UN: Brazil's Police Kill Kids to "Clean Streets" for Olympics

Wow. I had no idea that it was anywhere near this bad in Brazil. They make the social issues of violence and police brutality in the US look small by comparison. An eye opener for sure.

www.telesurtv.net...

A system of impunity is giving Brazilian police carte blanche to systematically kill children, the U.N. denounced.

The United Nations has accused Brazilian police of killing street children to “clean the streets” ahead of the Olympic Games 2016 to be hosted in Rio de Janeiro.

The accusation, which appeared in a report on Brazilian youth published earlier this week, claims that the country’s security forces are directly linked to the “elevated number of summary executions of children,” allegedly facilitated by “widespread impunity.”

According to Renate Winter, vice president of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, this wave of violence is not new but is most palpable in Rio de Janeiro in order to “present a problem-free city to the world.”

“We have observed similar events during the World Cup in 2014 and now we wondered if this phenomenon was addressed as it should have been in order to avoid a repetition” said committee member Gehad Madi.

In July, a UNICEF report similarly found that 28 people under 19 were killed every day in Brazil, double the number when the country passed a law to protect minors in 1990. This death rate is higher than in war zones, according to the agency.

Local authorities contradicted to the report, stating that Rio de Janeiro is the second Brazilian state that has reduced homicides against children and adolescents between 2000 and 2013.

The U.N. study coincided with the release of a Public Security report showing that homicides in Brazil have increased in 2014, from 55,878 registered murders in 2013 to 58,559 last year.

Brazil has one of the highest number of homicides worldwide with 56,000 reported in 2012. More than 50 percent of the homicides that year were victims aged between 15 and 29, while 77 percent were Black.

In Rio de Janeiro alone, police were responsible for 8,471 homicides between 2005 and 2014.

At a national level, police were responsible for more than 11,197 homicides between 2009 and 2013, according a study by the Sao Paulo-based Brazilian Forum on Public Safety.

Horrifying.

We had missionaries from our church in Brazil for the world cup. Their primary goal was to protect (shelter, feed, etc) children, especially sex workers, who were in grave danger in the hands of ... well, in the hands of just about everyone, including the government.

It is heartbreaking and overwhelming to hear what happens in there. Shining a light on the problem is HUGE. As terrible as these stories and the statistics are to hear, the world needs to know. Get it out of the dark. That is the only way change will ever happen.

I wonder what the meeting the Olympic organizers had sounded like....

"Hey, let's hold the Olympics in a country that has water unsafe to compete in and streets to dangerous to walk down"

Or

"Which country is willing to pay us the largest bribes to get the Olympics?"

a reply to: infolurker

I would say pull their host city status for the Olympic games, but at this time, it's probably too late to do so. You would think the Olympic committee would have very strict human rights rules of conduct revolving around the host city. Maybe the committee can institute a fine or hold back any financial backing.

This has probably been happening long before the Olympic Games selection and not just kids but any sort of 'undesirables' of Brazilian society.

a reply to: infolurker

This has been going on for years. The children live in sewers and are considered vermin.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

Yes.

It's a common theme in countries that don't have social programs and social safety nets. Children are left on the streets to fend for themselves, and then further kicked down by being treated like worthless rodents because of a situation they had no control over.

It's a sick world out there.

a reply to: infolurker

This just in, innocent children all over the planet are killed everyday over idiotic BS. Brazil is not the first or only country with this issue and the UN is a hypocrite.

a reply to: infolurker

China did the same thing... the moved whole swaths of citizens to make way.

The poor in the US and other westernized countries live like the 1% compared to the poor in countries like Brazil. It is really sad, but unless you change the political and economic systems, there really isn't a lot we can do.

a reply to: infolurker

As mentioned by Wide-Eyes they have been killing street kids for years , there may have been an extra push for the Olympics but the plight of these children has been documented several times with no real action from either the government or the international community , the police death squads still operate unabated.

Out of sight is out of mind , hopefully your thread will bring this sad situation to the attention of those who didn't know.

originally posted by: Edumakated
a reply to: infolurker

China did the same thing... the moved whole swaths of citizens to make way.

The poor in the US and other westernized countries live like the 1% compared to the poor in countries like Brazil. It is really sad, but unless you change the political and economic systems, there really isn't a lot we can do.

Canada moved scores of the poor out of Vancouver's "Hastings Street" area during the 2010 olymipics...shipped them off to some small town in the north. I never did follow up on what happened to them..

It's not just the police, it's everybody down there. In the favelas, if you off somebody that's likely the end of it. Their judicial system is so overworked and prisons so crowded that teenagers can kill somebody and never set foot in a jail cell, much less prison. It's an urban version of the wild freaking west down there.

a reply to: infolurker

Hmmm.
This is not possible.
Brazil can not have a high murder rate....

Their gun laws are much more strict than the United States gun laws.

Wikipedia: Brazilian Gun Laws

I'm not going to lie, we do have a very serious problem here in Brazil with poverty, and it IS true that many atrocities are being committed at this very moment, be it by the police, or by drug dealers, etc.. But in all honesty, we are not the lawless beasts you guys seem to think we are, and first-worlders seem to have a rather radicalized view of us South-Americans.

I live in the state of Rio and I've been to the city of Rio uncountable times, in fact next year I'll be moving there, and it's nowhere near as bad as you guys make it seem. Of course we have poverty here, and in the favelas it's a terrible problem, but the children don't "live in sewers and are considered vermin", we're not nearly as apathetic to our social problems as you guys think, and we ARE improving a lot as a society.

We have a LONG way to go as a country, but the way you people speak of us, you guys do sound very hypocritical considering the problems you have in your own home countries.

I've heard about this being done in South America, and in the Phillipines, for years. This is the world we're living in. Its this bad.

originally posted by: Thorsen
I'm not going to lie, we do have a very serious problem here in Brazil with poverty, and it IS true that many atrocities are being committed at this very moment, be it by the police, or by drug dealers, etc.. But in all honesty, we are not the lawless beasts you guys seem to think we are, and first-worlders seem to have a rather radicalized view of us South-Americans.

I live in the state of Rio and I've been to the city of Rio uncountable times, in fact next year I'll be moving there, and it's nowhere near as bad as you guys make it seem. Of course we have poverty here, and in the favelas it's a terrible problem, but the children don't "live in sewers and are considered vermin", we're not nearly as apathetic to our social problems as you guys think, and we ARE improving a lot as a society.

We have a LONG way to go as a country, but the way you people speak of us, you guys do sound very hypocritical considering the problems you have in your own home countries.

Well except for the fact our police dont go on Killing sprees to get rid of mouths to feed. Maybe they need to experience hope and change liek Afghanistan? Brazil needs soem help. UN peacekeepers for Police would be a start. And tossing out the current policia.

originally posted by: yuppa
Well except for the fact our police dont go on Killing sprees to get rid of mouths to feed. Maybe they need to experience hope and change liek Afghanistan? Brazil needs soem help. UN peacekeepers for Police would be a start. And tossing out the current policia.

What killing spree? Do you think if such a thing really was going on and in such scale that the opposition wouldn't be jumping at the governor of Rio's throat? Again you seem to take us Brazilians for wild animals. As I said, we have a giant poverty/violence problem here in Brazil, but the police doesn't go out on the streets killing homeless children, and the children are NOT treated like vermin. I'm NOT denying that there might be some kind of "cleaning" in the streets going on, but to say that the police is deliberately killing children and for this sole purpose is just crazy.

a reply to: infolurker

We lie in a seriously sick world! I recall something similar, though not fatal, about a pope visit. Manila, I think it was, was caging street kids to make the place look better for the visit.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
You would think the Olympic committee would have very strict human rights rules of conduct revolving around the host city.

Why would you think that? Remember, the whole purpose of the Olympics is to ensure the Olympic officials are on a gravy train for life.

a reply to: Tindalos2013

It has been happening for decades