education systems to implement classes designed to accelerate learning, with the
ultimate aim of eliminating, in this way,
the problem of repetition.
- From
a regional perspective, the most serious problems relative to the age-grade
distortion are found in the north-east and north,
which, in 2001, respectively
produced the
worst rates, 57.1 and 52.9 per cent. The contrast is more
pronounced when those rates are
compared, for example, to the rate of
age-grade distortion in the south (21.6 per cent),
the southeast
(24 per cent) and the centre-west (38 per cent).
- A
positive trend can be observed, however, in the principal variable indicators.
Obviously, these gains must be expanded through
strengthened policies, for
purposes of improving quality and increasing the efficiency of the educational
system.
- The
strategies adopted by the Government, disseminated throughout the three levels
of Government, with the support of civil society
organizations, have been aimed
at solving the problems of repetition and absenteeism and reduce the age-grade
distortion. The Learning
Acceleration Programme, currently in the process of
being implemented in the different regions, is part of this effort. Through
its
channels, the federal Government finances the introduction of special
classes for students who fall within the age-grade distortion category by two or
more years, so as to
provide them with specific educational assistance that
allows them to complete, in a shorter time, the schooling they need to
enter
classes more appropriate to their age. Between 1998 and 2000, more
than 3.5 million students were served by these programmes. The
publication of
statistical data on basic education helped in defining the measures that were
required and monitoring the progress
achieved.
Table 21
Primary education, aggregate transition rates,
Brazil, 1990-1999 (percentage)
|
Promotion
|
Repeat rate
|
Absenteeism
|
1990
|
60
|
34
|
6
|
1995
|
65
|
30
|
5
|
1997
|
73
|
23
|
4
|
1999
|
74
|
21
|
5
|
Source: MEC/INEP/SEEC.
- The
positive trend in transition rates, bolstered by the progressive fall in repeat
rates and absenteeism, and higher levels of students
passing to the subsequent
year, have allowed for a significant increase in the number of persons
completing primary education. In
the 1995 to 1999 period, this
statistic registered a 44.4 per cent jump, compared to a 10.7 per cent rise
in school enrolment rates.
The trend should continue in the coming years,
driving demand for and, consequently, the growth of enrolment rates in secondary
education, which can already be seen.
- Additionally,
it is important to point out that, as a legislative measure to prevent
absenteeism, the Statute of the Child and the
Adolescent establishes the
obligation of the directors of early-childhood education and primary education
establishments to notify
the Tutelage Council of repeated unexcused absences and
absenteeism, when the measures available to the school have been exhausted,
and
in cases of high levels of repeat rates, as well as mistreatment involving their
students.
- As
another strategy for preventing school absenteeism, ECA establishes that the
Government must promote research studies, experiments
and new proposals relative
to school calendars, curricula, methodologies, learning and evaluations, all to
enable the insertion of
children and adolescents excluded from the mandatory
primary education system and an evolution in the quality of teaching.
- The
data presented above allows us to conclude that the central question of
Brazilian primary education is not quantitative, but,
rather, qualitative. With
respect to the quality of schooling, the measures taken have been positive, as
indicated by the SAEB results,
yet limited: they have been mainly directed
toward increasing the financial autonomy of schools and promoting participation
by school
councils in their management.
- The
development and diffusion of curricular parameters and references for all levels
and types of basic education, in conjunction
with the implementation of distance
education programmes, School TV (TV Escola) and the National Computer Science
Education Programme
(Proinfo), and the expansion of the National Textbook
Programme, which distributes school books to close to 32 million
students,
are just some of the initiatives developed by the federal Government
to improve the quality of service.
- The
School TV Programme, aimed at improving the quality of education, distributes a
kit that includes a television, video cassette
player and parabolic antenna to
all primary schools with more than 100 students. Today, more than 56,000
schools are equipped with
a kit.
- The
basic objectives of Proinfo are to: democratize access to telematics, educate
in a manner that enables persons to exercise their citizenship in the modern
world and
provide public school educators and students with the
opportunity to use modern information and telecommunications technologies.
Through 2000, the programme achieved significant results:
244 educational technology centres
(NTEs)[50] spread throughout
the country; 31,870 computers distributed; 21,977 teachers trained;
and 2.5 million students served.
- These
programmes are directly related to the provisions established in the Convention
on the Rights of the Child with respect to the
need to expand opportunities for
acquiring the knowledge, skills and values necessary for ensuring a better life
through modern communication
media.
- The
following should also be highlighted: the Acting Lay Teacher Preparation
Programme (ProFormação) and the Direct
Money to Schools Programme.
Proformação is a secondarylevel teacher-training course that
employs distance education
to prepare teachers who, although lacking the
specific qualifications, teach the initial grades of primary school and literacy
classes.
Launched on a trial basis in 1999, the programme has prepared
23,419 teachers from 1,107 municipalities in the north, north-east
and
centre-west. Currently, 8,422 teachers from 361 different municipalities are
enrolled in courses.
- Established
in 1997, the Direct Money to Schools Programme transfers federal resources
directly to educational establishments, in
order to satisfy day-to-day and
emergency needs
- without
the burdens of the usual red tape, thereby enabling greater autonomy and social
participation in the administration of schools.
In requiring the creation of
Parent-Teacher Associations as a condition for the transfer of federal
resources, the programme contributes
toward integrating families and
schools.
- In
addition, compensatory programmes aimed at correcting the effects stemming from
social and income inequalities that have an impact
on a large percentage of
Brazilian families also contribute toward increasing the success of low-income
students in school. Among
these, the following deserve mention:
- − The
National School Meal Programme (PNAE), which provides a daily meal to
all children enrolled in public or philanthropic
primary and pre-schools
during the 200 days of the academic year;
- − The
North-east Project (Projeto Nordeste), executed between the years of 1993
and 1999 and involving the application of nearly
US$ 740 million of
domestic and foreign resources, provided in the form of loans from the World
Bank, for purposes of improving the
country’s neediest region;
- − The
School Improvement Programme, which replaced the Northeast Project and has
ensured continuity of the federal Government’s
investments, on the order
of US$ 1.3 billion, in primary education in the north, north-east and
centre-west, has the following mission:
to increase the performance of the
public education systems by improving schools and the technical capabilities of
the education
secretariats; and to secure the participation of society at large
in education; and
- − The
National School Grant Programme, which extends financial assistance to poor
families aimed at ensuring their children
and adolescents remain in
school.
- Since
1995, Brazilian municipalities and states have executed the Guaranteed Minimum
Income Programme, in conjunction with improvements
in education. In 2001, the
Federal School Grant,[51]
which was integrated to the broadest social programme developed within the
Alvorada Project, was established. In 2002, the Ministry
of Education
inaugurated an operational structure capable of assuring the programme’s
implementation in all Brazilian municipalities.
- The
scope of the National School Grant Programme’s activities were delineated
based on the fact that today there are nearly
10.2 million children between the
ages of 6 and 15 in Brazil, originating from families with a monthly per
capita income of less
than R$ 90. The programme’s objective is,
therefore, to serve approximately 5.6 million families throughout the
country.
- In
merging the issues of education and minimum income, Brazil became an example
internationally. In various countries, it was found
that granting monthly
financial incentives to families living in poverty combined with investments in
social capital constitutes
one of the most effective strategies for combating
poverty.
- The
requirement that children remain in school has proved to be of enormous social
significance. The attendance rate upon which receipt
of the financial
assistance is conditioned reflects the determined efforts of the State’s
overall policy to achieve quality
universal education. In addition, in
constituting a mechanism for expanding the economic, cultural and social
horizons of lowincome
families, the programme contributes toward reversing the
cycle of misery to which the families and an entire new generation are
subject.
- Currently,
the programme reaches 5.1 million families, encompassing 8.7 million children
throughout the country who receive the benefit.
If the goal mentioned above
is met, almost one in every three children in the public primary
education system in the country will benefit from the programme.
3. Secondary education
- Pursuant
to the LDB, the objectives of secondary education among others, are: to provide
basic preparation for the employment market
and the full exercise of
citizenship, as well as continued learning; to help students grow from a
humanistic standpoint, including
as regards their ethical formation and the
development of intellectual independence and critical thinking, as well as to
understand
the scientific and technological principles of the productive
processes. In this way, secondary education should serve as the basic
condition
for ensuring that every Brazilian can occupy an autonomous position in adult
life.
- According
to preliminary results of the education census 2002, enrolment in
secondary
education expanded by 72 per cent between 1994 and 2001, reaching a total of
almost 8.8 million students, 87 per cent of
whom were integrated in
the public system. This increase represents the enrolment of previously
excluded youths in the secondary
education system.
- Completion
of this level of education rose by 100.2 per cent between 1994 and 2000. This
increase can be explained by the expanded
offering and improved quality of
primary education, which resulted in a reduction in repetition and dropout
rates. There is, then,
greater demand for openings in higher education, as well
as post-secondary professional courses, particularly because of the new
requirements of the productive sector, all of which has the effect of returning
people who had abandoned their studies to school.
- There
are signs, nonetheless, that secondary education could expand even more in the
coming years, considering that only 32 per cent
of the population between the
ages of 15 and 17 years is currently enrolled at this level of
education.
- Lastly,
it is important to mention the University Diversity Programme launched by the
Ministry of Education and aimed at youths and
adults from the Afro-Brazilian,
indigenous and other socially disadvantaged communities, to improve the
conditions and opportunities
for these segments to enter and remain in higher
education.
- The
programme has a budget of US$ 9 million, of which 5 million were obtained
through a loan granted by the Inter-American Development
Bank (IADB), which will
be used to finance studies and research aimed at developing a policy of social
integration and for combating
racism and ethnic and racial discrimination in
secondary and higher education.
- The
programme provides for the institutional consolidation of the Ministry of
Education within a period of three years, so that it
can begin to act as an
instrument for combating racial and ethnic discrimination. In addition, it must
also encourage “innovative
course projects” intended to promote
access to higher education and bolster the performance of socially disadvantaged
students
in secondary education, with an emphasis on Afro-Brazilians and
indigenous persons.
- At
the outset, six pilot projects in Bahia, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
received R$ 342,438 to serve 820 students who are
in, or have completed,
secondary school and are preparing to enter the higher education system.
Communitycollege entrance exam courses
will be offered, with a minimum course
load of 400 hours, including classes, social development activities and access
to cultural
riches. Each student will receive a grant ranging from R$ 40
to 50.
4. Professional education
- Professional
education was connected to secondary education until the passage of the LDB,
when it was given its own identity, the
outstanding characteristic of which is
the development of integrated educational actions in the area of employment,
science and technology,
and which endeavours to channel the student into a
productive life through a process of the permanent development of skills.
- The
objective is to develop courses that provide employment opportunities to youths
and facilitate their access to the marketplace.
The courses also seek to serve
those professionals who are already in the labour market but feel the need for a
higher level of
qualification to perform their activities, while they also
serve, additionally, as an effective instrument for workers to reenter
the
labour market.
512. In a country like Brazil with marked physical,
social and cultural, and economic differences, the educational model adopted for
professionalizing workers is flexible, and new curricula are introduced to serve
the needs of the domestic market and the different
regions of Brazil, as well as
adapt to the requirements of the productive
sectors.[52]
- Professional
education in Brazil is developed by the educational networks and stimulated by
the Professional Education Expansion Programme
(PROEP), an initiative that
enjoys resources on the order R$ 500 million derived from domestic sources and
financing from the Inter-American
Development Bank. Between 1998 and 2002, 326
school-construction, remodelling or modernization projects were approved within
the
scope of the programme in all 27 states of the federation, and
from which 23,650 students enrolled in highereducation technology
courses, 360,000 students in secondary-level technical courses and
1,800,000 students in basic professional courses (which do not
require
completion of a determined educational level) currently benefit.
- According
to the professional-education survey conducted in 1999, 3,948 institutions,
predominantly in the private sector, offered
professional-education courses to a
total
of 2.8 million students, with the basic professional level having the
largest percentage of
- enrolled
students (71.5 per cent). The corresponding percentages at the technical
and technological levels, in which the public system
was more active, were 25.1
and 3.4 per cent, respectively.
- An
analysis of the courses by industry demonstrates that those concentrated in
services attracted the highest number of enrolments.
Nearly one third of the
enrolments were concentrated in computer science and business
administration.
- The
special survey also revealed that there were 33,000 professional education
courses in Brazil, the majority of which, 83.5 per
cent, were basic
level courses. There were 5,000 technicallevel courses throughout the
country and 433 technological-level courses.
The main courses offered are:
computer science, management, industrial studies, agricultural studies,
mechanics and metallurgy,
health care, civil construction, personal care,
tourism and hospitality, and environmental studies.
5. Access to higher education
- Since
1988, higher education has undergone a sweeping process of reforms, intensified
beginning in 1995, when the National Council
on Education redefined the bases
for establishing new institutions of higher
learning,[53] founded on
ensuring expansion with quality in order to meet the growing demand for higher
education. The principal merit of the
new regulation was in establishing the
need for periodic recredentialling of the institutions, based on an evaluation
of the performance
of the courses and the institution as a whole.
- With
regard to access to higher education, each institution of higher learning was
granted the freedom to adopt more than one selection
process[54] in addition to
the college-entrance exam, provided the constitutional principles of equality of
conditions was observed, as well
as the criteria involving equity and completion
of a secondary-level education or the equivalent.
- Beginning
in the second half of the 1990s, there was a resumption in the growth of higher
education, following a long period of stagnation.
In fact, between 1995 and
2000, the rate of growth was 53.1 per cent. Most of the enrolments in 2000
were concentrated in private
institutions (67.1 per cent), while the
federal and state systems accounted for 17.1 per cent and 12.3 per cent,
respectively. As
to gender, women represented 56 per cent of the enrolments in
higher education.
- In
spite of the progress witnessed in recent years, Brazil will have to undertake
extensive efforts to increase the rate of individuals
with a higher education,
given that, in 2001, only 9.2 per cent of the Brazilian
population between the ages of 18 and 22 years attended
an institution of higher
learning.
6. Education of indigenous persons
- The
Constitution of Brazil establishes that indigenous persons receive a
differentiated education when it determines that “indigenous communities
shall also be assured the use of their native tongues and their own learning
processes” in the context of regular primary education.
Indigenous
education policy is set forth in detail in section VIII.D “Children
belonging to minorities or indigenous groups”
(paras. 670-682).
7. Special education
- In
accordance with the federal Constitution, which establishes the right of persons
with special needs to an education, preferably in the regular school system, as
well as the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Ministry of Education has
worked to develop programmes that support the integration of
children with
special educational needs into the regular school system. On this front, the
remaining challenges are: sensitizing
the other students and the community in
general as to the importance of including these students; qualifying teachers to
attend to
these students in regular schools; adapting schools so as to enable
special students to circulate freely; and offering specially-equipped
means of
transportation.
- It
is important to note that the educational legislation also considers specialized
assistance, whether in special classes within
regular schools, or in specialized
schools intended, in this case, to serve those students for whom the integrated
educational system
is not a feasible alternative because of the conditions of
the student and the educational system.
- The
offering of special education, which is a constitutionally prescribed duty of
the State, begins with the integration of children
up to the age of 6 years in
the early-childhood education system. Special education may be offered at all
educational levels, while
respecting the potential and abilities of each
student. As to the type of education, special education must adhere to the same
curricular
requirements of the respective educational levels to which it is
associated. Moreover, to fulfil the policy of integration, the
educational
systems must adopt the document on “curricular adaptations”, which
sets forth the guidelines for the construction
of a diverse educational
system.
- Special
education may be offered in public or private institutions. Although
enrolments in special education are concentrated in the private
educational system
(59.6 per cent, 2001), 70.6 per cent of the
educational establishments that offered this option were public.
- Special-employment
education is an alternative that aims at integrating students with disabilities
into society through the offering
of professional training courses. This is
accomplished by adapting employment training programmes and including students
in professional
basic level education
courses,[55] regardless of
their previous level of education, as well as technical and technologicallevel
courses, thereby enabling their entry
into the employment market.
- In
2001, the assistance provided by educational level produced the following
results: 94,666 children in early-childhood education;
156,083,
in primary education; 967, in secondary education; 12,913, in youth and adult
education. Those cases classified as “others”
totalled 58,770.
- Although
the actions taken by the Government in recent years have fallen short of the
country’s actual needs, they have provided
some stimulus for special
education, which has translated into an increase in the access of students with
special educational needs
to schools. According to the preliminary figures of
the education census 2002, there was a rise of 36 per cent in enrolments in
regular classes. The average annual growth rate in previous years had
been
23 per cent.
- At
the international level, the Educational Diversity in the Mercosur Countries
Project, developed with the technical support of UNESCO
and financing from the
Organization of American States (OAS). The purpose of the project is to
contribute toward improving quality
and securing greater equity in education by
developing schools that offer educational solutions, not only with regard to
special
learning needs, but also with respect to the diversity of student
bodies, thereby ensuring that the high levels of failure, absenteeism
and
repetition are overcome, above all by means of the qualification of human
resources.
B. The objectives of education
- In
assuring the right of education, the 1988 Brazilian Constitution establishes the
following as the central objective of education: the full development,
preparation for the full exercise of citizenship
and employment qualification of
the individual. It also sets out the principles on which education should be
provided, emphasizing
the need to guarantee the equality of conditions required
for accessing and remaining in school. In addition, the Constitution
established that the family, society and the State have the duty to assure that
the child and the adolescent are protected from all
forms of negligence,
discrimination, exploitation, violence, cruelty and oppression.
- The
Statute of the Child and Adolescent reiterates the constitutional right to
education and, additionally, ensures: the right to
be treated with respect by
educators; the right to question evaluation criteria; the right to organize and
participate in student
organizations. It also establishes the right of parents
and guardians have knowledge of the educational process, as well as participate
in the definition of educational proposals.
- The
Law on Directives and Bases (LDB) emphasizes the need to elaborate an
educational proposal for each school and the need to bring
families and the
community into the process, thereby creating processes for integrating society
at large into schools. In addition,
the law provides for participation by
school and local communities in the school councils or equivalents. Moreover,
to contribute
toward this process of integration, the Ministry of Education has
promoted a “Families in School” campaign, which is
a biannual
national mobilization effort to stimulate greater interaction with families in
schools.
- The
National Human Rights Programme, implemented in 1996 and updated in 2002, in
conjunction with the Convention on the Rights of
the Child, established, within
the context of the promotion and safeguarding of human rights, proposed actions
related to education,
of which the following bear special
mention:
- − Investing
in the qualification of professionals responsible for promoting and protecting
the rights of children and adolescents
within the scope of public institutions
and non-governmental organizations;
- − Training
primary and secondary schoolteachers to promote a discussion of the overlapping
themes included in the National Curricular
Parameters;
- − Promoting
education founded on tolerance, peace and the respect for differences, which
considers the country’s cultural
diversity;
- − Stimulating
student associations at all levels and the establishment of school councils made
of families, entities, non-governmental
organizations and associations to
oversee, evaluate and develop programmes and school curricula;
- − Proposing
measures aimed at the democratization of school processes performed by the
administrators of state and municipal
public schools, with the participation of
school and local communities; and
- − Assuring
the residents of runaway slave communities (quilombos) and indigenous
peoples a differentiated education that respects their social and cultural and
linguistic traditions.
- It
is worth noting that after the National School Library Programme was
implemented, in 1997, the Ministry of Education established
that public
primary schools with more
than 250 students[56]
would receive a collection of 125 titles, among them The International
Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the Statute of
the Child and
Adolescent. In addition to the Ministry of Education’s efforts, we must
also consider the work of the state
and municipal education secretariats, as
well as that of the Councils on the Rights of Children and Adolescents and
various non-governmental
organizations.
Curriculum setting: methodological content and
guidelines
- The
Law on Directives and Bases establishes a common national base regarding the
curricular content of the basic education system.
The primary and secondary
education curricula must encompass, in addition to content on the Portuguese
language, mathematics, the
natural and geographic sciences: the arts, the
objective of which is to promote the cultural development of students; physical
education,
which must be adapted to each age group, as well as the conditions of
the particular school population; Brazilian history, which
must take into
account the contributions of the different cultures and ethnic groups,
especially the indigenous, African and European
traditions, in the development
of the Brazilian people.
- In
this context, the LDB establishes, on an equal basis, that the curricular
content developed for the basic education system must
adhere to the following
directives:
“ I. The dissemination of basic values that are
of interest to society as a whole, the rights of citizens, respect for the
common good and the democratic system;
II. Consideration of the educational conditions of students in each
school;
III. Employment counselling; and
IV. Promotion of educational athletics and support for informal physical
activities.”
- Among
the primary components of the reforms undertaken in the 1990s, the most
important was the reform of school curricula initiated
through the launching of
the National Curricula Directives, implemented by the National Council on
Education, which has normative
- effect
and serves to support the National Curricular Parameters (PCN) at the different
educational levels. In addition to the traditional
curriculum (Portuguese
language, mathematics, natural sciences, history, geography, arts, physical
education and foreign languages),
the PCN includes the “Transversal
Themes”.
- We
can see that the social questions of the day are not sufficient, nor are they
necessarily considered within the traditional areas
of study. Therefore, if
schools intend to remain in harmony with current social demands, they must
address questions of daily life
that impinge on the lives of students. Because
of their unquestionable importance in the development of students, social themes
have been discussed and routinely incorporated in natural and social science
curricula, having evolved, moreover, into new areas
of study altogether. More
recently, some proposals have indicated a need for the consideration of
overlapping social themes in schools
as a way to reflect on their complexity,
without restricting such reflection to a single area.
- “Transversality”
presupposes an integrated focus on all relevant areas and a commitment with
interpersonal relations in
the schools. This enables the specific articulation
of the values that are trying to be transmitted and coherence between these
values and those practised in the school setting. The idea is to develop the
ability of all to intervene in present-day reality
and transform it, with this
ability having a direct correlation to the access to the knowledge gained by
humanity.
- The
set of documents on transversal themes discusses the need of schools to fulfil
their social function on the basis of general and
unifying values that define
positions with respect to the dignity of the individual, the equality of rights,
the participation and
shared responsibility in the effort to transform the right
of all persons to citizenship into a reality.
- The
transversal themes chosen to comprise the PCN are: ethics, cultural plurality,
environment, health, sexual orientation, work
and consumption, given that these
involve current and urgent social questions of national and even global scope.
(A more detailed
discussion of the issue is presented in Annex II -
“Transversal Themes of the National Curricular Parameters.”)* In
addition to the importance of adjusting the themes to particular conditions and
realities, local themes must also be chosen.
- In
all areas of the PCN, the effort has been to identify the social dimensions of
learning in the construction of citizenship, leading,
in this way, to the
selection of content that has social relevance and is potentially significant
for the development of emotional,
cognitive, motor, ethical and aesthetic skill
and those related to social interaction and integration. In addition, the
National
Curricular Parameters are based on the principles of liberty,
solidarity, respect for cultural pluralism and an emphasis on the full
exercise
of citizenship.
- The
implementation of the National Curricular Parameters is in the process of being
executed as a result of the Parameters in Action
Programme, the purpose of which
is to support and encourage the professional development of teachers and
specialists in education
in a comprehensive manner through the introduction of
the PCN and the National Curricular Reforms
- aimed
at: early-childhood education, indigenous education and youth and adult
education. The central idea of the programme is to
stimulate shared reading
experiences, group work, mutual understanding, cooperative learning by preparing
monitors to work together
with teachers so as to train them to apply new
curricular content.
- In
the field of Science, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) and other
agencies support various educational programmes and
proposals. A full
description of MCT initiatives that are directed toward children and adolescents
is provided in Annex III.* The
following programme, however, bear
mention:
- − The
“School in Space” Programme was developed by the National Institute
for Space Research (INPE) in conjunction
with the Brazilian Space Agency. It was
implemented in 1999 for purposes of disseminating space-related activities among
students
in secondary school and motivating them to choose a profession that
would enable them to work directly or indirectly in the field
of space;
- − The
environmental education project Small Science Forest Guides, implemented by the
National Amazonian Research Institute
(INPA), provides “small
guides” training courses to children and adolescents, 10 years of age and
older;
- − The
Little Researcher’s Club, headquartered in the Goeldi Museum, is intended
to stimulate an interest in the sciences
by primary and secondary school
students through theoretical and practical experiments. The Goeldi Museum also
developed the Itinerant
Museum Project, which offers municipalities in the state
educational programmes such as exhibitions, courses, workshops, theatre
and
dynamic games, in addition to courses on alternative hygiene, health and
nutrition;
- − The
Brazilian Mathematics Olympics is open to all primary (beginning in the fifth
grade), secondary and university-level students.
It is aimed at employing
mathematics competitions as vehicles for improving the teaching of the subject
in the country, in addition
to contributing to the early discovery students with
special abilities in the sciences in general; and
- − The Sky
Observation Programme, developed by the Museum of Astronomy and Science, is a
regular service offered to the student
population to observe the night sky
through modern telescopes. The activity includes a presentation of the sky from
each station
by means of multimedia resources and direct observation through
instruments. The museum also has an “inflatable planetarium”,
from
which images of the solar system and universe are projected.
C. Rest, leisure and cultural activities
- The
federal Constitution includes a special chapter stipulating the duty of the
family, society at large and the State to make it their absolute priority
to
assure all children and adolescents the right to leisure and culture. It
guarantees all individuals, therefore, the full
- exercise
of their cultural rights and access to national cultural resources. In
addition, it sets forth provisions with respect to
supporting and promoting the
appreciation and dissemination of cultural expression, as well as the
Government’s duty to encourage
and promote the safeguarding of the
country’s cultural heritage in cooperation with the community.
- The
Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA) establishes that the educational process
shall respect the cultural, artistic and historical
values unique to the
child’s and adolescent’s social context by guaranteeing them the
freedom of expression and access
to cultural resources. The text of the ECA
requires that municipalities, with the support of the states and the federal
Government,
stimulate and set aside resources and locations for cultural,
athletic and recreational activities aimed at children and youths.
- As
a measure for protecting children and adolescents and respecting their unique
condition as developing individuals, Ministry of
Justice Administrative Rule No.
796, in force since 2000, establishes that public entertainment and performances
must be rated as
either open to the general public or inappropriate for specific
age groups. The administrative rule also sets forth that the rating
must
specify the type of public entertainment or performance, including time and age
group restrictions, scenes that contain excessive
violence, are sexually
explicit, or offensive to core ethical values. The ECA defines as an
administrative infraction the failure
to place a notice concerning the age
rating at the entrance of the location where the performance is to be presented
as well as on
all promotional material.
- The
programmes, projects and actions developed by the Ministry of Culture are aimed
at society in general, not at any specific group
based on gender, age or race.
However, the activities that target the child-youth segment are significant,
whether by providing
access for children and adolescent to cultural treasures
and services or contributing toward their development and integration into
the
community. In this context, we highlight below some of the actions aimed at
promoting reading, music, performing arts, cinema,
preservation of the
country’s cultural heritage and the development of the runaway slave
communities (quilombos).
- The
One Library in Every Municipality Project has promoted the expansion of the
public library system through the opening of 1,551
libraries throughout the
country, that
is, 40 per cent of the current total (3,800). In the
north-east, the primary beneficiary of the programme, 379 libraries have
been
opened. The project associated itself, in partnership with the Brazilian
Reader’s Institute, to the Project “To Read
Is to Know”, so as
to expand the use and familiarity of youths, children, families and teachers
with books, newspapers, magazines
and computers. One of the central goals of
this centres on introducing, improving and managing libraries in daycare centres
and
nurseries, particularly in the large outlying neighbourhoods of urban areas
considered at risk.
- Within
the scope of the programme, libraries specialized in Afro-Brazilian and African
culture and literature have been built and/or
adapted in the remaining runaway
slave communities (quilombos) and in regions with large black
populations. In partnership with the private sector and institutions
representing the black movements,
a pilot programme that includes the production
of material to be used throughout the school system has been implemented centred
on
turning discriminatory situations into opportunities for valuing
diversity.
- The
Band Support Project is aimed at extending appreciation for and disseminating
instrumental music by encouraging the participation
of youths in musical groups
and promoting music as an instrument for young people’s socialization and
the development of citizenship.
In all regions of the country, 1,850 bands have
received support. Since 1995, the Villa-Lobos Museum has developed the
Miniconcert
Education Programme consisting of recitals presents by young
instrumentalists to public and private-school, music-school and day-care
students and at education institutions for homeless children.
- The
National Circus School takes on nearly 200 students in its circus training
programme every year. The Circus Stimulus Award offers
circus performances to
needy children either at special prices or free of charge. The “EnCENA
Brasil Project” benefits
children and youths by selecting theatre and
dance groups to put together performances and tours.
- The
effort to raise sensitivity among public and private school students on the need
to preserve the country’s cultural heritage
has been expanded through
measures promoted by museums and the culture secretariats aimed at preparing
these same students to better
these treasures and strengthening their sense of
identity and citizenship.
- The
1988 Brazilian Constitution sets forth the State’s duty to foment formal
and informal physical activities. The national curricular programme for
physical
education affirms the right of all to body-movement activities. It
considers the knowledge generated by movement activities intended
for
recreation, the expression of feelings, affection and emotion to fundamental for
recovering, maintaining and improving health.
- Among
the Government initiatives in this area, those deserving mention include the
National Physical Exercise Promotion Programme
(Agita Brasil), created by
the Ministry of Health. Directed to the population in general, but with a
special emphasis on children and adolescents,
the programme is easy to apply,
inexpensive and highly beneficial in its promotion of health, providing
additional benefits such
as an increase in class attendance, improved
parentchild relationships, reduced behaviour problems and lower rates of drug
use.
As recognition for the success achieved by the programme in Brazil, the
World Health Organization chose Agita World, inspired by Agita
Brasil, as its theme for 2002.
VIII. SPECIAL PROTECTIVE MEASURES
A. Children in exceptional situations
1. Refugee children
- Protection
of refugees has been covered in Brazilian legislation through the
internalization of three international agreements: (a)
the Convention Relating
to the Status of Refugees, of 28 July 1951, through Decree number 50215/61; (b)
the Protocol Relating to
the Status of Refugees of 31 January 1967 through
Decree number 70946/72; and finally
(c) the Convention Relating to the
Status of Stateless Persons of 28 September 1954, internalized through Decree
number 4246, on 22
May 2002. In addition to these international agreements,
Brazil’s federal Law No. 9474 (22 July 1997) creates mechanisms for
the
implementation of the 1951 Convention on Refugees. None of these legal
documents has specific provisions for the protection
of refugee children, who
are covered by the general provisions contained therein.
- Some
of those provisions can in fact be useful, at least indirectly, for the
protection of refugee children. When Brazil adopted
the Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees, it guaranteed to refugees the same treatment given to
nationals in terms of primary
schooling, as provided by that Convention’s
article 22. It also guarantees refugees the rights under its labour laws
regarding
the minimum age for employment, apprenticeships and professional
training, as provided in article 24 of both the Convention relating
to the
Status of Refugees and the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless
Persons.
- Article
2 of Law No. 9474/97 provides that the rights of refugees also apply to their
descendents. Article 21, paragraph 2, of that
same law also requires that the
protocol used to request refugee status must include a list of children under 14
years of age. The
appendix on the Convention relating to the Status of
Stateless Persons (para. 2) also provides that, except as otherwise provided
by
a country’s regulations for the issuance of travel documents, children may
be mentioned in one of the parent’s documents
or, in exceptional
circumstances, in that of another adult.
- Brazil’s
federal Constitution, in the chapeau of its article 5, also assures equality
between nationals and foreigners. Considering that article 5 of Law No.
9474/97, also assures equality between nationals and foreigners. Considering
that article 5 of Law No. 9474/97 provides that refugees
will enjoy the rights
and be subjected to the duties of foreigners in Brazil, it is understood that
refugees taken in by the Brazilian
State will be treated as if they were
nationals, except with regard to what is impossible due to the nature of their
situation.
These provisions also refer to children. Therefore, even if
Brazilian law contains no specific protective measures for refugee children,
they are to be protected by all provisions referring to children under the
country’s legal system.
2. Children in armed conflicts
- In
2002, Brazil signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on Children’s
Rights, relating to the involvement of children
in armed conflict. Brazil thus
expressed its commitment, under article 1 of the Protocol, not to allow any
member of its armed forces
younger than 18 to participate directly in armed
conflicts.
- Article
2 of the same Protocol provides that no one under the age of 18 may be
compulsorily recruited into their armed forces. Under
article 3, States must
guarantee that enlisted volunteers be over the age of 15. Also to keep children
from being involved in armed
conflict, Brazil adopted Convention No. 182 (1999)
of the International Labour Organization on the prohibition and immediate action
for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour. In outlawing the worst
forms of child labour, this Convention (art. 3 (a))
identifies one such form of
labour as the forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed
conflict.
- The
chapeau of article 227 in Brazil’s Constitution provides for the right of
children and adolescents to life, to health and
to a decent existence, safe from
any form of violence. All other special protection measures for children
regarding their involvement
in armed conflict also reflect these constitutional
provisions.
- The
Statute of the Child and Adolescent makes no explicit reference to the
involvement of children and adolescents in armed conflict.
The lawmakers did,
however, assure that minors should be kept at a distance from weapons and
ammunition. Article 79 of the statute,
to this end, forbids magazines and
publications that target young people from containing illustrations,
photographs, captions, essays
or advertisements that refer to weapons or
ammunition. In its article 81-I, the statute forbids the sale to children or
adolescents
of weapons, ammunition or explosives. Article 243, finally,
qualifies as a criminal offence the act of selling, providing (even
for free) or
delivering in any manner to a child or adolescent a weapon, ammunition or an
explosive device. The penalty for whoever
commits this crime is confinement for
a period
of six months to two years, plus a fine.
- Federal
Law 4375, of 17 August 1964, as it refers to military service, provides minimum
allowable age limits for military duty in
the armed forces, both for active
service and in the reserves. All this law’s provisions are in accordance
with international
treaties signed by Brazil and with the principles of special
protection for children provided by the federal Constitution.
- Under
article 3 of this law, military service is done first by Brazilians born
between 1 January and 31 December of the year when
they become 19
years old. Article 5 provides that one’s military obligations in times of
peace begin on 1 January of the year
when the adolescent will turn 18.
Paragraph 2 of this article only allows for voluntary military service to be
done by persons over
17 years of age. Article 13 in this same military service
law, states that all Brazilians must report during the year in which they
turn
18. Article 17 provides that the recruits for active service or for the
reserves must be Brazilians who have turned 19 between
1 January and
31 December of the year when they should join the armed forces.
- Therefore,
Brazilian law is in accordance with article 38 of the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, as it does not allow adolescents
under the age of 18 to actually
participate in armed conflicts, nor may those younger than 15 enlist, even as
volunteers.
- In
line with the federal Constitution, the constitutions of 10 states - while they
do not refer specifically to the involvement of children in armed conflict -
determine
that children and adolescents must be kept safe from any form of
violence, as a result of their right to life, to health and to a
decent
existence. The constitution of the State of Amazonas has one such provision in
its article 242, paragraph 4; the constitution
of Acre in its article 210,
chapeau; the constitution of Pernambuco in article 226-I; for the Federal
District it is in the chapeau
of article 267, for Rio Grande do Norte, in
article 157, chapeau; for Pará, in article 296, chapeau; for Mato Grosso
in article
206, chapeau; for Minas Gerais, in article 222, chapeau; for
Maranhão, in the chapeau of article 252; and in the constitution
of the
State of Amapá, in the chapeau of article 304.
B. Adolescent offenders
1. Administration of justice for
children and adolescents
- Under
Brazilian law, the children and youth justice system is to be administered by
full magistrates, with states and the Federal
District allowed to create
specialized juvenile courts to deal exclusively with children and adolescents.
It is up to the judicial
branch to establish their
- proportionality
to the number of inhabitants, to provide the courts with infrastructure and to
define their operation, including standby
operation (Statute of the Child and
Adolescent, art. 145).
- The
Juvenile Court is responsible for many activities, including:
- − Judging
the representations moved by the Office of the Attorney-General for purposes of
verification of the infraction attributed
to the adolescent;
- − Granting
remission, as a form of suspension or extinction of the proceedings;
- − Judging
petitions for adoption and their incidents;
- − Judging
civil suits founded upon individual, de facto or collective interests rebated to
the child or adolescent;
- − Judging
suits consequent upon irregularities in assistance entities, applying the
appropriate measures;
- − Applying
administrative penalties in cases of infractions against norms of child or
adolescent protection;
- − Judging
cases remitted by the Council of Guardianship;
- − Judging
requests for custody and guardianship;
- − Judging
suits involving removal of paternal power;
- − Granting
emancipation in the absence of parents; and
- − Determining
the cancellation, rectification and providing of birth and death
certificates.
- To
provide support for the courts, the law provides for the presence of an
interprofessional staff, responsible for supplying written
subsidiary
information by means of reports, presented either orally or at hearings, as well
as for performing the tasks of counselling,
orientation, channelling and
prevention. These activities are directly subordinated to the courts, with the
guarantee of free expression
of technical opinions (art. 151).
- Brazilian
law on juvenile courts is thus in accordance with the Convention, both in
terms of civil suits (loss of paternal power,
custody and adoption, for
example) and vis-à-vis the prosecution of offences committed by
adolescents. The lawmakers also
made ample use of the United Nations
Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing
Rules).
- In
all of Brazil’s state capitals and in the national capital (Federal
District) there are specialized courts, most of which
already have professional,
technical staff. In addition, several states also have juvenile courts in the
larger cities of the interior.
- Judges
and prosecuting attorneys have their own association (the Brazilian Association
of Juvenile Judges and Prosecutors, ABMP) which
is quite active in the
dissemination of information about the rights of children and adolescents, as
well as in the training and
specialized education of peers, through congresses,
seminars and a site on the Internet. The Public Ministry also has coordinating
bodies and support centres for the specialization of prosecuting attorneys, and
the Public Defenders’ offices also organizes
specialized coordinating
bodies.
2. Detained adolescents, including forms of confinement,
imprisonment or placement under custody
- Brazil’s
Constitution ensures that no one shall be imprisoned unless they are arrested in
the act (in flagrante delicto) or
by a written, justified order issued by a
competent judicial authority (art. 5-LXI). The Statute of the Child and
the Adolescent
repeats this constitutional provision in its article 106.
- Children
may not be confined. Only adolescents can be confined, when submitted to due
legal process with full rights to defence,
and only for having committed
offences with violence or making serious threats against a person. The longest
period of confinement
allowed for acts committed by a person under 18 is three
years, and it must be served in an establishment created exclusively for
adolescents, who are forbidden to be held together with adults.
- Before
the new statute came into effect, juvenile judges or even administrative
authorities could place children and adolescents in
closed institutions due to
behavioural problems or repeated escapes, as punishment or a disciplinary
measure. In the case of offenders,
there was no relationship between the
gravity of the offence and the measure to be applied. Confinement could be
stipulated, for
example, based on a psychologist’s opinion that an
adolescent bore the “potential danger” of committing acts of
violence. It is needless to recall that the presence of a public defender was
not required, making most trials a mere inquisitorial
rite led by a judge and
the public attorney.
- While
there are some hold-overs from the previous system in the practices of some
psychiatric shelters and clinics, where repressive
methods still pervade the
institutions, the new legal order is spreading and consolidating.
3. Imposition of measures on adolescents, particularly the
prohibition of capital punishment and life imprisonment
- An
offence is committed when an adolescent carries out an act defined by law as a
crime or as a penal misdemeanour. Children and
adolescents do not receive
punishment, but adolescents are subjected to socio-educational measures.
Children are sent to a Guardianship
Council and submitted to protective
measures, including medical and psychological treatment, schooling, family
orientation, shelters,
etc. (ECA, arts. 106 and 101).
- An
adolescent may be arrested in the act of committing an offence (in flagrante
delicto) or by a written and justified order issued
by a court authority (ECA,
art. 106), and in the case of a court order will be immediately remitted to a
judicial authority (ECA,
art. 171). An adolescent who is arrested in the act of
an offence will be remitted to the proper police authority, preferably to
a
specialized police station, or if this is not available, then to separate
facilities from those used for adults (ECA, art. 172).
Most states and the
Federal District do in fact have specialized police stations. In no
circumstance may the adolescent be held
at a police facility, unless the offence
was with violence or a grave threat to a person, and even so for 24 hours at the
most.
- After
the arrest has been officially recorded, the adolescent should be turned over to
his/her parents or guardian, or else (if he/she
cannot be released) the
adolescent will be immediately remitted to the Office of the Attorney-General
(Prosecuting Attorney for Children
and Youth), which will either see to the
permanent filing of the records, grant remission (with or without some
socio-educational
measure) or present the case to the judicial authority for
children and adolescents, for application of a socio-educational measure.
- The
socio-educational measures provided by the Statute of the Child and Adolescent,
in article 112 and the following articles, are
in coherence with the
Beijing Rules and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles
Deprived of their Liberty. Brazilian
law in no way allows for the application
of the death penalty, life imprisonment or forced labour, even for adult
offenders, by force
of a constitutional provision (federal Constitution, art. 5,
XLVII).
- Among
others, the following guarantees are ensured to the adolescent:
- − Full
and formal knowledge of the imputation of an infraction, by arraignment or
equivalent means;
- − Equality
in the procedural relationship, with the right to confront victims and witnesses
and produce the evidence required
for defence;
- − Technical
defence by a lawyer;
- − Gratuitous
and full legal assistance to those in need, according to the terms of the
law;
- − The
right to be heard personally by the proper authority; and
- − The
right to request the presence of his parents or guardian at any stage of the
proceedings. (statute, art. 111).
- The
choice of the measure will consider the nature of the offence, the circumstances
under which it was committed and the family and
social situation of the
adolescent. Socioeducational measures may also be included amongst the
protective measures, whenever necessary
for the juvenile’s educational
process. Any measure may be replaced by another, or suspended, at any
time.
- The
following measures can be applied to juvenile
offenders:
(a) Admonition (art. 115): “The admonition will
be verbal and will be expressed in writing and signed.” The objective
is
to make clear to the adolescent the inappropriateness of his/her behaviour,
allowing him/her to see the offence recognized as
such by a public authority.
The measure therefore has an awareness-building nature, to inform, educate and
confer responsibility.
Its coerciveness lies in the intimidation and in
formality of the ritual. Admonitions are generally used for first-time
adolescent
offenders and may be an effective means of education, capable of
provoking the desired results when the offence arose from typically
adolescent,
unthinking and precipitous behaviour;
(b) Obligation to repair damage (art. 116): “In the case of an
infraction with effects [on property], the authority may, should
the case arise,
determine that the adolescent restore the thing, see to reimbursement of the
damage or, in another way, compensate
the victim’s loss.” This
essentially offers the adolescent a chance to reflect upon the damage caused to
someone else
and on the need somehow to repair it. To achieve the desired
educational effect, this measure may be accompanied by an admonition
or some
other appropriate measure. As it is applied, it should consider the financial
situation of the adolescent and of his/her
family;
(c) The rendering of services to the community (art. 117): “The
rendering of community services consists in the carrying out
of gratuitous tasks
of general interest for a period of not more than six months, at entities of
assistance, hospitals, schools and
other like institutions, as well as in
community and governmental programmes.” The tasks will be designated
according to the
aptitudes of the adolescent and should be carried out during a
maximum period of eight hours per week, on Saturdays, Sundays and
holidays or on
working days, in such a way as not to hamper attendance at school or normal
working hours. This measure has been
very effective in providing adolescents a
chance to develop constructive attitudes, a feeling of solidarity and social
awareness,
in addition to making the community share in the socio-educational
process;
(d) Assisted freedom (art. 118): “Assisted freedom will be adopted
whenever it is considered to be the most suitable measure
for the monitoring,
aiding and orientation of the adolescent.” The adolescent must be
monitored by a trained person, who may
be recommended by a treatment entity or
programme. Assisted freedom will be determined for a minimum period of six
months and can
be extended, revoked or substituted by another measure at any
time, once the councillor, the Office of the Attorney-General and the
defender
have been duly heard. The objective here is essentially to promote the
insertion of the adolescent into the family, school
and workplace, with a
monitor designated who is capable of establishing efficient links with the
various resources provided by a
community. This measure does not provide for a
maximum term, and should be maintained as long as there is a need for
assistance.
This measure has had excellent results and can also be applied
during the period of social re-adaptation of adolescents, post-confinement;
(e) The system of “semi-liberty” (art. 120): “The system
of semi-liberty can be determined from the beginning
or as a form of transition
to the open system, thus making carrying out of external activities possible,
independently of judicial
authorization.” This may be an intermediary
state between confinement and release, when the juvenile will have the task of
relearning to live in freedom. The adolescent may also be placed in a half-way
house as an initial measure. Education and vocational
training are obligatory.
Semi-liberty is considered to be one of the most complete and effective
measures, outside of prisons.
Duly supervised and assisted, it allows for a
control over behaviour without depriving the youth of contact with family and
community.
In penitentiary law, it corresponds to the prison-shelter, the third
stage of a progressive regime. Although there have been some
successful
experiences with semiliberty, there are still very few facilities and programmes
that actually implement this measure;
(f) Internment in an educational establishment (art. 121): “Subject
to the principle of brevity, exceptionally and respect
for the peculiar
condition of the person in development.” Internment temporarily removes
the adolescent from contact with
society and family, by placing him/her in an
institution under responsibility of the State. The objective is to allow for
specialized
attention for youth whose situations do not allow them to benefit,
at the moment, from other measures. It involves the temporary
deprivation of
freedom and is to be carried in at an institution exclusively for
adolescents. The maintenance of the measure should
be reevaluated at least
every six months by the technical staff advising the judicial authority.
In no case can the maximum period
of internment exceed three years,
and release will be compulsory at the age of 21. In cases of provisional
internment (preventive
arrest), the procedure must be completed at the most in
45 days. Internment is only for the authors of infractions committed through
violence or grave threats against a person, when the case involves repetition in
the commitment of other grave infractions, or when
there is reiterated and
unjustified non-compliance with the previously imposed measure (art. 122). The
gravity of the infraction,
significantly, is not enough to decree this
freedom-depriving measure. In any case, the youth deprived of liberty is not
deprived
of his/her other rights provided by the Constitution, in the Convention
and in article 124 of the ECA. The authority and public agents can in no way
practise abuses, which may constitute
crimes of abuse of authority, in cases
when the person in custody or interned is submitted to vexation or to
constraints not authorized
by law. It is the duty of the State to see to the
physical and mental integrity of the interned and the State has the task of
adopting
suitable measures of confinement and security (art. 125). There must
be rigorous separation on the basis of criteria of age, physical
build and
temperament and the gravity of the infractions (art. 123). Rights maintained by
adolescents deprived of liberty include:
to meet personally with the
representative of the Office of the Attorney-General; to petition any authority
directly; to meet privately
with his defender; to be informed of the status of
his process whenever he so requests; to be treated with respect and dignity; to
remain interned in the same locality or in that which is closest to the domicile
of his parents or guardian; to receive visits, at
least weekly; to correspond
with family members and friends; to have access to the objects required for
hygiene and personal cleanliness;
to live in lodgings in adequate conditions of
hygiene and health; to receive schooling and vocational training; to carry out
cultural,
sports and leisure activities; to have access to the communications
media; to receive religious assistance according to his own belief,
whenever he
so desires; to retain possession of his personal objects and to have a secure
place in which to keep them, receiving
a receipt for those which may be
deposited in the keeping of the entity; to receive his personal documents
required for life in society,
upon departure from the entity. In no case will
incommunicability be permitted, since this is prohibited by the Constitution
even for adult prisoners (Constitution, art. 136).
- Some
States have already adapted their programmes and facilities to the requirements
of the ECA, creating and implementing assisted-liberty
and community-service
programmes, generally run by municipal or community organizations, as well as
improving the network of holding
facilities, in terms of the dimensions of the
facilities as well as the regionalization of care. The federal Government,
through
the Ministry of Justice and the CONANDA, has been stimulating and
providing financial support for State agencies to implement their
own plans and
projects for institutional re-organization.
- Table
22, however, shows how the application of measures involving internment of
juvenile offenders is used. Since the ECA brought
radical changes to the
concept and purposes of policies that guarantee rights, the financial cost of
their implementation is significant,
and the acceptance of a new philosophy by
the agents responsible for assuring respect for those rights takes time.
Aspects such
as the methods of applying socio-educational measures in
appropriate environments, including the shutting-down of internment facilities
that are absolutely incompatible with the new philosophy, are still in the
process of implementation, even in the country’s
most developed
states.
Table 22
Adolescents subject to socio-educational measures,
March 2002
|
Internment
|
Provisional internment
|
Semi- liberty
|
Assisted freedom
|
Total/ State
|
Acre
|
34
|
12
|
a
|
109
|
155
|
Alagoas
|
35
|
21
|
a
|
300
|
356
|
Amapá
|
57
|
20
|
37
|
59
|
173
|
Amazonas
|
91
|
39
|
61
|
1 007
|
1 198
|
Bahia
|
126
|
136
|
14
|
418
|
694
|
Ceará
|
187
|
98
|
29
|
743
|
1 057
|
Dist. Federal
|
235
|
140
|
87
|
1 472
|
1 934
|
Espírito Santo
|
54
|
91
|
a
|
b
|
145
|
Goiás
|
87
|
71
|
7
|
450
|
615
|
M. Gerais
|
183
|
97
|
11
|
470
|
761
|
Maranhão
|
77
|
23
|
8
|
181
|
289
|
Mato Grosso
|
41
|
31
|
11
|
60
|
143
|
M. Grosso Sul
|
135
|
60
|
4
|
150
|
349
|
Pará
|
64
|
30
|
25
|
130
|
249
|
Paraíba
|
174
|
26
|
10
|
168
|
378
|
Paraná
|
439
|
351
|
68
|
b
|
858
|
Pernambuco
|
263
|
84
|
41
|
b
|
388
|
Piauí
|
25
|
48
|
a
|
18
|
91
|
Rio G. do Norte
|
42
|
34
|
14
|
144
|
234
|
Rio de Janeiro
|
936
|
97
|
654
|
1 083
|
2 770
|
Rio G. do Sul
|
586
|
162
|
28
|
21
|
797
|
Rondonia
|
6
|
12
|
1
|
195
|
214
|
Roraima
|
15
|
4
|
9
|
167
|
195
|
Sta. Catarina
|
32
|
33
|
2
|
35
|
102
|
São Paulo
|
3 708
|
799
|
268
|
11 686
|
16 461
|
Sergipe
|
48
|
31
|
3
|
22
|
104
|
Tocantins
|
13
|
5
|
1
|
11
|
30
|
Total
|
7 693
|
2 555
|
1 393
|
19 099
|
30 740
|
Source: FONACRIAD.
a Measure not yet implemented in this State.
b FONACRIAD obtained no information on this figure.
- Nonetheless,
in some internment facilities, mistreatment and torture of residents
does still occur. These practices reflect the legacy
of years and
years of treatment through merely repressive forms of people in conflict with
the law. They were not considered to
be rights-holders, but rather offenders
requiring punishment. Directors of those facilities say that one must
distinguish between
beatings or torture, and defensive actions by prison guards
against collective acts of rebellion when the interned aggressively attack
guards. In this case, they say, there is a need for more energetic actions that
may include acts that cause injuries. In any case,
although they are not
widespread, there are real cases of punishment involving torture and beating in
some facilities created for
the purpose of applying socio-educational measures
for adolescent offenders. In some states, when there is clear evidence that
such
acts have taken place, the Government removes the suspected employees and
in some cases fires them. Since it is difficult to produce
individualized proof
of this type of crime, there are nearly no cases at all of punishment applied by
courts.
- In
2002, the country’s first major national survey of all of Brazil’s
internment units was carried out. That project
was sponsored by the Department
of Children and Adolescents at the Ministry of Justice and by UNICEF, with the
collaboration of the
Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA). It is in
its final stages and the results will be published soon.
4. Physical and psychological recovery and social
reintegration
- In
discussing socio-educational measures, we must bear in mind that they are aimed
not only at punishing the offence committed by
the adolescent but also - and
above all - that they should be pedagogical in nature. This means that their
application promotes
recovery and social reintegration. The need for
therapeutic approaches must also be assessed, case-by-case, whenever an
adolescent
shows signs of physical or psychological suffering, which are common
in youth living in the world of crime. That is why lawmakers
included in
article 112 of the ECA the possibility of combining other protective measures
with socio-educational measures that would
include, for example, referral to
physical and mental health treatment, as well as orientation for families.
- In
the context of open measures such as assisted freedom and community service,
adolescents are to be referred to service programmes
offered by other public
policies. When the measure involves deprivation of freedom, the
facility’s professional staff or outside
professionals are responsible for
therapeutic care. Currently, one of the system operators’ greatest
concerns is to provide
assistance for adolescents during the post-internment
period, since the institution itself may have caused problems. While it is
still not the case for all institutions, many State facilities responsible for
juvenile offenders are already creating their own
programmes to provide for
former inmates.
- CONANDA,
as one of its priority policy-making approaches, has determined that the
fundamental socio-educational measures are those
provided in open contexts.
Professionals and educators must receive ongoing training, and there must also
be an institutional reorganization
in order to integrate work done with
families, in educational activities, sports and leisure, also assuring respect
for the beliefs
of the adolescent.
C. Children submitted to exploitation, including their physical
and
psychological recovery and their social re-integration
1. Economic
exploitation, including child labour
1.1. Historical background
- While
it is true that child labour most often occurs for economic reasons, when
families are unable to make a living and therefore
make use of their
children’s labour, it is also a fact that the problem cannot be
reduced to economic considerations alone.
Hypothetically, this would lead
one to conclude that, once poverty is eradicated, child labour will instantly
disappear.
- We
must be aware of a negative image that is widespread in Brazilian society,
frequently reproduced by the media and even by public
authorities: the rhetoric
that tries to contrast work and crime, promoting the belief that idle children
are more likely to be recruited
into illegal activities. It is possible to
counter this false paradigm based on two major points. First of all, surveys of
Brazil’s
prison population show that a significant percentage of prisoners
began to work young, meaning that having worked was no help to
them. Instead,
working rather than studying had narrowed their outlooks and chances as adults,
leaving them more easy prey for crime.
The second and decisive argument fits
with the first, namely that the true positive image is actually drawn from the
contrast between
work and education. True freedom and the only real autonomy an
individual can achieve comes from knowledge, from the ability to
perceive the
world and one’s self, to make well thought-out choices and to be part of
social life in a healthy and civilized
manner.
- On
this basis, we can succinctly illustrate the principles and actions orienting
Brazil’s initiatives to eradicate child and
juvenile labour.
1.2. Figures
- In
1992, the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) reported that, in all of
Brazil, there were 4,092,580 children and adolescents
between 5 and 14 years of
age who worked. This situation was alarming, considering the country’s
political, economic and social
difficulties at the time, and particularly the
absence of strong, integrated public policies to prevent and to repress child
labour.
- Over
the past decade, the situation has changed radically. Policies that integrated
federal, state and municipal authorities, together
with civil society, produced
a structure of agencies and organizations that work together, integrating their
efforts and skills to
achieve quite significant results.
- More
recent PNAD figures show that 2,231,974 children and adolescents between 5
and 14 were identified as working in 2001. That means
an absolute
accumulated reduction
- of 45.46
per cent over the past decade. From 1999 to 2001 along, there was a 24.86 per
cent reduction, with the withdrawal of 740,000
children and adolescents between
5 and 14 from the labour force. (For further information on the reduction
of child labour,
see annex 1.)*
- Table
23 below illustrates the number of employed persons between the ages of 5 and 14
in Brazil, that is, who worked at least one
hour during the survey’s
reference week (the last complete week in the month of September).
Table 23
Number of persons between the ages of 5 to 14
employed in Brazil
|
Children from 5 to 9
|
Children from 10 to 14
|
Total
|
1992
|
613 843
|
3 478 737
|
4 092 580
|
1993
|
526 212
|
3 431 764
|
3 957 976
|
1995
|
518 770
|
3 269 553
|
3 788 323
|
1998
|
402 016
|
2 485 489
|
2 887 505
|
1999
|
375 376
|
2 532 965
|
2 908 341
|
1999*
|
383 251
|
2 587 281
|
2 970 532
|
2001
|
296 705
|
1 935 269
|
2 231 974
|
Source: IBGE, National Household Sample Survey.
* Numbers corrected based on the 2000 census.
- PNAD
data also show that child labour is concentrated in small family-owned
businesses, particularly in the agriculture sector (58.7
per cent of employed
children between 5 and 14), with no remuneration. This reveals how many of them
are involved in activities
that do not actually fit into a rigid definition of
“labour”, since they do minor tasks and are not subjected to
labour
discipline. Also, the workload of one hour per week used in the survey
is not really appropriate for characterizing a day of work.
The conclusion is
that the number of children involved in child labour in Brazil is probably even
lower than what the official figures
suggest.
1.3 Legal order
- We
will now summarize the major public policies adopted by the Government of
Brazil, the legal provisions that sustain the integral
protection of children
and adolescents in Brazil and the major partnerships without which it would be
impossible to achieve the goals
that have been set.
- The
prohibition of the use of the labour of children and of adolescents in Brazil is
stated in the Constitution, in article 7, item XXXIII, as modified by
Constitutional Amendment 20 (16 December 1998), which sets the minimum
working age at
16:
Article 7 (...) XXXIII - prohibition of night, dangerous or unhealthy work
for minors under 18 years of age, and of any work for minors
under 16 years of
age, except as an apprentice, beginning at the age of fourteen;
- Protection
against exploitation at work arises from the principle of integral protection
that the State, society and families provide
to children and to adolescents.
This principle, which underlies all of Brazil’s legal structure, is
explicitly stated in article
227 of the country’s
Constitution:
Article 227 - It is the duty of the family, the
society and the State to ensure children and adolescents, with absolute
priority,
the right to life, health, nourishment, education, leisure,
professional training, culture, dignity, respect, freedom and family
and
community life, as well as to guard them from all forms of negligence,
discrimination, exploitation, violence, cruelty and oppression.
- International
Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 138 (1973) concerning the minimum age
for employment and Convention No. 182
(1999) concerning the worst forms of child
labour were both approved by the National Congress on 14 December 1999. The
President
of Brazil signed the respective letters of ratification on 20 January
2000.
- To
implement the Minimum Age Convention, Brazil, in consonance with its own
Constitution, has set the minimum age of 16 for adolescents to be admitted to
employment or work. The allowance of apprenticeship in Brazil,
beginning at age
14, is not an impediment to setting the minimum age at 16, in line with article
6 of Convention No. 138.
- Convention
No. 182 calls for the adoption of measures for the immediate elimination of the
worst forms of child labour. Even before
Brazil ratified this Convention, the
country had a programme - the Child Labour Eradication Programme (PETI) - whose
actions targeted
precisely those worst forms.
- After
ratifying Convention No. 182, Brazil created a tripartite commission to draft a
list of activities to be considered the worst
forms of child labour. That list
was used to draft Executive Order No. 20, signed by the Labour Inspection
Secretariat on 14 September
2001, defining the activities and places considered
to be unhealthy and dangerous for minors younger than 18. (For additional
information
on this Executive Order, see annex 2.)*
- The
Statute on Children and Adolescents has a special chapter on the rights to
professional training and to protected labour, which
reiterates the Constitution
with regards to limits on child labour and, assures adolescent apprentices both
labour and social security rights. In closing, that
chapter lays out the basic
principles governing labour conditions for adolescents in
Brazil:
Article 69. The adolescent has the right to vocational
training and protection at work, with due observance of the following aspects,
among others:
I - Respect for the specific conditions of the person in development;
II - Vocational training suited to the labour market.
- Another
relevant piece of legislation is the Consolidation of Labour Laws (CLT),
most recently amended by Law No. 10,097/2000, which
changed several
provisions on labour by adolescents, to give them greater protection, as in
the definition of the apprenticeship
contract:
“Article 428.
The apprenticeship contract is the special labour contract, agreed upon in
writing and for a fixed period of
time, in which the employer promises to assure
to the person from 14 to 18 years of age, enlisted in an apprenticeship
programme,
methodical technical-professional training, compatible with the
person’s physical, moral and psychological development, and
the
apprentice, to diligently execute the tasks required for this training.”
(For additional information on the Apprenticeship
Law and its regulations, see
annex 3.)*
- Finally,
Law No. 8,666/93 forbids public agencies from signing contracts with private
parties that exploit child labour, while Law
9,977/98 amended the Penal Code to
increase the penalty, when the victim is younger than 18, for the crime of
frustration of assured
rights, through fraud or violence (art. 203), and for the
crime of enticement of workers in order to take them from one part of the
country to another (art. 207).
1.4 Public policies
- The
Government of Brazil’s major initiative to fight child labour is the
Programme to Eradicate Child Labour (PETI), which is
part of the 2000-2003
Multi-Year Plan. It brings together activities by the Labour Inspection
Secretariat (SIT) at the Ministry
of Labour and Employment, the State
Secretariat for Social Assistance (SEAS) and the Ministry of Social Security and
Assistance.
- PETI
activities to be carried out by the SEAS are aimed at removing children and
adolescents from 7 to 15 years of age from work considered
to be dangerous,
heavy, unhealthy or degrading. These include: (a) granting of a Child Citizen
Scholarship, which is financial
aid for families who remove their children from
working; (b) the maintenance of a full school day, with socio-educational
activities
to complement classes by keeping children in a setting where they
receive tutoring and can participate in sports and in cultural,
artistic and
leisure activities; (c) the generation of employment for families in order to
make a major effort to promote the family’s
financial emancipation; and
(d) the organization of educational campaigns to sensitize society in the fight
against child labour
(additional information on the PETI programme in
annex 4).*
- PETI
began in 1996, when it reached 1,500 children working in charcoal ovens and in
the erva-mate harvest in 14 municipalities of the State of Mato Grosso do
Sul. The programme can thus be considered as a pioneer strategy in the
fight
against the worst forms of child labour. In recent years, the programme’s
scope has expanded constantly and can now
be identified as one of the most
important initiatives contributing to the reduction of child labour in Brazil.
Here are some figures.
Table 24
Yearly evolution of the PETI programme
|
Number of municipalities reached
|
Number of children and adolescents affected
|
1996
|
17
|
3 710
|
1997
|
48
|
37 025
|
1998
|
140
|
117 200
|
1999
|
230
|
145 564
|
2000
|
976
|
394 969
|
2001
|
2 152
|
749 000
|
2002 (goal)
|
-
|
866 000
|
- With
regards to the generation of employment for families, PETI signed a partnership
agreement with the National Programme to General
Employment and Income
(PRONAGER) to expand the coverage of this activity, basically aimed at training
unemployed and underemployed
persons to be able to overcome adversities and have
a chance for a new social and economic integration.
- At
the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the Programme to Eradicate Child Labour
includes six activities aimed at children and adolescents
in any age group: (a)
inspection of child labour and regularization of the situation of adolescent
workers; (b) promotion of events
to sensitize society to child labour
situations; (c) publication and distribution of printed material on child
labour; (d) a campaign
to sensitize society focused on child labour; (e) studies
and research on child labour; and (f) mapping of locations with prevalence
of
child and adolescent labour.
- Inspections
are done by the Special Groups to Fight Child Labour and Protect Adolescent
Workers (GECTIPAs), created within each Regional
Labour Office (DRT) throughout
the country, by Executive Order No. 07, published by the Labour Inspection
Secretariat
on 23 March 2000.
- The
exclusive purpose of the GECTIPAs is to eradicate child labour and assure the
rights of adolescent workers. Following the creation
of the GECTIPAs, actions
were intensified in the informal sector of the economy, with the collaboration
of the entire team of 3,200
labour inspectors-auditors who work for the
ministry around the country (additional information on the GECTIPAs in annex
5).*
- The
GECTIPAs are part of the network for the integral protection of children and
adolescents, and they carry out a variety of activities
in partnership with the
Office of the Attorney-General for Labour, state social-assistance departments,
guardianship and rights councils,
state forums and other key players whose
participation is important for inspections to achieve significant results.
- The
Ministry of Labour and Employment is also responsible for drafting, producing
and publishing the “map of indicators on child
and adolescent
labour”, made up of three interlinked modules in a single volume. Module
I presents the activities and locations
where the existence
- of
child or adolescent labour was found, in addition to presenting detailed
information based on a reprocessing of 1999 PNAD data.
Module II describes the
working conditions to which those children and adolescents are exposed in the
activities listed in the first
module. Finally, Module III presents an
overview that relates working conditions to possible repercussions on the health
of children
and adolescents (additional information on the map of indicators on
child and adolescent labour in annex 6).*
- The
map of indicators is the major reference work for people who need more precise,
detailed information on child and adolescent labour
in Brazil. It also gives
visibility to the actions of the Ministry of Labour and Employment in the
prevention of irregular child
and adolescent labour.
- The
recently created National Commission on the Eradication of Child Labour
(CONAETI), made up of representatives of the Government,
workers, employers and
civil society, is responsible for: drafting proposals to regulate ILO
Conventions No. 138 and No. 182, for
checking compliance of other laws with
those conventions, in order to propose changes that may be necessary; drafting a
proposal
for a National Plan to Fight Child Labour; proposing mechanisms to
monitor the application of Convention No. 182; and accompanying
the
implementation of measures taken to apply the provisions of Conventions No. 138
and No. 182 in Brazil (additional information
on the creation of the CONAETI in
annex 7).*
- The
Ministry of Labour and Employment, through its Labour Inspection Office, is also
responsible for notifying companies to assure
they obey the quotas for
apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are carried out through contracts that assure
technical and professional
training for adolescents from 14 to 18 years old. It
is a legal obligation of companies, which must contract a quota of apprentices
-
between 5 and 15 per cent of their employees. The apprenticeship is a programme
designed especially for the training of adolescents,
consisting of theoretical
and practical activities, while requiring that the adolescents remain in school
at least through primary
education (eight years). The Labour Inspection Office,
in addition to notifying companies, is also responsible for auditing the
quotas
and for enforcing clauses in the special apprenticeship contracts,
particularly those that assure legally-binding labour and
social security rights
for adolescents (additional information on apprenticeship legislation in annex
3).*
- Also
targeting the prevention of child labour is the Federal School Scholarship
Programme, which helps keep poor families from having
to take their 6 to
15-year-olds out of school and putting them to work. This benefit is paid
directly to the family and is entirely
conditioned upon the child’s school
attendance remaining above 85 per cent for each trimester. In the year 2001,
this programme
was implemented in 5,470 municipalities, reaching 4.8 million
families and 8.3 million children. The goal for the year 2002 is to
reach 11 million children and adolescents from 6 to 15 years of age,
meaning that one in every three children currently enrolled
in primary education
will be covered.
1.5 Social actors
- In
addition to the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the State Secretariat for
Social Assistance, we should also highlight several
other major social actors
directly involved with the prevention of and fight against child labour in
Brazil.
The Office of the Attorney-General for Labour
(MPT)
- Under
the provisions of the Constitution and legislation forbidding child and
adolescent labour for minors of 16, the MPT has made constant efforts to enforce
the law. It
has been particularly active in negotiating and obtaining the
signature of “behaviour adjustment agreements” involving
employers
in urban and rural areas. These agreements’ purpose is to assure the
immediate removal of children from labour situations,
particularly where the
worst forms of child labour are involved.
- The
MPT also has a seat on the National and Regional Forums for the Eradication of
Child Labour, thus allowing it to know the community
projects being implemented
and to assess the legality of situations arising there. It holds public
hearings, lectures and seminars
aimed at sensitizing partners, lawyers and
society in general to the problem of child labour.
- Another
important initiative has been the creation of the National Coordinating Office
to Fight the Exploitation of Child and Adolescent
Labour, with the presence of
prosecuting attorneys assigned to deal with the issue in all states of the
country (additional information
on the MPT in annex 8).*
The National Forum for the Prevention and Eradication of
Child Labour
- Created
in 1994 and made up of representatives from several sectors including the
Government, employers, workers, the Office of the
Attorney-General and civil
society, this forum plays an important role for national coordination. It seeks
to ratify the commitment
of its members to draft policies and to implement
increasingly consistent actions to provide final solutions to assure the
eradication
of any and all forms of illegal exploitation of child and adolescent
labour. The National Forum was also important as a paradigm
for the creation of
equally pluralistic forums in each of Brazil’s 27 states (additional
information on the National Forum for the Prevention and Eradication of Child
Labour in annex 9).*
National Council on the Rights of Children and Adolescents
(CONANDA)
- Created
in 1991 and made up of equal representations of the federal Government and
non-governmental organizations, CONANDA’s
responsibilities in the field of
child labour include studying the working conditions of children and adolescents
in the locations
and economic sectors with the greatest incidence of child and
juvenile labour; stimulating programmes to generate family income in
locations
with a prevalence of children and adolescents in forbidden activities; seeking
by various means to involve the population
in fighting child labour and the
exploitation of adolescent labour.
United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF
- In
addition to having a seat on the National Forum for the Prevention and
Eradication of Child Labour, UNICEF is active in Brazil
in other collegiate
bodies and in working groups aimed at preventing and fighting child labour. It
provides incentives and financial
support for projects to serve children and
adolescents, education and professional training, as well as others that have
direct impacts
on improving living conditions and expanding the horizons of
Brazilian youth, while reducing chances that many of them will be recruited
by
exploiters of child labour.
International Labour Organization
- ILO’s
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) helped
build a network to fight child labour in Brazil.
Since the signing of a
Memorandum of Understanding in 1992, ILO/IPEC has played a key role in building
policies to prevent and to
eradicate child labour. Up to 2002, according to the
National Direction Committee of IPEC, more than 105 initiatives were funded
in
Brazil (action programmes and miniprogrammes), with the organization of seminars
and debates, the publication of reference documents,
training of governmental
agents, the organization of employers and employees, NGOs and pioneer actions to
attend directly working
children and their families.
- IPEC
began its work in the country with the Ministry of Labour and Employment by
identifying and locating governmental and non-governmental
agencies,
institutions and organizations capable of participating on a national scale in
the implementation of IPEC action programmes.
That research fed into and
supported the creation of the National Forum for the Prevention and Eradication
of Child Labour. Over
these 10 years of activities, publications were produced
for social awareness-building (research, books and videos), to train labour
leaders, directors, multipliers, auditors, board members and implementers of
programmes to assure adequate management and implementation
of international
conventions in Brazil, and to introduce new issues on to national agendas.
ILO/IPEC has also been a partner in
developing tools for the qualified
collection and production of statistical data on child labour, as part of the
SIMPOC project,
which will lead to the preparation of a specific module on child
labour as part of the official National Household Sample Survey
(PNAD).
ABRINQ Foundation for the Rights of Children and
Adolescents
- Created
by business leaders in the Brazilian Association of Toy Manufacturers (ABRINQ),
this is one of the key non-governmental organizations
involved in the prevention
and fight against child labour. Its biggest initiative has been the Company
Friend of the Child Project,
materialized through the distribution of a seal -
the Company Friend of the Child Seal - to companies who sign a written
commitment
to not use child labour. The seal can be used as corporate marketing
for the companies, identifying them as profitmaking companies
with social
responsibility.
The National Garbage and Citizenship Forum
- Created
in 1998, with 19 governmental and non-governmental organizations, in 1999 the
Forum launched a national campaign to eradicate
child labour in garbage dumps,
aimed at removing 45,000 children from degrading work in landfills. Its
overriding objectives are
to put children in schools and in complementary
activities; to create social and economic activities for garbage-pickers,
particularly
through selective collection programmes; to eradicate landfills and
to recover areas degraded by garbage.
- By
the end of 2002, the estimate was that PETI would reach over 45,000 children
working in landfills. Nonetheless, the eradication
of this kind of labour
depends basically on putting an end to the landfills themselves. To that end,
there has actually been an
increase in the funding of federal solid-waste
programmes, as approximately 150 municipalities were funded in 2000, and
another 400
in 2001.
- This
national initiative has had tremendous support from states and municipalities.
Nineteen state forums have been created and another
seven are being organized.
Many municipalities have also begun to organize their local forums, which is
actually a requirement for
entering the funding mechanisms offered by the
Ministry of the Environment (additional information on the Garbage and
Citizenship
Forum in annex 10).*
1.6 Domestic child labour
- On
account of a constitutional ban on access to households without a judicial
order, domestic child and adolescent labour is very
difficult to document and
quantify, characterize, audit and punish. It requires alternative measures to
make denunciations and investigation
possible. Due to these problems, it has
been classified by the ILO as one of the “invisible” forms of child
labour.
- Domestic
child labour can be classified in accordance with the de facto situation in
which a child or adolescent is found in the respective
workplace: (a) the child
or adolescent is working in a third party’s residence, whether they live
there or not; (b) the child
or adolescent works in their own residence; (c) the
child or adolescent resides and works in the home of others, who have their
custody.
Each of these situations deserves specific treatment, since the legal
implications are different, along with the obstacles to dealing
with each
situation.
- Even
so, Brazil has given special attention to the issue through the organization of
studies, research, many seminars, the organization
of a specific working group
in the Ministry of Labour and Employment, called the Study Group on Domestic
Child Labour (GETID), in
addition to the creation of a Special Commission on
Domestic Child Labour (CETID), within the State Secretariat for Social
Assistance,
part of the Ministry of Social Security and Social Assistance.
- CETID
presented an action proposal aimed at eradicating domestic child labour,
covering five basic guidelines for strategic actions
to be carried out by
governmental and nongovernmental organizations involved in preventing and
fighting domestic child labour: (a)
the generation, management and
dissemination of high-quality information; (b) the review of relevant
legislation; (c) awareness-building
and sensitization of society about the means
available to fight it; (d) emphasis on domestic child labour in the system for
the integral
protection of children; and (e) the promotion and the human, social
and economic strengthening of families. These proposed guidelines,
now being
presented and discussed with society, express the drive of institutions to act
more directly and significantly in a segment
where, in Brazil, children, youth
and adults work at alarmingly high rates of informal employment.
- GETID,
meanwhile, is doing studies and preparing proposals to fill normative gaps in
the law on domestic labour for children and adolescents,
in order to make it
possible for authorities to act in irregular situations in order to safeguard
the rights of these children and
adolescents.
- PETI
will be expanded to cover as well those families which remove their children
from domestic-labour situations and enrol them in
schools. The initial
proposal is to benefit 230,000 children during the first year of
implementation of this strategy.
2. The undue use of drugs (legal and illegal)
- A
time-series survey done by the Brazilian Centre for Information on Psychotropic
Drugs (CEBRID) and entitled “Survey on the
use of drugs by primary and
secondary school in 10 Brazilian capitals” concluded that the use of
psychotropic drugs by students
at public schools has increased
significantly since the study began in 1987, based on subsequent evaluations
done in 1989, 1993 and
1997.
- The
results on the use of tobacco show that there is greater use of cigarettes by
students from 10 to 18 years of age. The greatest
increases were in Curitiba
and Porto Alegre, capital cities in southern states, where the share of use
of tobacco at some point in
one’s life increase from 20 per cent in the
first survey to 40 per cent in the last survey, in 1997. The first use
came most
frequently in the 13-15 year age group. In addition, there is
evidence of a growing tendency for female students to try smoking.
- There
are indicators of a reduction of experimentation and initiation following the
intensification of measures to control tobacco
use by the Government in the past
six years. No study, however, has been completed yet.
- The
CEBRID studies also show a high level of consumption of alcoholic beverages by
students from 10 to 18 years of age, with the share
of students who have tried
some alcoholic beverage above 65 per cent in all years studied. In 1997, the
study found that 51 per
cent of students from 10 to 12 years old
had made some use of alcohol and that 30 per cent had gotten
drunk on alcoholic beverages,
with the family setting identified as the most
frequent place of initiation.
- As
for other drugs consumed, the leaders are solvents, marijuana, ansiolitics,
amphetamines and cocaine. Comparing the increase in
consumption of these
substances by students over the period of the four surveys, in the category
“ever used”, there was
an increase in the use of marijuana,
amphetamines and cocaine.
- Among
the countless kinds of damage caused by drugs (whether legal or illegal) among
adolescents, there has been particular research
done in Brazil on the
relationship with greater vulnerability to infection by HIV. In order to orient
public policies and actions
to prevent and control the AIDS epidemic among
Brazilian youth, a survey was done in 1999 with military service recruits on the
use
of legal and illegal drugs and their possible associations with risky sexual
behaviour, involving sexually transmittable infections.
The study collected
observations from 29,373 persons.
- The
results were that only 22 per cent of the recruits had never tried alcoholic
beverages. With regards to illegal drugs, 20 per cent of the young men
reported they had tried marijuana, and 5 per cent made regular
use of
marijuana. Of the various possible modes
of using cocaine, the most common
was inhalation, with 7.2 per cent answering that they had tried the drug in this
manner, while regular
use was only reported by 1.5 per cent of the participants.
These percentages dropped to 4 and 1.1 per cent when the question was
on crack,
and to 1.9 and 0.7 per cent, respectively, for injected cocaine. As for the age
at which the young person first took the
drug, there was not much variation in
the average answers for each kind of drug. Overall, adolescents first try drugs
at around
the age of 15.
- The
relationship between using drugs and having unprotected sex deserves particular
attention in this population. In addition to
having a higher number of partners
(particularly paying male and female partners) and a greater frequency of
unprotected (no condom)
sexual relations, the youth who reported making use of
certain drugs (particularly cocaine) also began their sex lives at a younger
age, meaning a greater time of exposure to risky sexual behaviour. These
effects, meanwhile, are more present among participants
with less schooling, as
if those having less formal education also had fewer psychosocial resources to
deal with the immoderate consumption
of psycho-active substances. In the
context of social interaction networks, it is known that the composition and
dynamics of these
networks is influenced by issues related to poverty and to
social exclusion, including sexual violence, prostitution, drug traffic
and the
adoption of more risky life styles.
- To
fight this problem, the Government of Brazil set up the National Anti-Drug
Secretariat, directly tied to the President’s
Office. It combines its
preventive policies, through educational campaigns, with a policy of repression
against drug traffic. Educational
campaigns are taken to schools, community
centres and the media, targeting young people above all. There are also major
efforts
to recover drug consumers, by specialized centres and non-governmental
organizations.
3. Sexual exploitation and abuse
- Article
227, paragraph 4, of Brazil’s Constitution provides that the law shall
severely punish abuse, violence and sexual exploitation
of children and
adolescents. At the same time, in terms of violence in the home, the eighth
paragraph of article 226 says that the
State shall ensure assistance to the
family in the person of each of its members, creating mechanisms to suppress
violence within
the family.
- In
accordance with this constitutional principle, the Statute on the Child and
Adolescent, in its articles 240, 241 and 244-A, qualifies
as crimes the acts of:
producing or directing theatre or television plays or cinema films which utilize
a child or adolescent in
scenes of explicit or pornographic sex; photographing
or publishing scenes of explicit or pornographic sex involving a child or
adolescent;
or submitting a child or adolescent to prostitution or to sexual
exploitation. According to article 244-A, added by Law No. 9,975
(23 June
2000), this crime is also practised by the proprietor, manager or person
responsible for the place where the child or adolescent
has been submitted to
prostitution or to sexual exploitation, with convictions necessarily to include
the revoking of such establishments’
location and operational
licenses.
- The
abuse and sexual exploitation of children and adolescents are complex phenomena,
difficult to confront and part of an historical-social
context of endemic
violence, with deep cultural roots. Only during this past decade did children
come to be considered legal rightsbearers,
and no longer the incapable object of
guardianship, minors with obligations to obey and submit. The break with
outdated mores and
the building of a new culture of protection and of respect
for human rights require the denunciation and restraining of abuses in
the
construction of relationships and in the learning of exchanges of affection, as
well as protection for vulnerable individuals
and for witnesses and the need to
hold aggressors accountable for their acts.
- Sexual
violence against children and adolescents in Brazil had its political expression
during the 1990s, when the phenomenon as a
result of social, gender, race and
ethnic inequalities, was included on civil society’s agenda as an issue
related to the national
and international struggle for the human rights of
children and of adolescents, as provided by the Brazilian Constitution, by the
Statute on Children and Adolescents (Law 8,069/90) and in the Convention on the
Rights of the Child. That period of time
was marked by a strong process of
outreach, mobilization and consolidated experiences that strengthened society,
enabling it to take
on denunciations as a form of confronting sexual violence,
thus creating a milestone in the struggle for the rights of children and
of
adolescents.
- In
1993, the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the National Congress) held a
parliamentary inquiry on the prostitution of children
and adolescents in Brazil.
In the 11 years since that inquiry, sexual violence against children and
adolescents in Brazil has been
more intensively confronted by civil society and
the media, in the Government, legislatures and international agencies. The
phenomenon
has thus gained greater visibility, been confirmed by more studies,
mappings, campaigns and databanks. The press has given better
coverage of its
occurrence, with a focus on the rights of those involved.
- This
movement led to the appearance of service programmes, investments in the
training of social agents, specialized actions by the
police in the protection
of children and adolescents and the production of specific legislation.
Chronologically, the federal Government
began the first specific programme to
care for sexually victimized children and adolescents, through the Child Citizen
of Brazil
programme and, in the State of Amazonas, through the Cunhantã
and Curumim Project.
- Many
social agents faced the challenge of assuring greater efficiency, effectiveness
and impact for the programmes created to deal
with the problem, through the
quest for integration and better organization, so that the programmes improve
and become complementary,
avoiding duplication and overlapping. To promote this
integration, in June 2000 the National Plan to Confront Sexual Violence against
Children and Adolescents was approved by the CONANDA. That same year, the
Government of Brazil included, in its 2000-2003 multi-year
plan, the Programme
to Fight the Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children and Adolescents.
- As
part of these service actions, the Sentinel Programme was established to provide
children, adolescents and their relatives involved
in situations of sexual
violence with expert social services. Today it covers 315 Brazilian
municipalities. These municipalities
include the state capitals, metropolitan
regions, tourist centres, port cities, trade centres, highway
junctions, mining areas and
border regions. Every month in 2002 the
programme took care of over 34,000 people, including children, adolescents and
their relatives,
thus doubling its initial forecast. In addition to this
measure, from 1998 to 2002 several public campaigns were carried out to
explain
sexual violence against children and adolescents. Noteworthy initiatives in
this context include the campaigns carried out
together with the Brazilian
Tourism Institute (Embratur) against “sexual tourism” and the
creation of a telephone hotline
for the nationwide registration of
denunciations. Both of these actions were also supported by the Brazilian
Children’s and
Adolescents’ Support Association
(ABRAPIA).
- Noteworthy
initiatives include the campaigns carried out together with the Brazilian
Tourism Institute (Embratur) against “sexual
tourism” and the
creation of a telephone hotline for the nationwide registration of
denunciations. Both of these actions were
also supported by ABRAPIA.
- Other
actions by the Government of Brazil include ratification of Convention No. 182
of the International Labour Organization, whose
guidelines classify prostitution
as one of the worst forms of labour, to which children should not be exposed.
Brazil has also played
an active role in the World Tourism Organization, where
in 2002 Brazil was chosen to be the international manager of the Global Code
of
Ethics for Tourism, whose experimental model is being implemented in the city of
Natal in the State of Rio Grande do Norte. Finally,
another important form of
international cooperation by Brazil in this area was the signing in 2002 of an
agreement between the SEAS,
the Ministry of Justice (through its Department of
Children and Adolescents) and the United States Agency for Development (USAID),
establishing a broad technical and financial partnership aimed at fighting
traffic in children and adolescents for the purposes of
prostitution. This
partnership should also allow for development of benchmark actions in this
field, particularly in border regions.
4. Sale, traffic and kidnapping of children
- There
is a difference between traffic for whatever purpose and the kidnapping of
children by one of their parents. Regarding the
kidnapping of children and
adolescents by one of their parents, Brazil has ratified the major
relevant conventions: the Inter-American
Convention on International Return of
Children, adopted in Montevideo on 15 July 1989 and promulgated by Brazil
through Decree 1,212
on 3 August 1994; and the Convention on the Civil Aspects
of International Child Abduction, concluded in The Hague on 25 October
1980,
approved by Legislative Decree 79 on 12 July 1999 and promulgated in Brazil by
Decree 3,413 on 14 April 2000.
- Decree
3,951 issued on 4 October 2001 names the central authority for enforcement of
the obligations imposed by the Hague Convention
on Civil Aspects above, creates
the Council of the Federal Central Administrative Authority against
International Kidnapping of Children
and establishes the National Programme for
Cooperation in the Return of Brazilian Children and Adolescents Kidnapped
Internationally.
- The
Central Authority, which represents Brazil in the protection of children and
adolescents who have been illegally retained, is
the agency responsible for
Brazilian policy in this area, and is part of the Ministry of Justice.
- Domestically,
the kidnapping of children and adolescents is a crime covered by Article 9 of
Law 8,072, of 25 July 1990, which provides
that the penalty for the crime of
extortion through kidnapping - set in article 159 of the Penal Code - shall be
increased by one
half (while maintaining the upper limit of 30 years of
reclusion) when the victim is 14 years old or less.
- Regarding
the sale of children and adolescents, the ECA defines as a crime, in
articles 238 and 239, the following acts: “To
promise or effect the
delivery of [issue] or ward to
- a
third party through payment or reward”; “... offer or effect the
payment or reward”; and “Foster or aid
in the effecting of an act
that has the objective of sending a child or adolescent abroad without
observance of the legal formalities
or with the purpose of obtaining
profit”.
- Regarding
traffic, the Government of Brazil, through the Department of Children and
Adolescents, has supported initiatives by civil
society. Among them, we would
highlight the research project entitled Traffic in Women, Children and
Adolescents for the Purposes
of Sexual Exploitation in Brazil, currently under
way and coordinated by the non-governmental organization Reference Centre for
Studies
and Actions in Favor of Children and Adolescents (CECRIA), in
partnership with other organizations. The results of the study have
provided
data and information on traffic in women, children and adolescents, which are
being used by the National Secretariat for
Human Rights as indicators for
developing a policy agenda that can be useful to the federal Government, civil
society and international
cooperation.
- This
policy is expected to pull together resources to strengthen networks that
protect children and adolescents and the law enforcement
system, in addition to
allowing for agreements with neighbouring countries aimed at mutual
collaboration against such traffic.
5. Other forms of exploitation: recruitment of
children
and adolescents by drug trafficking
- The
issue of child labour in drug trafficking deserves special attention, as it is a
morally condemnable form of labour that involves
great risk for the safety of
children and adolescents. For that reason, it was included amongst the worst
forms of child labour
by ILO Convention No. 182, to which Brazil is a
party.
- The
Federal Police is responsible for enforcement of drug traffic legislation. When
identified as involved, children are sent to
the Public Prosecutor’s
Office (Public Ministry) which proposes, as appropriate, actions provided by the
Statute of the Child
and Adolescent (ECA) in the specialized courts for children
and youth, which can impose social and educational measures aimed at
their
recovery.
- In
the arena of preventive activities, the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD),
part of the Institutional Security Office in the
Presidency, is to be
highlighted. SENAD works under guidelines from the National Anti-Drug Policy to
act in the areas of prevention,
treatment, recovery and social reinsertion. It
holds training courses focused on the basic principles of druguse prevention for
a target audience of educators from around the country. This is a strategic
initiative, considering that much research points to
the likelihood of illegal
drug consumption taking place during childhood and adolescence.
D. Children belonging to minorities or to indigenous
groups
1. Policies for indigenous peoples
- Public
policies on the rights of indigenous children and adolescents, in addition to
the guarantees provided by article 227 of the
1988 Constitution and the ECA,
also consider the guarantees for indigenous populations based on the full
recognition, respect and exercise of their
- cultures
including all aspects, such as religion, lifestyles, political organization,
diversity, etc. Given the importance of each
people’s traditions and
cultural values for the protection and harmonious development of children, those
guarantees are held
to be related to the possibility of maintaining their own
way of life. This in turn is intimately linked to the guarantee of use
of the
lands traditionally occupied by indigenous peoples.
- The
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil, promulgated in 1988, in its
chapter VIII of Title VIII, “The Indians”, guarantees
that
“Indians shall have their social organization, customs, languages, creeds
and traditions recognized, as well as their
original rights to the lands they
traditionally occupy” (art. 231), and in article 215 gives the State the
duty to protect
indigenous cultural manifestations. These precepts are the
doctrinarian basis for a variety of actions aimed at indigenous populations,
under the responsibility of the Brazilian State. This clearly reveals how
Brazil is understood to be a multi-ethnic nation that
values the differentiated
cultural identity of the indigenous peoples in terms of the setting of public
policies, particularly indigenous-oriented
policies.
- The
determination that indigenous communities are culturally and politically
legitimate is definitively set out by the Constitution when it states that:
“The Indians, their communities and organizations have standing under the
law to sue to defend their
rights and interests” (art. 232).
- As
one aspect still outstanding in indigenous-related policy over the past decade,
we must mention the delay in the legislative updating
of the main legal
instrument that regulates indigenous rights, the Indian Statute. Promulgated in
1973 as Law No. 6,001, the statute
presents provisions based on the ILO
Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention No. 107 (1957) that make it the
duty of the State
to promote the harmonious integration of indigenous people
into national culture. That kind of integration, repudiated by the new
1988
Constitution, is no longer the objective of the State, which now seeks to
guarantee respect for differentiated cultures. The updating of the
legislation
depends on the National Congress, which has been debating Bill No. 2,057/91,
aimed at modernizing the Indian Statute
and adapting it to the country’s
new constitutional precepts.
- Meanwhile,
through Legislative Decree 143/02, Brazil has ratified the ILO Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples Convention No. 169 (1989).
Through the newly revised Brazilian
Civil Code, approved by Law 10,406/02, indigenous people are also no longer
considered incapable
citizens, and thus are no longer expressly dealt with by
the Code as wards of the State.
- Under
this new legal framework, Brazil’s territory is home to a range of
approximately 215 indigenous peoples, speaking 180
languages and countless
dialects, spread throughout all the country’s geographical regions.
There is a total of 374,000 indigenous
people, accounting for 0.2 per cent of
the Brazilian population, 50 per cent of whom are
over 18 years old.
- This
population is distributed in 589 indigenous territories, covering 11.96 per cent
of the country’s land mass (in fact, 21
per cent of the Legal Amazon
region of Brazil is covered by indigenous land). They receive social, legal and
law-enforcement support
from the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). Created by
Law 5,371/67, FUNAI is the “indigenist” agency responsible first
of
all for “establishing guidelines to assure the implementation of
indigenist
- policies,”
based on “respect for the indigenous persons and for tribal institutions
and communities” and on the
guarantee of permanent possession of the lands
they inhabit and the exclusive use of the natural resources and all the units
that
exist on them” (art. 1, Ia and Ib).
- Land
is at the core of indigenous issues, since the notion of territory in indigenous
societies implies much more than considering
it as a mere means for livelihood.
Land is the basis for social life and is directly linked to the belief and
knowledge system.
The concept of territory is linked to the group’s
cultural history, its mythological universe, family relations and all the
social
interactions and the system of political and economic alliances among the
villages of a given group. Territory sustains each
group’s web of
cultural life. The guarantee of land is thus an essential condition for
assuring the survival of Indians as
ethnically differentiated groups within the
national society. The lands traditionally occupied by Indians are intended for
their
permanent possession, with exclusive rights to usufruct; they are
inalienable, and the rights thereto are not subject to limitation.
- Under
those constitutional precepts, the territorial issue has been a priority. In
the past seven years, the country demarcated and
legalized the largest amount of
indigenous land in its entire history - 102,227,930 hectares, larger than France
and England combined.
This total does not include the areas of 131 indigenous
territories that are still being identified, nor the areas closed for the
protection of 45 known groups of isolated indigenous peoples. In the case of
these latter groups, the Government of Brazil chose
the policy of ensuring their
cultural integrity and health by controlling the territories they use through
the blocking of the expansion
of lumber, cattle and mining activities into these
regions.
- Still
in the realm of protection of rights, we can discuss how the category of
“Indian” is conceived in today’s
Statute of the Indian
(Law 6,001/73). The conception of a generic category - Indians - has not
allowed them to be seen as distinct
ethnic groups composed of different
segments, such as children/adolescents and women/men. Therefore governmental
actions have so
far targeted indigenous societies as a whole, rather than
specific segments of these societies. Even so, the demands have always
existed,
along with the fact that the institutional paradigm was not capable of
perceiving specificities, a situation which merely
highlights the need to
establish appropriate public policies.
- Observation
of the reality of indigenous communities suggests that villages located near
cities, hydroelectric dams, waterways, small
mines, lumber operations, highways
and power lines, for example, are subject to constant, long-term threats that
interfere in the
development of children and adolescents living in these areas,
through problems such as malnutrition, diseases like diarrhoea and
pneumonia,
etc. These situations have also intensified the migration of indigenous
families into cities, causing greater contact
with regional society and
generating other problems such as alcoholism, prostitution, undesired
pregnancies, drug use, contagion
by sexually-transmittable diseases like AIDS,
cases of sexual violence, recruitment by invaders, the aggravation of
discrimination
and prejudices and the involvement of indigenous persons in small
and major crimes.
- In
addition to those external threats, migration out of villages tends to tear
apart families, as they face such difficulties as having
to deal with the
adolescence of their children. Youth in direct contact with non-indigenous
adolescents often choose to deny their
indigenous identities as a strategy to
minimize the discrimination they frequently suffer. In addition, youth and
children also
suffer the negative impacts of living with alcoholic parents,
which can mean exposure to physical and psychological violence inside
their own
homes, mainly as a result of their communities’ precarious social and
economic living conditions. In the schools
where they are enrolled, these
youths also confront the inability of teachers to take on their education, since
very few have received
any training to deal with such specific realities.
- Two
points - education and health - are held up by the Government of Brazil as
absolute priorities and thus are the focus of specific
actions by public
authorities. They have direct impacts on the living conditions of indigenous
children and adolescents, considering
how essential they are to assure their
citizenship and quality of life, specifically the policy for indigenous school
education and
the National Policy for Indigenous Peoples’ Health
Care.
2. Indigenous education
- The
general principles of indigenous school education are rooted in the
multi-ethnicity, plurality and cultural and linguistic diversity
of
Brazil’s indigenous societies. The respect for differences is assured in
Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, while the Law on Educational Directives and
Bases (LDB) assures indigenous peoples the right to formal schooling. It is in
this
context that indigenous school education takes place, guaranteeing
communities’ access to the right to use their mother tongues
and their own
learning processes, based on respect for each people’s culture and
specificities, while also providing for exchanges
amongst the diverse
communities.
- To
achieve these principles and objectives, and to put into practice a national
indigenous school education programme, the Ministry
of Education has defined
actions and programmes that are decentralized in order to respect the indigenous
peoples’ processes
of struggles and conquests and to stimulate demands for
intercultural and bilingual education. Support is provided for projects
arising
from demands by indigenous communities, through governmental or non-governmental
sectors. Analytical criteria have been
established for approving funding
proposals, as well as for monitoring and assessment of projects, aimed at:
investing in the initial
and ongoing training of indigenous education
professionals; stimulating the production and publication of teaching material
in indigenous
languages; and dissemination to the entire society of the
country’s ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity.
- More
specifically, the Ministry of Education’s activities to train professors
have focused on:
- − The
Capacity-building Programme in Indigenous School Education for Governmental
Technicians, aimed at giving sound orientation
for technicians to be able to
administer their own training in their respective areas of activity, keeping up
with the progress of
theoretical and methodological discussions in the field of
differentiated education; and
- − The
Parameters for Action in Indigenous School Education, an initial and ongoing
training programme for indigenous teachers,
involving a set of activities
designed for training educators: teachers, technical teams and school
directors. The key purpose
is to develop four basic technical skills: reading
and writing; shared work; self-administration of one’s own education; and
reflections on teaching practices.
- The
Ministry also undertakes initiatives in the dissemination of indigenous issues
to the national society, in order to fight discrimination
and prejudices against
indigenous societies and to promote the value of the country’s social and
cultural diversity.
- In
1998, national curricular references were published for indigenous education.
In addition to conventional fields of knowledge,
they covered issues such as
self-sustainability, indigenous ethics, cultural plurality, rights, struggles
and movements, land and
the preservation of biodiversity and preventive
education for health. The theme of cultural plurality refers to the ethnic and
cultural
traits of different social groups that coexist in Brazil, social and
economic inequities and prevailing discriminatory social relations,
thus
offering students the chance to know Brazil as a complex and multifaceted
country.
- In
1999, INEP did a special survey on the situation of indigenous education in
Brazil. Important findings included the share of indigenous
teachers - 76.5 per
cent of the total - enhancing the identity of indigenous schooling in Brazil.
More recent data in the 2001 school
census reveals the evolution of this area of
teaching, with a total enrolment in primary schools of 95,377.
Table 25
Number of indigenous schools, teachers, indigenous
teachers
and enrolment, Brazil and geographical regions, 1999
|
Indigenous
|
Teachers
|
Enrolment
|
|
|
Total
|
Indigenous Teachers
|
Total
|
Indians
|
Brazil
|
1 392
|
3 998
|
3 059
|
93 037
|
90 459
|
North
|
786
|
2 070
|
1 712
|
47 232
|
46 745
|
North-east
|
283
|
713
|
557
|
20 141
|
19 319
|
South-east
|
24
|
103
|
83
|
2 755
|
2 753
|
South
|
89
|
405
|
187
|
6 336
|
5 901
|
Central West
|
210
|
707
|
520
|
16 573
|
15 741
|
Source: Censo Escolar Indígena. MEC/INEP/SEEC.
3. Indigenous health
- The
objective of health care for indigenous peoples is to provide them with integral
access to health in accordance with the principles
and guidelines of the Single
Health System (SUS), in addition to considering these peoples’ social,
cultural, historical, geographic
and political diversity. The goal here is to
overcome factors that have made this population more vulnerable to the health
problems
facing Brazilians in general, recognizing the efficacy of traditional
indigenous medicine and these peoples’ right to live
in accordance with
the principles and values of their own
cultures.
- It
is difficult to characterize the health profile of Brazil’s indigenous
population as a whole, not only due to the complexity
of its diverse social,
cultural, environmental and epidemiological contexts, but also until very
recently due to the difficulty in
obtaining data from scientific literature or
from national health and demographic systems.
- As
part of the cultural, economic and environmental changes that occur in the
interaction with national society, indigenous children
are part of a context of
large families, precarious housing and sanitation, low formal schooling and poor
coverage and quality of
irregular health services.
- Diarrhoea
stands out as the main cause of illness and deaths of indigenous children,
followed by pneumonia, with these two diseases
accounting for 60 to 80 per cent
of admissions, according to reports. Acute diarrhoea, a major cause of death,
affects mainly children
younger than 5 years of age, revealing above all
disturbances in environmental and personal hygiene, as well as changes caused by
contact with the various fronts of expansion of the surrounding society.
- Malaria
may account for over half of children’s clinical visits and hospital
admissions in endemic
regions.[57] Despite widely
available BCG vaccines, tuberculosis is still a major endemic disease amongst
the country’s indigenous population,
particularly for the children of
certain ethnic
groups.[58]
- Studies
on nutrition among indigenous peoples in the 1980s and 1990s, focused on
indigenous children from different ethnic groups
in the Central West and the
Amazon regions, detected high levels of energy and protein malnutrition, as well
as anaemia.[59] The decrease
in the diversity of food as a result of social, cultural and economic
transformations and contact with national society,
including the disorganization
of food production, was observed in several groups, along with the disappearance
of farmable land and
of other natural resources (hunting, fishing) that are
fundamental for sustainable food security. This situation is even more serious
in areas where there are conflicts with invaders, and among urbanized indigenous
groups.
- Today
we observe some indigenous peoples acquiring an epidemiological profile
characterized by chronic non-contagious diseases, aggravated
by external causes
and violence. In the case of obesity and diabetes mellitus, we know that they
appear among adults due to childhood
eating habits and patterns of physical
activity. Amongst the Xavante people, for example, above-normal weight is
observed from the
first decade of life.
- Partly
due to changing food habits, including the consumption of refined sugar and
other industrialized products, we observe a significant
prevalence of cavities
among indigenous children, with a tendency to increase in the share of teeth
with cavities or that fall
out.[60]
- In
several ethnic groups, suicide and
alcoholism[61] are major
health issues for youth and adolescents. Amongst the Tikunas, for example, of a
total of 55 recorded suicides from 1990
to 1997, 56.3 per cent of them
involved youth between 12 to 18 years old. Amongst the Kaiowás, most
suicides are also observed
in this age
group.
- Despite
all these challenges and the complexities involved in dealing with them,
indigenous children have been the main beneficiaries
of actions and services
provided since 1999, when a health system aimed at the specific needs of
indigenous peoples was implemented.
- In
response to the guidelines of the First and Second National Conferences on the
health of indigenous peoples, held in 1986 and in
1993, the Government of Brazil
established a new policy for this sector, including the legal and administrative
initiatives of approving
new legislation and standards to guarantee their
sustainability.[62]
- Thus,
under the guidelines of the Second National Conference on Indigenous
Peoples’ Health, the system created by the new policy
is based on Special
Indigenous Sanitary Districts (DSEIs), conceived as spaces for health care under
the responsibility of the Federal
Health Manager, covering a specific
geographical area and considering demographic and ethno-cultural aspects, to
facilitate access
of indigenous clients to services at the three levels of
complexity. The 34 DSEIs are now fully operational as an installed network
of
structured services in the interior to resolve a range of problems through basic
health care inside the indigenous territories,
including conditions for
reference and counter-reference for medium- and high-complexity care, within the
Single Health System.
- A
specific health surveillance information system was created to organize these
services, the Indigenous Health Care Information System
(SIASI), which is now in
the process of implementation. It will allow for the online monitoring of the
health situation and evolution
of each individual, identified by community,
family, age group, ethnic group and also allowing for the generation of general
demographic
and epidemiological data. SIASI reports will be used to determine
priority actions and resource allocation and distribution, also
facilitating the
participation of indigenous communities in planning and evaluating these
actions.
- The
responsible health authority in each DSEI is a representative of the Federal
Administrator. To operationalize the districts’
actions, there is a
physical network of health clinics and support houses, equipped with
communication and transportation facilities,
in addition to multidisciplinary
teams made up of doctors, nurses, dentists, nurses’ aids and indigenous
health agents.
- To
assure that quality health care actually meets the needs expressed by indigenous
users, a special programme was launched to train
and certify indigenous health
agents, who will be the people most responsible for bringing users into the
system. To overcome barriers,
the official health agency, the National Health
Foundation, is giving special emphasis to training human resources for
intercultural
action and to receive ongoing technical training, based on actual
epidemiological needs detected in each DSEI. Over 2,000 indigenous
community
agents have been trained. The DSEIs also have access to occasional support from
other professionals, such as anthropologists,
educators, sanitary engineers and
others who provide technical and administrative support to the services.
- Social
participation and control by the users, through local councils and district
health councils, are fundamental for the operations
of the Special Indigenous
Sanitary Districts. Throughout the entire process, that participation is given
intense support in both
its formal and its informal expressions.
- The
formation and operation of these councils has all the institutional support
needed to guarantee training courses for council members
and budget resources
for their meetings. Local councils are entirely composed of indigenous
representatives chosen by their own
communities. The decision-making District
Council includes government representatives, service providers, district health
workers
and other social agents relevant to the system’s operation. As
provided by Law 8142/90, there is a parity representation of
indigenous users on
the District Council, equal to all the other members.
- The
DSEI work programme is established based on needs identified during a strategic
planning process. Basic health-care programmes
- with a major impact on the
health of the below-18 age group covered by the Convention on the Rights of the
Child - include immunization,
dental health, women’s health,
children’s health, control of contagious and parasitical diseases
(especially tuberculosis
and malaria), mental health, planning and sanitation
(drinking water and final disposal of sewage and garbage).
- There
are already concrete results from these initiatives. The actions and services
provided in three years of experience with the
DSEIs have had a major impact on
the child mortality coefficient, which was estimated at 96.8 deaths per 1,000
live births in 1999,
and in 2000 had fallen to 74.6 and then to 56.5 in
2001.
- The
major drop in cases of diarrhoea during this past year reflects the results of
healthteam efforts and the priority on children’s
health, along with
improvement in the reference mechanism and above all investments in basic
sanitation works carried out from 1998
to 2001, providing water supply systems
for 614 indigenous communities.
- To
fight undernutrition - a serious barrier to the full development of indigenous
children and for the reduction of child mortality,
particularly in the critical
age group of up to 5 years of age - special strategies were adopted to identify
vulnerable groups of
pregnant women, nursing mothers and below-5 children, in
cooperation with the General Coordination of Food and Nutrition Policy at
the
Ministry of Health. Amongst the measures already taken is the inclusion of
indigenous peoples as beneficiaries of a differentiated
programme to promote the
nutritional health of pregnant women, nursing mothers and children from 6 months
to 7 years of age, including
budgets for sustainable activities in the villages,
selected with the broad indigenous
population.
Notes
[*] Annexes can be consulted in the
files of the secretariat.
[1] In this respect, see
Flavia Piovesan and Wilson Ricardo Buquetti Pirotta, Os Direitos
Humanos das Crianças e dos Adolescentes no Direito Internacional e
no Direito Interno, in Flavia Piovesan, Temas de Direitos Humanos, 2nd
edition, São Paulo, ed. Max Limonad, 2002, p. 277-298.
[2] The funds are composed
of different revenues specified by law, which are earmarked for certain
objectives or services considered
to be priority.
[3] The analysis of federal
expenditure on children and adolescents is limited to the years 2000 and 2001
due to the methodological
alterations which occurred from 2000 onward, in the
functional-programme classification of the records containing the budgetary and
financial spending of the federal Government, which impedes any direct
comparison of disaggregated data from the 1993 to 1999 series
with those of the
subsequent years.
[4] Which here also
incorporates the areas of citizen’s rights and sports and leisure.
[5] IPEA, Evolution of
Labour and Income Indicators, site, www.ipea.gov.br, source
IBGE/PNAD 1999/2001.
[6] Barros, Ricardo Paes;
Henriques, Ricardo e Mendonça, Rosane, A Estabilidade
Inaceitável: Desigualdade e Pobreza no Brasil, Text para
discussão N. 800, IPEA, Rio de Janeiro, junho de 2001.
[7] IPEA, Evolution of
Labour and Income Indicators, (www.ipea.gov.br), source
IBGE/PNAD 1999/2001.
[8] Law No. 6.015, 21
December 1973.
[9] Law 10.169
establishes the form of remuneration for the civil registration (notaries) of
persons for acts performed free of charge.
[10] The
birth-registration posts are not branches of the notary publics (prohibited by
law) as they only carry out birth registrations and are barred from
providing other notary services.
[11] Institute of Applied
Economic Research.
[12] MEDEIROS, M. e R.
OSÓRIO. “Mudanças nas Famílias Brasileiras: a
composição dos arranjos
domiciliares entre 1978 e 1998”
Brasília: IPEA, 2002 (Discussion Text No. 886).
[13] Except for domestic
servants, children of domestic servants, aggregated persons and pensioners.
[14] MEDEIROS, M. e R.
OSÓRIO. “Mudanças nas Famílias Brasileiras: a
composição dos arranjos
domiciliares entre 1978 e 1998”
Brasília: IPEA, 2002 (Discussion Text No. 886).
[15] MEDEIROS, M. e R.
OSÓRIO. “Arranjos Domiciliares e Arranjos Nucleares no Brasil:
classificação e evolução
de 1977 a 1998”.
Brasília: IPEA, 2001 (Text for discussion No. 788).
[16] This
Convention was signed in The Hague, on 25 October 1980, and came into
international force on 1 December 1983 and, in Brazil,
on 1 January 2000.
[17] Adopted in the
plenary session of the Fourth Inter-American Specialized Conference on Private
International Law - IVCIDIP, Montevideo,
15 July 1989.
[18] Waiselfisz, Jacobo,
Map of Violence III, UNESCO, Brasilia 2002.
[19] Brazil, Organic Laws
of Health: N. 8.080 and N. 8.142, 19 September
and 28 December 1990, respectively.
[20] Brazil, Organic Laws
of Health: N. 8.080 and N. 8.142, 19 September
and 28 December 1990, respectively.
[21] Ministry of
Planning, Budget and Management. Four-year plan 1996-1999. Available at www.planejamento.gov.br.
[22] Ministry of
Planning, Budget and Management. Four-year plan 2000-2003. Available at www.planejamento.gov.br.
[23] Ministry of Health,
National Agency of Supplementary Health, ANS. Information available at www.ans.gov.br.
[24] IBGE. National
Survey. By Domicile Sampling - PNAD, Supplementary Health, 1998.
[25] Brazil, Law No.
9.656, 3 June 1998, and Provisional Measure No. 1.665, which forms the legal
framework for regulating private health
plans.
[26] Ministry of Health,
National Agency of Supplementary Health, ANS. Information available at www.ans.gov.br.
[27] Ministry of
Planning, Budget and Management. Four-year plan 2000-2003. Available at www.planejamento.gov.br.
[28] Brazilian Center of
Health Studies, CEBES, Health Issues for Debate. No. 21.
Rio de Janeiro, December 2000.
[29] Federal Republic of
Brazil, report on meeting the targets set by the World Children’s Summit,
September 2001.
[30] National Health
Foundation. Epidemiological Monitoring Guide. Brasilia, 1998.
[31] Brazil, Infant
Mortality Reduction Programme. 1995.
[32] Brazil, Law No.
8069, of 13 July 1990, chapter I, art. 10.
[33] Jelliffe, E.P.F. and
Jelliffe, D.B., ed. Programmes to Promote Breastfeeding, Oxford: Oxford
Medical Publ., 1988. pp. 359-365.
[34] Data furnished by
the Technical Area for Breastfeeding of the Public Policy Secretariat of the
Ministry of Health in September 2002.
[35] Ministry of Health.
Report of Activities of the National Immunization Programme,
Brasilia, 2002.
[36] Institute for
Applied Economic Research, State Secretariat for Human Rights and Ministry of
Foreign Relations. Food and nutritional
security and the human right to food in
Brazil. Brasilia, March 2002.
[37] Ministry of Health.
Administrative Rule No. 3916, 30 October 1998.
[38] Federal Republic of
Brazil. Law No. 9787 of 1999.
[39] Brazil, Law No. 9313
of 1996.
[40] Brazil, Law No.
10167 of 27 December of 2000.
[41] See www.pastoraldacrianca.org.br.
[42] Brazil is a
signatory to the agreements of the Conferences on Education for All (EFA) held
in Jomtien, 1990, and Dakar, 2000, and
became an active participant of the E-9
group, which convenes the nine most populous developing countries in the
world.
[43] IBGE. National
Sampling Survey of Households - PNAD 2001.
[44] The Projeto Alvorada
is a programme of integrated action in the health and education fields, with the
goal of reducing poverty and
regional inequalities in least developed parts of
the country. In 2000 to 2002, it reached 2,317 towns and spent R$ 13.2
billion.
[45] Although it is
defined as a single cycle, Brazilian primary education is made up of two
distinct stages that are clearly identifiable.
The first four years are
generally designed for students to develop basic competence in terms of language
(reading and the production
of texts) and mathematics (geometry, measurements,
numbers, operations, data presentation), which approaches the definition of
“primary
education” - primary - a classification agreed to
within the scope of UNESCO (CINE-97). The final grades (5-8) continue the
programmes taught through
grade 4, but generally at this stage more specialized
teachers are employed and the learning is organized differently, by subject,
which approaches the definition of lower secondary.
[46] With respect to
total government expenditures devoted to the education of children and
adolescents, it is worth noting that the
estimated expenditures on primary
education vary by study, since current statistical systems are not equipped to
supply this data
systematically.
A 1996 survey conducted by the Economic Foundation of Campinas (FECAMP) and
the Internal Group of Urban and Region Social Economics
(NESUR/UNICAMP) revealed
that in that year public and secondary education accounted for, respectively,
41.52 per cent and 4.92 per
cent of the public expenditures on
educational programmes. Another study produced by the Ministry of Education, in
2000, and based
on a sample of 307 municipalities, most with 100,000
inhabitants, revealed that of the total amount of resources channelled to
education,
which was on the order of R$ 17.8 billion, nearly 34 per cent, or R$
6.1 billion, pertained to early childhood education.
[47] The preliminary
results of the education census 2002 were published in the 29 August 2002
edition of the Government newspaper, through
Administrative Rule No. 2426,
of 28 August 2002.
[48] COELHO, Ricardo
Corrêa. O FUNDEF e a Nova Orientação das
Políticas Educacionais nos Anos 90: Princípios e
Resultados. In Seminário Internacional de Ciência
Política, da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS, Porto
Alegre, 3 to 5 October 2001.
[49] Lay teachers are
without the minimum required preparation.
[50] The training of
multiplier teachers was carried out through specialized courses and in
universities. The training of teachers is
performed in the NTEs, decentralized
technical and educational support structures that function as true centres of
excellence in
the preparation of teachers, technical support and the maintenance
of hardware and software installed in the schools.
[51] Law No. 10219, of 11
April 2001, established the National School Grant Programme.
[52] This flexibility in
curricula is made possible by virtue of the different levels of professional
training adopted in the country,
which take into account the diversity of the
young and adult workers served or of those who have not yet entered the job
market.
The education levels that make up professional education are divided
into basic, technical and technological:
- Basic:
This is the type of informal professional education with varying durations,
which aims to provide workers with skills that allow
them to be
re-professionalized, qualified and brought up to date for purposes of performing
the functions the working world requires,
in a manner consistent with the
technological complexity of the work, the degree of the student’s
technological knowledge and
level of education, for which no mandated curriculum
is prescribed;
- Technical:
This type of professional education is aimed at youths and adults that are
in, or have completed, secondary school, but whose title
presupposes
completion
of 11 years of basic education;
- Technological:
This type of professional education is aimed at providing youths and adults with
higher education training at both the undergraduate
and post-graduate
levels.
[53] The
recent reforms in higher education were permitted by Law No. 9131 of
December 1995.
[54] ENEM is an example
of the type of selection process that conforms with the new rules. The exam is
open to all candidates, from
students enrolled in any secondary education
institution in the country to those who have already concluded the secondary
level or
equivalent, at any time, pursuant to any of the alternatives provided
for by law.
[55] The inclusion of
students with special needs in professional education courses is prescribed by
Decree No. 2208/97.
[56] Administrative Rule
No. 652, of May 1997.
[57] R.V. Ianelli (2000)
in: Doenças Endêmicas: Abordagens Sociais, Culturais e
Comportamentais, Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Fiocruz, pp. 355-374; A.C. Linhares
(1992) Cad Saúde Pública 8:121-128.
[58] R.G. Baruzzi et al.
(2001) Cad Saúde Pública 17:407-412; A.L. Escobar et al.
(2001) Cad Saúde Pública 17:285-298.
[59] S.A. Gugelmin et al.
(2001) Jornal de Pediatria 77:17-22; S.J. Martins and
R.C. Menezes
(1994) Rev Saúde Pública 28:1-8; A. Mattos et al. (1999)
J Am Coll Nutr 18:8894; D.L. Ribas et al. (2001) Cad Saúde
Pública 17:323-331; R.V. Santos (1993) Cad Saúde
Pública 9 (supl. 1):46-57; R.V. Santos and C.E.A. Coimbra Jr.
(1991)
Hum Biol 63:795820.
[60] R. Arantes et al.
(2001) Cad Saúde Pública 17:375-384; J.M. Hirata et al.
(1977)
Rev Fac Odontol (S. Paulo) 15:189-198; C.J. Donnelly (1977)
Comm Dent Oral
Epidemiol 5:30-39; D.L. Rigonatto et al.
(2001) Rev Inst Med Trop S Paulo 43:93-98.
[61] R. Erthal (2001)
Cad Saúde Pública 17:299-311; A. Morgado (1991) Cad
Saúde Pública 7:585-598; Seminário sobre
Alcoolismo e DST/Aids entre os Povos Indígenas, Brasília,
Ministério da Saúde (2001).
[62] The major new legal
instruments were: (a) Provisional Measure 1911-8,
published 27 August 1999, and re-published as MP. 2216-37
on 31
August 2001, which transferred responsibilities for indigenous health to
the Ministry of Health; (b) Law 9836, dated 23 September
1999,
which included a specific chapter on indigenous health in Law 8080 (Single
Health System) to create the Indigenous Health Care
Subsystem; (c) Decree 3156,
dated 27 August 1999, and Portaria 1163/GM, dated 14
September 1999, on the provision of services and the responsibilities of the
Ministry of Health and of the National
Health Foundation; (d) the National
Policy for Indigenous Peoples’ Health Care, approved by Portaria
254 on 31 January 2002, which creates the general guidelines for
the subsystem.
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