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Juvenile Progatonism
Inesc constructed a page in its site exclusively devoted to topics related to the infantile-juvenile population. That is a space where news and information are prepared to or by children, adolescents and the youth. That is an outstanding fact in the institution’s work, since Inesc understands that the policies oriented to that population’s segment urge to be considered key elements in an including developmental model. That is not because the policies’ beneficiaries are considered the “future or the nation’s heirs”, but because they are the builders of tomorrow. And the constructing of that fairer future depends on the effective implementation of policies on education, health, culture, leisure, public and food security, job, sports, and others. The youth is not the basis of the nation, but the nation being developed. The 1988 Constitution was a significant step of Brazil since it considered children and adolescents as subjects of rights and a national priority. In 1990 the country took another step forwards when it approved the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent (ECA, in Portuguese). Now the effort remains to enforce the law. That is the challenge. That is one of the priority struggles of Inesc.
Brazil: A country of future?
Brazil
has never had so many children, adolescents and youngsters. According to the Pesquisa Nacional por
Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD, 2005)[1], of a
total of 184,388,620 inhabitants, 21% are children of 0 to 11 years old and 13%
are adolescents of 12 to 18 years old. In absolute terms, they are 63,115,169
Brazilians. That is to say that over 1/3 of the Brazilian population has up to
18 years old (see the graphic). Most of them live in urban areas at the great
regions of Brazil, with the following distribution: The Center West region has
the shortest infantile-juvenile population of 4,561,236, while the Northeast
and the Southeast report the highest infantile-juvenile population of
19,501,992 and 24,313,864, respectively. The North region has 6.86.797 children
and adolescents, and the figures for the South region are 8.551.280 individuals
in that age group.
Population of children of 0 to 11 years old and adolescents of 12 to 18 years old in comparison to the total population in Brazil - 2005
0
to 11 years old - 21%
12
to 18 years old - 13%
Above
18 years old - 66%
Source: PNAD, 2005.
And the place of residence and group age are not the only factors that characterize the profile of the Brazilian population: Sex, color, education, family income are other components that pose different challenges and demands to the public sphere and also to the civil society organizations working to strengthen democracy. The recognition of such diversity is essential to understand that significant share of the complex Brazilian social mosaic. After all, notable when it comes to children and adolescents, the first missing concept is the “standard”.
To an organization like Inesc that works to change the Brazilian society, enabling it to face imbalances and to grant and promote rights, the public policies oriented to children and adolescents are part of the democracy’s advance and consolidation. It is worth mentioning that the topic of children and adolescents was innovative in the processes of struggling for the country’s re-democratization in the 1980’s, being closely related to Inesc objectives. The social movement organized around the topic was responsible for very impacting changes in the Brazilian society. For example, the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent (ECA) succeeded in expanding the organized civil society’s participation in the public policies formulation, through the Councils of Rights and Custody Councils. Another achievement was to abolish the “assistentialist” and punitive character, assigning responsibilities to the public policies and providing a social and educational character to the adolescent who breaks the law.
Despite the advances, the society in general is yet to change its old views on the infantile-juvenile population. The social imbalances regarding gender and race have direct and harmful impacts on the living conditions of millions of children and adolescents in Brazil. Violence in the big cities, unemployment and the lack of potential short-term social changes have led the society to facing youth as synonymous to problems regarding the future of the country. The national media reinforces that view by associating the youngsters to news of violence. Therefore, it is of utmost urgency expanding the voices in this debate and pursuing solutions to face those problems faced by the Brazilian children, adolescents and youngsters, understanding that they are victims and not protagonists. The youth cannot be viewed as the responsible for the inexistence of perspectives to the future in Brazil. In opposite, they must be seen as part of the solution.
As part of that process, Inesc advocates for the enforcement of the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent through public policies capable of providing objective conditions to have the children’s and youths’ rights enforced. It is necessary to monitor the legislative actions to try to advance the legislation. Moreover, strengthening the organized civil society committed towards advocating for the rights is a must, strengthening the institutionalized participatory spaces. In other words, investing in the effective enforcement of infantile-juvenile public policies means creating the required conditions to break the cycle of imbalances reproduction, rescuing the society’s hope in the future of Brazil
The
children’s budget
In 2007 Inesc, supported by the KNH[2], developed a project of training in
public budget and social control with adolescents living in the cities of Sete
Lagoas and Itaobim, in the State of Minas Gerais, and with three public schools
in the Federal District. The initiative aims at bringing information on
participation, active citizenry, public budget and carry out communication
workshops to qualify the intervention of those groups among the Public Powers.
The activity is oriented to the adolescent audience and rests on public budget
workshops to teach notions of democracy, powers, citizenship, social
participation and communication. The project is developed with two specific
focuses: a) National work focusing on the advocacy of rights; and b) local work
to promote the adolescents’ and youth’s protagonism in the actions to advocate
for the rights.
Another initiative that Inesc developed to enforce the rights is the so-called Children’s and Adolescents’ Budget (OCA). According to the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent (ECA) placing priority to children and adolescents when allotting the budget is not only a legal obligation but a decisive step towards achieving the future development. Created by Inesc in partnership with Abrinq and Unicef, the OCA methodology analyzes the governmental actions and programs dealing with children and adolescents in the fields of: Education; health and social assistance; rights and citizenship. It is easy to understand. The Children’s Budget (OCA) is neither an official document nor an official concept. That is an initiative that displays and analyzes the public expense with children and adolescents. For example, Inesc calculates and monitors the federal OCA. Different segments of the society interested in knowing how much the government spends with the infantile-juvenile population can use the data.
Enforce
There are different ways of enforcing the rights. Either by denouncing or participating in discussions and debates, the citizen can exercise its citizenship. Some bodies should be included in the agenda of those who definitely want to participate in the building of a fairer Brazil. An easier way to know if your city rests on this kind of tool is calling the operators’ assistant (102). Following some ways in Brazil to advocate for the infantile-juvenile rights in Brazil:
Ø Disque 100
Created to hear denouncements of sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, the Disque 100 also receives denouncements of other kinds of violence and even of missing children. The denouncements are referred to the competent bodies in up to 24 hours. The service works from 8 to 22h, including during weekends and holidays. You just have to dial 100 on your phone. The call is free.
Ø Custody Councils
Depending on the case, they can request public services in health, education, social service, social security and security; refer to the Public Prosecutors’ Office and the Judiciary Power the cases of administrative or criminal violations against children and adolescents; request birth and death certificates and provide assistance to the local Executive power in the elaboration of a budgetary proposal to the childhood and adolescence.
Ø Councils of Advocacy to the Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights
The councils of rights are official spaces of social control on policies to the infantile-juvenile audience.
Ø Forums of Advocacy to the Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights
The Forums are spaces where the civil society inspects and monitors the policies oriented to those social segments.
Ø Childhood and Youth Public Prosecutors’ Offices
Bound to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, they are in charge of filing inquiries and civil and criminal proceedings against the State, groups or individuals who violate the children’s and adolescents’ rights.
Exploitation and abuse
A cruel expression of human rights violation with direct impact on the sexual health and reproductive health is the sexual exploitation of adolescents and youths in the Brazilian territory. A recent study of the federal government [3] disclosed that the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents is a common practice in Brazil that reaches big, medium and small cities all over the country, although the situation is even worse in some regions and cities of the country. The estimates point out that 9.1 million Brazilian children and adolescents, male and female, of 0 to 19 years old (15% of that population) are victims of sexual abuse.
The same study revealed that the sexual exploitation is found in 937 towns. Of them, 298 (31.8%) are in the Northeast Region; 241 (25.7%) in the Southeast; 162 (17.3%) in the South; 127 (13.6%) in the Center West and 109 (11.6%) in the North. The female adolescents are subject to violence that remain “invisible” because they are usually practices by a known person – father, stepfather, partner, neighbor, relative – and most of the times at their home (in 63% of the physical assaults that occurred at homes the victims were women (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios – PNAD, 1998)). The violence against girls and women, although being not exclusive to the domestic environment, are mostly committed at home. That kind of violence, in general, does not develop to death but can seriously damage their physical and mental health.
An important alliance
In the fight for the integral protection of children and adolescents, mainly to combat the abuse and sexual exploitation, the Parliamentarian Front of Defense of the Children’s and Adolescent’s Rights has played a core role. Established in 1993, the Front became more powerful in 2003 when several Representatives elected committed to rescue the work and place priority to the issue of abuse and sexual exploitation of children and adolescents.
But the work of those parliamentarians is marked not only by their efforts regarding the sexual violence. The Front carries out several actions before the government and the civil society, and is committed to complex debates, adopting positions favorable to the childhood and youth regarding the reduction of the criminal age, child work, urban violence, among others.
The experience was so impacting on the guarantee of infantile-juvenile rights that it is being reproduced at the state and municipal levels. In August 2005 the Legislative Power National Pact for Childhood and Adolescence was launched. Representatives from all the Brazilian states committed to create an interaction mechanism among the three Legislative Powers: Municipal, State and Federal. In October they launched the Rede Nacional de Frentes Parlamentares de Defesa da Criança e do Adolescente. The purpose is gathering parliamentarians from each state and municipality around that segment. Today, eight states have already created their Parliamentarian front.
7th National Conference on Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights
The core
discussions approached the National Plan of Family and Community Life that
recognize the family as a privileged place to the integral development of
children and adolescents. They also discussed the Sinase (the Brazilian System
of Social and Educational Services) that guarantees to the adolescents in
conflict with the law a network of social protection that is organized in
pedagogical actions and on the public budget oriented to that segment of the
population. Those are priority topics, because they are part of national plans
of services to the infantile-juvenile population in risk situation, which were
recently approved but have not yet been implemented. “The
conference served to discuss two new national policies approved by Conanda last
year: The Policy of Services to the Adolescent in Conflict with the Law and the
Family and Community Family. We are pursuing legitimacy to the entire system of
rights enforcement. The participation of
adolescent delegates increased in this conference, since they account for 15%
of the population”, stated the president of the National Council of Children’s
and Adolescents’ Rights (Conanda), Carmem Oliveira.
Additionally to the delegation of 255 adolescents, custody councilors, state and municipal rights councilors, representatives of governmental bodies and NGOs, attorneys, academics and delegates have also attended the conference. According to Benedito dos Santos, Conanda’s Executive Secretary, the deliberative nature was the major differential in this seventh edition in relation to the conferences held up to now. "The previous conferences were of indicative nature. They resulted in recommendations to the public power. This conference is of a deliberative character", she explains.
The way how boys and girls participated was another innovation of the meeting this year. In the previous editions, the youth participated only in side events, the so-called playful conferences. Now in 2007, they attended the same discussions as the adults, with the same power of voting. "There were 255 adolescent delegates participating. We have also sent special invitations to segments that had not been contemplated in the previous conferences, such as Indian, quilombola, disabled and homosexual children,” explains Benedito Santos. Carmen Oliveira, Conanda’s President, considers that a significant proportion, the highest one ever. “That discloses the importance of calling the adolescent to this protagonism. They are not future citizens, since they must be heard and participate in the formulation of public policies”, she stresses.
All of Brazil
The process for building the 7th National Conference of the Children’s Rights was enhanced in the first half of 2007. The event was preceded by the municipal conferences held in each city or group of towns in the same region, from February to June. Then, each state promoted its conference from July 1 to September 30. The delegates who would participate in the National Conference were selected at local and regional level.
In total, 3,186 preparatory conferences were held in Brazil. Of them, 2,754 were municipal conferences, 405 regional ones and 27 at state and the Federal District’s level. About 50% of the towns held conferences. Amapá, Roraima and Paraná held municipal conferences in all of their towns. The state and the Federal District’s conferences reached an estimated audience of 13.606 participants. The best represented segment in the state conferences was the rights councilors, with 3.141 participants; followed by the custody councilors, with 2,058 representatives. The states with higher absolute number of participants in the state conference were: Sao Paulo (1,366 participants), Bahia (1,325) and Piaui (1,151).
Agenda to 2008
Another result of the VIII National Conference of the Children’s and Adolescent’s Rights is the potential implementation in 2008 of the National System of Social and Educational Services (Sinase). Approved by Conanda in 2006 and submitted to the Executive Power in December of that year, it is a set of guidelines that changes the current model how the adolescents in conflict with the law are approached. The idea here is to reduce the number of confinement in units of freedom privation and expand the measures in the open system, delivering services to the community, and the assisted freedom, thus complying with the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent (ECA). The restructuring of the confinement units to have them complying with the pedagogical role of re-socializing the youth is also foreseen in the Sinase. The Bill 1627/2007 is being analyzed by the Legislative Power and aims at governing the Sinase.
“The shelters and confinement units to children and adolescents should be used in exceptional circumstances and not as the entry door to the service. We are proposing alternatives to the shelters and units of confinement to build a basic service network, where the child and the adolescent are close to the community, living in their families”, said Conanda’s President, Carmen Oliveira.
Like the adolescents in conflict with the law, the boys and girls in
shelters – about 80 thousand in the country – have also become the focus of
attention when Conanda and the National Council of Social Assistance (CNAS)
approved, in December 2006, the National Plan of Promotion, Protection and
Defense of the Children’s and Adolescents’ Right to Living in Family and in the
Community. The document sets out actions to recover the family environment to
avoid separating the child from his/her parents in situations such as poverty
or violence, for example. (read more about it in “Shelters: who live
in there?”).
The budget to programs of care to children was outstanding in the 7th Conference and the debate is expected to expand along 2008. The fight is for guaranteeing the allotment of resources to implement the recently created policies and the ongoing ones (at the municipal, state and federal scopes). Another fight is the operationalization of the Fund for the Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights that aims at increasing the resources allotted to the area by allowing individuals and corporations to donate money and deduct the amount from their Income Tax.
Shelters: Who live in there?
The reality of the shelters in Brazil was depicted in the study “The right to family and community life: The children’s and adolescents’ shelters in Brazil”, prepared in 2005 by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea) in partnership with the National Council of the Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights (Conanda), supported by the Sub-Secretariat of Promotion of the Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights, of the Special Secretariat of Human Rights.
Based on the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent’s principles, the study analyzed the services rendered in the shelters, including the different ways of organization and working, and the actions developed by the programs of shelters to children and adolescents under their custody.
The research worked with a sampling of 589 shelters in Brazil that housed about
20 thousand children and adolescents.
Most of the children living in shelters are Afro-descendant from poor
families. The main reason for the
infantile-juvenile population surveyed to live in shelters is the lack of
material sources (24.1%), followed by the abandonment of their parents or tutors
(18.8%).
In opposition to the common sense that most of the children living in shelters
are orphans, the research revealed that more than 80% of the children and
adolescents in shelters have family, and 58% of them keep contact with their
families. Those data reinforce the importance of having shelters qualified to
understand the reality experienced by the most vulnerable families and to
pursue conditions that enable the children’s familiar re-insertion.
What does Conanda serve for?
The National Council of the Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights (Conanda) is established in Law # 8069, of July 13, 1990, i.e., the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent. The Council serves to approve and control the federal policy of promotion and defense of the children’s and adolescents’ rights. Conanda was officially established in October 12, 1991 and is bound to the Special Secretariat of Human Rights, of the Presidency of the Republic. In what regards its structure, Conanda is a board of equalitarian composition, integrated by 14 representatives of the federal government and 14 representatives of non-governmental entities dealing with the promotion, advocacy and guarantee of the children’s and adolescents’ rights. It works in monthly ordinary assemblies, supported by the Thematic Commissions and the Work Group.
Conanda is in charge of:
I
– Outline the rules to the National Policy of Care to the Children’s and
Adolescents’ rights, monitoring the execution actions foreseen in the Statute
of the Child and the Adolescent;
II – Pursue the integration and articulation with the State’s, the Federal
District’s and Municipalities’ Councils of Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights,
Custody Councils, the different Sectoral Councils, institutions at the state,
Federal District and municipal level, and non-governmental entities;
III – Assess the national, state, district and municipal policies of care to
the children’s and adolescents’ rights, and the work of the State’s, Federal
District’s and Municipalities’ Councils of Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights,
in the execution of those policies;
IV – Promote and support educational campaigns on the children’s and
adolescents’ rights, pointing out the measures to be adopted in the event of
abuse or violation of those rights;
V – Foster, support and promote the maintenance of databases to allow for the
permanent flow of information on the children’s and adolescents’ status;
VI – Monitor the elaboration of the budgetary proposal and the Federal
Government’s budgetary execution, pointing out the changes required to achieve
the objectives of the policy formulated to promote and advocate for the
children’s and adolescents’ rights;
VII – Manage the National Forum to the Children and the Adolescent (FNCA).
[1] The research is carried out on an annual basis by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística - IBGE), using a sampling-based methodology and the results of each edition are disseminated on the second half of the following year.
[2] Kindernothilfe – KNH: A Germany development agency that focus on improving the living conditions of children and adolescents living in the outskirt regions.
[3] Estudo Analítico do Enfrentamento da Exploração Sexual Comercial de Crianças e Adolescentes no Brasil (1996-2004). Brasil: Secretaria Especial de Direitos Humanos: Grupo Violes da Universidade de Brasília, 2005.
