Campaigners highlight child deaths at UN
-27/04/05
Evidence from Christian human rights group the Jubilee Campaign about the killing of street children in Brasil has been used in a submission to the UN Human Rightís Commission in Geneva.
Mina Bahgat, one of Jubilee Campaignís US lawyers, made the intervention during the 61st Session of the UN Commission for Human Rights.
Her speech was made under agenda item 13 of the Rights of a Child in which she cited some of the 500 cases of children and young people killed in Brazil, which have been recorded on the campaign group’s website Stop Killing Children.com since November, 2004.
During her speech, Mina Bahgat asserted that four to five children are being killed every day in Brazil, according to the National Movement for Street children.
Jubilee Campaignís Mina Bahgat added; “The main causes of the increased violence against children are two-fold. First, is the meteoric rise in the availability of small arms ñ one social worker said that it was easier for a child to get a gun than a bus pass. Second, Brazil faces a runaway drug trade which utilizes children on the front line to buy, sell and deliver drugs.”
Jubilee Campaign asked the Commission to recommend that Brazil implement the following policy changes to curb the death toll:
1. Challenge the inherent and systematic corruption of police through the re-education of police officers which should establish a system of checks and balances and institute a code of best practice.
2. Ensure that the murder of every child and young person be reported and the collection of data centrally published and regularly reviewed to bring responsible parties to justice.
3. Improve the quality of schools to provide children in the favelas the opportunity to climb out of abject poverty and destitution. Teachers should be better trained and provided with more resources.
4. Institute a national drugs awareness program to combat the destructive drug culture. Provide a tangible alternative including social, cultural, political, and religious initiatives which should be developed for children to escape the inevitable lure of the easy money of the drug business.
Following a visit to Brazil last year, Jubilee Campaign is calling on the President to take specific action to curb the loss of life.
This is the latest in a series of steps that Jubilee Campaign has undertaken since the early 1990s when they were one of the first UK groups to highlight the killing of children in Brazil by police death squads.
The new website aims to bring much greater awareness about the violence currently meted out to children and young people who have no voice.