Official Says Brazil Is Working Hard to Ensure Rights of Children

Brazil has been working very hard to surmount the seemingly insurmountable -- child poverty.

At the heart of Brazilian authorities' efforts is a guarantee on the social rights of the child, to ensure that hereditary social inequality bears down less and less upon children, Arlete Sampaio, executive secretary of the Brazilian ministry in charge of social development and fight against hunger, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Though, according to UNICEF, 45 percent of Brazilian children (under 17 years of age) live in poverty and one out of eight of all Brazilian children live on the streets, the country has so far managed, through special programs, to feed three meals a day to 93percent of Brazilian children and to enroll 80 percent of children aged between four and six in nurseries, said Sampaio

However, despite major progress compared with a decade ago, the authorities still face many challenges.

Official figures show half of Brazil's families live off average monthly earnings of 415 reais (US$240) while the country's minimum wage per month is set at 465 reais for 2009.

Sampaio explained that government efforts had been centered on children, with programs such as the Bolsa Familia.

The program, initiated by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, provides a minimum allowance to families that guarantee food, schooling and health care for their children.

The benefits of the Bolsa Familia program have reached 12.4 million poor families, comprising 5.6 million children aged 0-6, 14 million children aged 7-15 and 1.2 million children aged 16-17.

"The children in these beneficiary families are required to meet the requirement of 80-percent school attendance and health care," said Sampaio.

According to Sampaio, Brazil instituted the country's child statute in 1990 to better implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights for children.

The ministry in charge of social development and fight against hunger has since been operating in full accordance with the statute. And its operations have been supervised by a reference center for social assistance.

The government, among other things, has been incorporating measures such as social inclusion and self-reliance to improve the living standards of children in particular.

Sampaio said the required 80-percent school attendance was aimed at breaking the transitional link of poverty from one generation to another.

Brazil has also implemented the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (the Beijing Rules) and UN Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (the Riyadh Guidelines), Sampaio added.

The authorities have long pinpointed the cause of child malnutrition and illiteracy in the country.

Official statistics show the school attendance rate is 99 percent among families earning three times of the per-capita minimum wage whereas the rate drops to 77 percent among families earning just half of the per-capita minimum wage.

"The first challenge is for us to universalize primary education, the second is to relieve all children of child labor, and the third is to end the sexual exploitation of children," said Sampaio.

The fight against child labor was integrated into the country's Bolsa Familia program, which has since removed more than 870,000 children from the streets and into various social and educational activities.

Between 2007 and 2008, child laborers in the age group of 5-13 dropped from 1.2 million to 993,000, a 19-percent decrease for this period alone.

Alongside the UN Millennium Development Goals, Brazil also has its own social development targets with deadlines set for 2015, of which six directly target children.

Three years ago, Brazil succeeded in achieving the first goal of halving the number of people living with per-capita income below one dollar a day, Sampaio said.

The country is now almost achieving the goals of halving child mortality and of providing universal basic education to all children.

"In short, I think the Brazilian government has a set of integrated policies that are making a difference in children's lives, but we know there is still much more to be done," Sampaio said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2009)