Children and Adolescents
As an integral part of many groups of human rights defenders, children and adolescents are systematically exposed to all forms of abuse and violence, but it is possible to distinguish a structural system of oppression aimed exclusively at them. This structural violence has its greatest expressions in child labor, the existence of abandoned children in street situations or even in closed institutions.
In the domestic sphere, children and adolescents make up the group with the highest number of complaints in the National Human Rights Defenders. In 2016, Disque Derechos Humanos received 77,290 links with reports of negligence and psychological, physical and sexual violence against children and adolescents.
The Child and Adolescent Statute, published in 1990, is an important instrument in recognizing the protagonism of these actresses and actors, but in practice there are still many violations of the ECA, whose application (or lack thereof) has failed to overcome the forms of Violence that undermine the growth and development of Brazilian children and adolescents.
The participation of children and adolescents in social movements, especially those organized through family nuclei such as urban occupations and landless camps, has served as a stimulus for resistance and guaranteed some political achievements supported by the protection due to these subjects. However, police and state violence have not spared young militants and children from persecution, criminalization and extermination, especially of black and outlying children and adolescents.
