Brazil:
An Endangered Generation
Marlinelza B de Oliveira
Women's Feature Service
The Brazilian youth live with the dubious distinction of being poor in a rich country. This is also a generation under constant threat because it is exposed to a range of hostile factors ranging from crime to unemployment. Add to this the threat of AIDS and drug abuse and there is a generation growing up in constant danger.
Rio de Janeiro, (Brazil) -- On paper the picture looks impressive. According to a census prepared by the Brazilian Institute of National Statistics and Geography (IBGE) last year, with a population of 170 million, Brazil, the fifth most populous country in the world, has shown some positive social indicators over the last decade.
There has also been the consolidation of democracy in the country. The opening up of the economy and the stabilisation of its currency are some of the other positive indicators making Brazil the ninth economy of the world.
But this is as far as the good news lasts. The country has no concrete economic, social and political system that can address the most important segment of any country's population - the youth. According to the census, there are 32 million young people between 15 and 24 years of age in the country.
And it has never been so risky to be young in Brazil. This young generation is exposed to a range of hostile factors ranging from unemployment to crime. Add to this high rates of school drop-outs, unemployment which though decreasing is still very high, and discovering sexuality without the necessary precautions which has led to AIDS. Since 1982, 18,000 cases of AIDS have been diagnosed amongst the youth in Brazil.
And this is not all. The proportion of deaths due to violent causes (homicides, suicides and car accidents) among boys between 15 to 19 years increased from 63 per cent in 1992, to 69 per cent in 1998. "The mortality rate from violent causes among young was never as high as now," says demographer Elza Berquó, President of the National Commission of Population and Development (CNPD). For instance, a study conducted by Maria Helena de Mello Jorge of the department of epidemiology in the University of São Paulo, shows that seven out of ten youngsters who die are victims of violence. In the last five years almost 60,000 youth have lost their lives in fights and assaults. Incidentally, this number is equivalent to the total number of American soldiers who died during ten years of the Vietnam War.
According to estimates three youth are murdered every two hours in the country. "It is extremely easy to get firearms in Brazil. This is one of the most important reasons for the increase in violence amongst its youth," says criminal judge Luiz Flávio Gomes, who is also the author of the book 'Organised Crime'. To make matters worse, violence amongst the youth which was till recently restricted only to the upper middle class in urban Brazil has now moved down to the middle class in semi-urban and rural areas.
One of the significant reasons for the increase in young violence is drug abuse. Any adolescent will tell you where to find a supplier of drugs close to either your home or your school. Moreover, the high price of cocaine has encouraged the use of crack, which is 20 times cheaper, but much more addictive. Research conducted in 16 cities by teacher Tania Zagury shows that 57.7 per cent of the youth first experimented with drugs when they were less than 14 years old. Six out of 10 teenagers use or have already used some kind of illegal drugs.
These trends amongst the youth are affecting the very basis of Brazilian society as it is leading to an imbalance in the sex ratio. "The percentage of women in the country is increasing because of the increasing number of young boys becoming victims of violence," says Alicia Bercovich, coordinator of the census.
And this is more true of the urban areas where women represent 50.8 per cent of the 2.6 million population. These women are having children earlier with the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimating that one million Brazilian girls between 15 and 19
years become mothers annually, half of them unintentionally.
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In the last five years almost 60,000 youth have lost their lives in fights and assaults - this number is equivalent to the total number of American soldiers who died during ten years of the Vietnam War.
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Not that this has anything to do with the lack of information about safe sex. In fact, girls not only have access to a variety of information sources on the subject, they are also more educated and hence better informed than the boys. For instance, 95 per cent of the girls are educated as against 90 per cent boys who also leave studies earlier to work and earn.
A part of the reason for this state of affairs is that there are no special health programmes in the country targeted at its young population. There is also no data about the patterns of their health/disease or about the use that they make of the health services. Moreover, since the 1960s, teachers and doctors have been trying to introduce sex education in schools but without success.
Needless to say, precocious maternity brings serious risks to both the young mothers and their babies and it is directly linked to high maternal mortality. A large number of girls also resort to illegal abortions and many die as a consequence of complications during the procedure. It is estimated that 32 out of every 1,000 women who undergo abortions in the country are between 15 and 19 years of age.
The situation is worse for those children and adolescents who do not belong to sufficiently rich families. For instance, a 1999 UNICEF report shows that there are 21 million Brazilian children and adolescents living in families whose monthly per capita income is less than or equal to half of the minimum wages. "It is obvious that Brazil has only progressed over the last two to three years," says Reiko Niimi, UNICEF's representative in Brazil, "But we cannot have hungry children in such a rich country."
The only course of action open to these children who cannot attend schools because of the high costs involved is to work in the informal market at a young age. A number of these children live on the streets, some abandoned by their parents while others run away from home to avoid ill treatment and hunger. These children by and large eke out a living shining shoes, watching or washing cars, selling cigarettes or chewing gum and doing odd jobs. Not only do they suffer from ailments like diarrhoea, they are also malnourished.
From such dismal living conditions, moving to the world of drugs and criminal activities is just a small step away. And if attendance centres for youth offenders do not succeed in reintegrating these children in society, they end up becoming more violent and moving deeper into the drug menace. "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.
And till these issues are addressed the Brazilian youth will have to continue to live with the dubious distinction of being poor in a rich country.
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