Human Trafficking in [Brazil] [other countries]Street Children in [Brazil Child Prostitution in [Brazil] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first ten years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2009
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CAUTION: The following links and accompanying text have been culled
from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Welcome
to Brazil, a Paradise of Impunity for All Kinds of Criminals VIOLENCE
AGAINST CHILDREN - "Nowhere does the gap separating rhetoric and reality
emerge more starkly than in the contrast between the guarantees afforded
children by the 1988 Constitution and the cold-blooded assassination of boys
and girls who live on city streets. If there is anything that most vividly
symbolizes the perversity of the contemporary wave of violence in Brazil, it
is the way it has victimized children." There are now seven million
abandoned children living on the streets of Brazilian cities. Crimes against
these children are characterized by extreme brutality and include torture and
dismemberment. Often their bodies are left out on the streets "to serve
as example for others." Those who manage to survive
another day are left worrying about where their next meal will come from and
finding a safe place to sleep. A social worker has suggested that these
children are subject to a process of "natural selection," in which
only the strong survive to adulthood and the weak die early from disease and
violence. Street children, utterly deprived
of their most basic needs, often become victims of death squads or other
forms of violence born of their precarious situation. Since they often resort
to theft to survive, some people have paid death squads to "clean up the
streets" and get rid of such an "inconvenience." Unfortunately, many Brazilians
believe that the extra-legal killing of street children is a legitimate
measure to combat criminality and violence, because they feel revolted with
the unrealistic legal "solutions" provided by the state. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candel%C3%A1ria_massacre
THE MASSACRE - According to survivors, the
morning of the day before the massacre, a young group of children threw
stones at police cars. Some of policemen allegedly told them, "don't
worry, we will get you soon!" As children from the Candelária
church were usually given warnings such as these by policemen, the young
perpetrators left without worrying too much about the threat. At midnight, a few cars came to a
halt in front of the Candelária church. Next,
gunfire shots were heard. The children tried to cover up, but eight of them
were shot to death, with several others wounded. One of the children present
that night, Sandro Rosa do Nascimento,
would later commit one of Brazil's most infamous crimes. The international community
severely condemned the attack, and many in Brazil asked for the prosecution
of those who shot the Candelária church children. ***
ARCHIVES *** A Video Playlist for Brazil - There are an increasing number of street
children videos now available that constitute a supplementary source of information
for researchers, especially for those who may not have experienced the
reality of street children. [Playlist
developed by Brian Horne of almudo.com & streetkidnews.blogsome.com] UNICEF - The
Big Picture U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In urban areas, common activities for children include shining
shoes, street peddling, begging, and working in restaurants, construction,
and transportation. Many children and
adolescents are employed as domestic servants, and others work as trash pickers,
drug traffickers, and prostitutes. In
2001, 11.9 percent of working children ages 5 to 15 years were
not attending school. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 ARBITRARY
AND UNLAWFUL DEPRIVATION OF LIFE - Death squads with links to law enforcement officials
carried out many killings, in some cases with police participation. The National
Human Rights Secretary stated that death squads operated in 15 states.
Credible, locally-based human rights groups reported the existence of
organized death squads linked to police forces that targeted suspected
criminals and persons considered "undesirable"--such as street children--in almost all states
and the CHILDREN – A July study by the Institute
of Applied Economic Policy (IPEA) reported that more than 100 thousand
children and adolescents were living in public shelters. The leading causes
for displaced children were: poverty (24 percent), abandonment (19 percent),
domestic violence (12 percent), and drug abuse by parents or guardians (11
percent). The IPEA report also revealed that in more than half of the cases,
children were living in shelters due to the parent's belief that the child
would receive better care there than at home. In September the NGO Travessia reported that approximately 350 children lived
on The city of Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2004 [64] The Committee expresses its
grave concern at the significant number of street children and the
vulnerability of these children to extrajudicial killings, various forms of
violence, including torture, sexual abuse and exploitation, and at the lack
of a systematic and comprehensive strategy to address the situation and
protect these children, and the very poor registration of missing children by
the police. Welcome
to Brazil, a Paradise of Impunity for All Kinds of Criminals VIOLENCE
AGAINST CHILDREN - "Nowhere does the gap separating rhetoric and reality
emerge more starkly than in the contrast between the guarantees afforded
children by the 1988 Constitution and the cold-blooded assassination of boys
and girls who live on city streets. If there is anything that most vividly
symbolizes the perversity of the contemporary wave of violence in Brazil, it
is the way it has victimized children." There are now seven million
abandoned children living on the streets of Brazilian cities. Crimes against
these children are characterized by extreme brutality and include torture and
dismemberment. Often their bodies are left out on the streets "to serve
as example for others." Those who manage to survive another
day are left worrying about where their next meal will come from and finding
a safe place to sleep. A social worker has suggested that these children are
subject to a process of "natural selection," in which only the
strong survive to adulthood and the weak die early from disease and violence. Street children, utterly deprived
of their most basic needs, often become victims of death squads or other
forms of violence born of their precarious situation. Since they often resort
to theft to survive, some people have paid death squads to "clean up the
streets" and get rid of such an "inconvenience." Unfortunately, many Brazilians
believe that the extra-legal killing of street children is a legitimate
measure to combat criminality and violence, because they feel revolted with
the unrealistic legal "solutions" provided by the state. Human Rights Watch - Street Children www.hrw.org/children/street.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
While street children receive national and international public attention, that attention has been focused largely on the social, economic and health problems of the children -- poverty, lack of education, AIDS, prostitution, and substance abuse. With the exception of the massive killings of street children in Brazil and Colombia, often by police, which Human Rights Watch reported in 1994, very little attention has been paid to the constant police violence and abuse from which many children suffer. This often neglected side of street children's lives has been a focus of Human Rights Watch's research and action In several countries where we have worked, notably Brazil, Bulgaria, and Sudan, the racial, ethnic, or religious identification of street children plays a significant role in their treatment. The disturbing notion of "social-cleansing" is applied to street children even when they are not distinguished as members of a particular racial, ethnic, or religious group. Branded as "anti-social," or demonstrating "anti-social behavior," street children are viewed with suspicion and fear by many who would simply like to see street children disappear. Brutal end
for woman who devoted life to helping children from Rio's violent slums Appalled by reports of death
squads exterminating street children in the beachside city, she set her
sights on the favelas of Rio. Yet this week, after
nearly a decade dedicated to the children of South America, she met the most
ghoulish end imaginable - hacked to death with kitchen knives at her
Copacabana home alongside her husband and another colleague, apparently by
one of the street children she had tried to save. Global peace a growing priority among diverse Christian groups According to Bostian,
U.S. director of Hope Unlimited, only 18 percent of Brazil's street children
are biological orphans. The vast majority are children who have run away from
home to escape violent or neglectful parents.
Once the runaways hit the streets, however, they find that option
isn't much safer -- in fact, for many it is brutal and deadly. The average
lifespan for a Brazilian street child is less than four years, with most
meeting a violent end. In 2006, the United Nations reported that 16 children
are reported murdered every day in Brazil. Many more murders go unreported. NBC Nightly News to feature American Baptist ministry “The situation with street kids in Brazil
has not gotten a lot of attention,” Bostian said.
“Only 18 percent of these kids are biological orphans. The rest are social
orphans. They think they would be better off on their own away from their
home. Most die from violence in the streets.” Many of the children suffer from
poor health and malnutrition. Because of rape and forced child prostitution,
they are often exposed to HIV/AIDS. According to the Brazilian Center for
Children and Adolescents, Brazil has more than 800,000 child prostitutes.
Drugs also run rampant among the children, who sniff glue to escape reality. The problem with street children
became so bad in the late 1980s that Brazil had “large-scale, deliberate,
systematic killing of street children by death squads who enjoyed a high
degree of impunity for their actions,” according to the Hope Unlimited
website. “Street execution" was once listed by Amnesty International as
the third leading cause of death for Brazilian children. T-shirt
message suitable for framing After a few minutes of
conversation, he brought me to the bus shelter he and several other street
children called home. They were very anxious that others might discover their
hideout. They said the police might beat them, or worse. At night, they
covered themselves with cardboard and newspapers to stay warm. The children told me stories of
how they had ended up on the streets. Some had been sent away when their
families' food supplies ran out. Others had fled homes where they were
physically or sexually abused. Each one had a unique, heart-wrenching story. Most of these children had only a
pair of shorts and a T-shirt. They were penniless and malnourished. All were
barefoot. Most didn't even know their own ages, but several must have been as
young as 8. Violence and hunger were an everyday part of their lives. Brazilian activist says more money needed to help street
children This article has been archived by
World Street Children News and may possibly still be accessible [here] Yvonne Bezerra
de Mello was changed by witnessing the police massacre of eight street
children in 1993. That’s when she started alternative schools to help educate
children who have been traumatized by life under control of drug lords that
rule Rio. 'Zero Tolerance'
comes to Brazil His stepmother beat him, so Aluizio Pereira fled for the streets. Three years later, the scrawny 13-year-old
still sleeps on the sidewalk along Ipanema Beach,
begging for handouts in the shadows of the luxury hotels that dominate the
upscale neighborhood. But to some, Aluizio
is more than just a reminder of a grim social reality. In this divided city,
he represents a threat to public security and - thanks to former www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~edges/online/issue27/p20.htm [page 189] The largest category consists of children living in absolute poverty. These children grow up in an extremely underprivileged social environment. They lack the most elemental means to meet basic needs and usually receive hardly any or no parental care, because their mothers (who are often the only parent) are forced to seek some means of subsistence. In the absence of day-care facilities, the children, even toddlers, are left on their own. This exposes them to a high risk of starting an early “career” on the street. Brazil: Tragedy Of
Street Children Abused, confused, lonely and
abandoned, children take to the streets to find a safe refuge from abuse by
parents or stepparents. In a life without hope from the moment they are born,
they soon find that they have nowhere to go, no one to turn to and no life to
live. An estimated 8-10 million children
make their living on the streets in www.hrw.org/en/node/11883/section/4 BEATINGS BY GUARDS - We heard reports of physical
abuse by guards in all detention centers we visited. “The guards are very
violent,” said a volunteer with a nongovernmental organization that works
with detained youths. The accounts of youths themselves
were not the only indication we had of abuse. In some cases, the youths we
interviewed showed us cuts and bruises that were consistent with their
descriptions of beatings. And when Human Rights Watch talked to a group of
parents of detained children, they described seeing visible signs of abuse
while visiting their children. For example, one parent spoke of a visit to
Santo Expedito in May 2003: … The guards had gone in and hit everybody, beat them up. The boys were
bruised, with broken arms, broken legs, covered with blood. I saw this. Fifteen
boys called me over to look inside and see how they were. I saw them inside a
bathroom. They lifted their shirts to show me the injuries. FACTS ABOUT POVERTY - Sáo
Paulo has more people than New York City.
There are 17 million kids, ages 10-14.
Children decide to live on the street, because home life is not good,
they need to find other ways to get food, or they are orphans. Before
living in the streets, they existed in favellas,
the most impoverished of slums, dug in garbage dumps for food, and
encountered family violence because of the stress of poverty. Working With The Street Children Of Brazil www.studentbmj.com/issues/01/09/life/349.php At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Offering an alternative social network
and activities for children to replace their existing lives on the street or
their dependence on drugs or both, while dealing with any underlying
emotional issues, and providing some hope of a brighter future. www.una-uk.org/Environment/brazilschildren.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Grupa Ruas e Praças (GRP) is a civil society organisation
founded in the 1987 by a group of street educators. The organisation
now has a team of 12, including psychologists, art educators, social workers,
and people who have lived on the streets themselves. GRP staff visit each
site where children are regularly found on at least a weekly basis. Once they
have gained the confidence of the children, they invite them to visit a safe
farm owned by GRP where the children can benefit from comfort, peace and
regular meals. If the visit goes well, the children are invited to spend
longer at the farm and become part of a more structured programme
before moving on to the next stage. At
Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil Included in his interesting and
sometimes provocative assertions is his calculation that the number of street
children in Brazil is probably about 39,000 rather than the substantially
higher figures reported elsewhere -- 25 to 30 million (UNICEF), 2 to 3
million (Time and The New Yorker) and 7 million, the figure most frequently
used. Brazil: An Endangered
Generation “The so-called street boy is an
island surrounded by omissions on every side. All the basic public policies
have already failed to help him," says Antônio
Carlos Gomes da Costa in his book 'Brazil Urgent
Child'. This book was published over a
decade ago but not much has changed since then. Street Children and Circulation: A Case Study in São Paulo, Brazil www.clas.berkeley.edu/Events/fall2001/11-29-01-gregori/index.html These families continually break
up and regroup in order to meet minimum, short-term needs, sending a child to
live with a relative or neighbor, or seeking work wherever possible. Gregori terms this constant movement
"circulation," and says that the one constant in these children’s
lives is instability. Street children in Brazil Interview with Spiros Tzelepis, author of Street Children In Brazil [Question] Which are the causes
for this phenomenon? What happens with the families of these
children? [Answer] There are multiple causes for this phenomenon. The
severe level of unemployment, the neo-liberal government policies, the
domestic violence, the high levels of illiteracy of population, poverty are
among them. These families generally are misadjusted, with social and
psychiatric problems, such as alcoholism, violence and other mental
disturbances. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candel%C3%A1ria_massacre
THE MASSACRE - According to survivors, the
morning of the day before the massacre, a young group of children threw
stones at police cars. Some of policemen allegedly told them, "don't
worry, we will get you soon!" As children from the Candelária
church were usually given warnings such as these by policemen, the young
perpetrators left without worrying too much about the threat. At midnight, a few cars came to a
halt in front of the Candelária church. Next,
gunfire shots were heard. The children tried to cover up, but eight of them
were shot to death, with several others wounded. One of the children present
that night, Sandro Rosa do Nascimento,
would later commit one of Brazil's most infamous crimes. The international community
severely condemned the attack, and many in Brazil asked for the prosecution
of those who shot the Candelária church children. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin,
"Street Children - |
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