06/29/2024 – 17:11
The outline of the family holding hands, the colorful balloon with the children, and the pinwheel. On the walls and fences in the administrative region of Cruzeiro (DF), the guardianship counselor Viviane Dourado, 49, decided to translate ideals with paint and a brush. As a designer and social educator, she understands that art can be a strategy for approaching families to combat violence against children.
Viviane remembers her childhood days, when she received punishments, with unnecessary pinches and slaps. It is also the colors of the past that inspired her to be a solo mother, educator and professional in the fight against this behavior.
When Viviane was growing up, there was no legislation like today. In fact, on the 26th, the Menino Bernardo Law, also known as the “Spanking Law” (Law 13.010/2014), completed a decade. This rule, in addition to the Child and Adolescent Statute, guarantees the right to an education without the use of physical punishment or cruel treatment.
The law was named this way to remember the death of the boy Bernardo Boldrini, aged 11, who was the victim of attacks and killed by his stepmother and father, in Três Passos (RS), in April 2014.
Pain at home
For prosecutor Renata Rivitti, from the Public Prosecutor’s Office of São Paulo, the law is a milestone for Brazil, a country where there is still a deeply-rooted distorted perception that education needs to be strict. “There is still a romanticization and a real belief that educating with violence is legitimate and would be for the good of the child or adolescent.” She explains that the law reaffirms the illicitness and illegality of physical punishment.
The prosecutor, who coordinates the MP’s Child Support Center, believes that this cultural problem does indeed exist. “Inside the home, violence is legitimized.” Whether as a distorted way of educating or correcting, “There is a historical and cultural burden in our country.”
According to information available in the National Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office Data Panel (via Dial 100), there were, in the country, this year until June 23, 129,287 reports of some attack on the integrity of children and adolescents. The same panel shows that, of this total, 81,395 cases (62%) were at home (where the child victim and the suspected person live).
The panel provided by the Ministry of Human Rights considers that this violence against integrity includes physical, negligent and psychological violations. Those who report are generally third parties. However, it is noteworthy that 8,852 children managed to ask for help in the face of the violence they suffered.
Distortion
Águeda Barreto, a researcher on children’s rights and social sciences who works at the NGO ChildFund Brasil, believes that the Menino Bernardo law has a pedagogical and preventive character. “We need to celebrate the 10 years since this law was enacted, but we still need to make a lot of progress, especially culturally. We live in a society that still educates children through violence,” she laments.
The researcher recalls that, in 2019, the entity carried out a survey of Brazilian children and found that 67% of them did not consider themselves sufficiently protected against violence. The search Small Voices, Big Dreams (Small voices, big dreams) for Brazil also showed that 90% of children reject physical punishment as a form of education.
Águeda Barreto, who also wrote a master’s thesis on the topic, identified that physical punishment is the way in which children most recognize violence. “Many of them were not so clear about psychological violence.”
The national survey on the Situation of Violence against Children in the Domestic Environment, carried out by ChildFund, concluded last year that in Brazil there is a weakness in relation to the implementation of laws that support intolerance to violence against children. The NGO argued that the guarantee of rights advocated in the ECA still arrives slowly in real life, such as the Menino Bernardo Law).
“The implementation of actions will occur from the moment that the federal government, states and municipalities act in an integrated manner in the development of policies that prevent and curb harmful practices and that the implementation takes place with operational services, monitoring and repression of aggressors in all the country’s municipalities”, argues the entity’s report.
Among the legislation that Águeda Barreto considers advanced are: Henry Borel Lawapproved after the boy’s death in Rio de Janeiro, in 2022, and also the 14,826which defines “positive parenting and the right to play” to prevent violence against children.
Prosecutor Renata Rivitti also highlights the importance of Law 13,431 of 2017, which guaranteed greater protection for children. “The legislation requires an integrated approach, with comprehensive care, justice, public safety, health, school board, social assistance, education, everyone working together to prevent and confront this violence.”
Águeda Barreto explains that the legislation places the duty of the State, the family and society to promote education based on respect. For her, these laws have shown themselves to be developments since the Bernardo Boy Law and the Statute of Children and Adolescents, of 1990, one of the first laws in the world on the subject.
To get off the ground
It was new to consider the child as a subject of rights, but the challenge is still great. “We have noticed that the violent education of children is very naturalized in the Brazilian context. There is a culture that we live in Brazil that we call adult-centric. Children are often pushed around as an adult’s possession”, says the researcher.
Prosecutor Renata Rivitti believes that more pressure is needed from society for laws to get off the ground and work on a daily basis. “Since 1988, we have had world-class legislation. Our obligation as a public authority, as a family and as a society is to combat this violence. The main bottleneck is being able to guarantee the implementation of this legislation so that it actually gets off the ground.”
“We Brazilians are not yet indignant enough and demanding. There is no campaign, there is no alert, there is no information. The less this is said, the less we understand the gravity of the situation”, says the prosecutor.
It is precisely to raise awareness among families that examples such as that of the guardian Viviane Dourado can work. She is someone who continues to paint walls, bus stops and even t-shirts to talk about respect and has even been invited to work in partnership with other councils and public entities. “Children want to play, be happy and live their innocence”, she says. She knows that warnings can arise from a line, a paint on the wall, or a drawing of holding hands that can be stronger than a spank.
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