Social protection for children and adolescents in situations of violence requires a comprehensive network of public policies (SUAS) that operates through two levels: basic social protection (preventive, present in territories) and special social protection (responsive to violations of rights). The protection approach must be territory-directed rather than campaign-directed, considering intersectional vulnerabilities (race, gender, disability, age) and the distinction between abuse (children 0-12) and exploitation (teenagers 13-17). Effective protection requires intersectoral collaboration, collective action, and recognizing that receiving support is a right, not a requirement. Prevention operates through three perspectives: preventing incidence, preventing recurrence, and preventing aggravation.
#FAPSIaoVIVO: Proteção Social a crianças e adolescentes em situação de violênciaAdded:
[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Good afternoon, everyone. All good?
Good afternoon on this chilly Friday, at least here in Postos. This is Professor Lucas. Uh, I'm the coordinator of the psychology course in Poços de Caldas. I'm here representing the board of directors of the Faculty of Psychology for today's event, which will address a very important topic for our field, and for everyone who works with the protection of children and adolescents. To discuss this topic, we will have a very special guest, Réges Aparecido Andrade Espíndola.
José is a lawyer, holds a master's degree in education and teaching from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and is a specialist in social assistance policies and social practices from PUINS.
He is currently the director of the Department of Social Protection, a special division of the Ministry of Social Development and Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger, and a professor in the postgraduate course in SUAS management at PUC Minas.
Régio is also an advisor to the National Council for Social Assistance and a member of the National Forum of the Judiciary for Social Assistance and Welfare (FONASP) and the National Council of Justice (CNJ).
He was the director of special social protection for the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System) of the Municipality of Belo Horizonte, from 2019 to 2023, superintendent of special social protection for the State Secretariat of Labor and Social Development of Minas Gerais, in addition to having worked in the state management of socio-educational measures and as a legal advisor at the Center for the Defense of Children's Rights and the hospital there, right?
So, based on the curriculum, we can already tell that we're going to have a very interesting evening here, and probably a very rich discussion, right? So, I am immensely grateful for Réges' presence here, for bringing this contribution to all of FAPS and to all those who are interested in following our channel. Regéges, I'll pass the word to you and wish everyone a wonderful, a great event.
Yeah, you're in the mood. I'm in the world, I'm here, I've already started well, folks. I started here talking about the world, but I was thanking Lucas, Vilmar, and the entire team at PUC Minas, especially the psychology courses, for the invitation and the opportunity to be here talking with you all today about the protection of children and adolescents in the context of violence. Well, it's great, isn't it, that we have these spaces with the students, with other teachers, and also with the community in general, actively participating in these moments that PUP has been providing. So, I really appreciate the invitation, and I'm counting on you, you can count on me, and I hope we can have an hour to reflect on the topic. As it was introduced, I'm Réges, right? I'm giving my self-description. I am a tall man, I am a white man, black hair, black beard, I am wearing a white t-shirt and headphones.
And I'm in a room that behind me has a window with a white Venetian blind, right, that 's down, and a cabinet with some pictures right behind me. And the idea, folks, I don't know if it's already been presented, if the person is already seeing the slides. That.
So, the idea is for us to be able to talk a little bit about social protection for children and adolescents in situations of violence. Well, and of course, when we talk about social protection, we're talking about a broader set of public policies, not just one public policy, right? Although we often have an almost direct association with social protection, which is done by social assistance, we have to think of social protection [laughs] as a field that encompasses all social rights, right? As social rights, we have social assistance itself, but we also have education, health, culture, sports, leisure, public safety, right? All these social rights, and social protection comes into play from my perspective, right, as a worker in the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System), as someone with tattoos, right, in CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), right, and now I'm here at this moment, experiencing management at the federal level. Well, I'm going to delve a little more into social assistance, but it's very important that all of us, right, have this understanding here, as an organization, of this large network of protection for children and adolescents in situations of violence, right, that social protection is not, uh, a public policy offered, right, by one, or rather, it's not protection offered by a single public policy, right, but actually by a set of public policies, right, that will create this large web of protection for children and adolescents, OK? Okay, I'd also like to ask that anyone who has any questions or comments, please leave them here in the chat. We'll be able to discuss and interact with you based on the issues you raise here. Okay, so let's start a little bit, as I told you, I'm going to bring a reflection a little more to SUAS, that is, to the Unified Social Assistance System. And I think if I were to ask you, if we were here in a face-to-face setting, I would ask everyone who has ever heard of SUAS to raise their hand. And I believe everyone would raise their hand. Everyone, in a way, knows about social assistance, especially when we're talking to students in the psychology course, when we're talking to other professors, right? So, everyone has a certain perspective on what the SU is, on what social assistance policy is, you know. But not always, right? And what we observe is that knowing about the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System) or being familiar with the SUAS doesn't always mean we actually have a grasp of the vast network of public policies that support it.
So, we are aware of some specific actions. It's different from other public policies; we have more experience with it. Want to see? If I were to ask you, those of you watching us today, who among you has ever been to school, to received an education? Everyone will raise their hand.
Everyone has had that experience at school, right?
Everyone, I believe everyone watching us here, everyone who is a student at PUC Minas, has already had this experience in relation to school. If I were to ask you, how many of you here have had experience in health policy? They've already been there, they've already accessed a health center, a hospital, a clinic, among other facilities. I also believe that everyone will raise their hand.
Now, if I start asking about the units of the assault policy, not all of you will have this experience, right?
If I were to ask, for example, how many of you have been assisted, know of, and have been assisted by a CRAS ( Social Assistance Reference Center), or by a CREIA ( Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center), or by a POP Center ( a reference center focused on the homeless population), by a day center (a reference center for elderly people or people with disabilities who need more continuous care), or by a shelter unit.
right? Well, and then thinking about the diverse audiences served—children, teenagers, women, homeless people, elderly people, people with disabilities, migrants and refugees, people who are displaced and homeless due to climate events, right? So we have a series of units that this public policy provides for, and there are other services, for example, a foster family service that replaces institutional care in the case of children and adolescents who have protective measures. In addition to these services, we also have some specific programs and benefits. The best known of these is the Bolsa Família program, right, as an income transfer, uh, benefit, continuous benefit payment, BPC, which some people still associate with being the LOAS benefit, because it is provided for in the Organic Law of Social Security, but its correct name is the continuous benefit payment, which is a right of elderly people over 65 years of age and people with disabilities who have, uh, an income criterion of 1/4 of the minimum wage to be able to have access to this benefit. In other words, we can already see here that social protection within the scope of SUAS, although we are talking about a single policy, which in this case is the policy of social science, is also something a little more uh, a little more complete, right? We have a series of structures that divide this social protection of SUAS into two levels of protection: basic social protection and special social protection. Basic social protection, very much from a preventive perspective, from a perspective of being present in the territories, from a perspective of, you know, designing there and being increasingly closer to the communities, to the people, to the population in general. And there's also special social protection, which has this characteristic, but it applies when we're talking about a violation of rights, right? So, when we have an instance of violence, of different forms of violence, right? Not just physical or psychological violence or sexual violence, but all forms of violence. And within that level of protection, which is special social protection, we have different levels of complexity: medium complexity and high complexity. Medium complexity occurs when there is violence or violation of rights, but no disruption of family and community life; high complexity occurs when there is a violation of rights, but also a disruption of family and community life, considering children and adolescents, right? So, uh, we can think about the following: what services in the public health system are for children and adolescents? all directly or indirectly. We're going to have some that are more specific due to the age range, for example, the care of children and adolescents or protection services for adolescents fulfilling open-environment associative measures, or we're going to have, within some services, cycles that will be prioritized in that service, such as the coexistence service, the strengthening of bonds in a cycle dimension, with groups of children or adolescents or intergenerational groups involving children and adolescents. Well, and in addition to those two services, which are our core services, right, that will cover the entire scope of SUAS, in basic social protection, the family protection and care service, PIF, and in special social protection, PAF, the specialized protection and care service for families and individuals.
In other words, up to this point, for those who already have some knowledge about them, I haven't brought anything new. For those who aren't yet very familiar with this dynamic, we're talking about this large network of services that SUAS offers. And then you might ask, we have students and people participating from different municipalities, right?
Look, but in my municipality, do they have all these RS services? Not necessarily, right? We have small municipalities, those with up to 20,000 inhabitants, many of which only have basic social protection, that is, they only have the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), they don't have the CREAS (Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center), they don't have a shelter unit, they don't have a POP (Homeless Shelter), right? Or we even have slightly larger municipalities, small municipalities with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants and medium-sized municipalities with between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants, which may also lack some of the special social protection services.
Perhaps it has the CREAI (Center for Reintegration and Assistance to Children and Adolescents), but it doesn't have the POP center, or it has the shelter unit for children and adolescents, but it doesn't have the foster family service, and so on.
So, this protection network, although it has this more complete and complex design, according to the national social science policy, will not be available to all municipalities, uh, in all the services offered by SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System). And bearing in mind that in these small municipalities, which are those municipalities, as I said, with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, it is the state's responsibility to provide these levels of protection. So, if my municipality is small, it doesn't have the authority to provide special social protection, and that responsibility should be shared with the state. We know that states, in general, still have difficulty with coverage at this level of protection.
So, many states, and I'm not just talking about Minas Gerais, it was at the national level in Brazil, right, have difficulties in offering these services in Minas Gerais, considering that we are here dialoguing more specifically with, right, the psychology courses at PUC Minas, uh, we have some regional centers, that is, some specialized reference centers in social science that offer this level of protection, right, of medium complexity, and that are managed by the state and that offer specialized social protection, right, for a group of municipalities. We have, for example, a regional CR in the municipality of Almenara, which serves the Almenara region; we have another in Pessanha, another in Diamantina, and another in Águas Formosas—four regional CRs. And there are also some shelters that operate on a regional basis, especially for children and adolescents, when a protective measure is in place. So, understanding this concept and these dynamics of the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System) protection levels is important for us to return to our main theme today, which is the protection of children and adolescents in the context of violence and violations of their rights. Why is it necessary for us to know the context as a whole? So that we can think about how much protection that child requires, that family requires, and so that, [laughs] you know, as professionals, we can make the best referrals, think about the best protection strategies for those children, for those adolescents. It's also important to emphasize that SUAS doesn't just offer services.
Here I'm talking about the services offered at CRAS, services offered at CREAS, but it also offers benefits and programs. I've already said, right?
The best-known program we have is the Bolsa Família program, which is an income transfer program, but we also have some important benefits, such as the continuous benefit, which, as the name suggests, is continuous. But there are other types of benefits, which are occasional benefits that are very common. And sometimes people who don't know much about them think and associate them only with, you know, they associate social policy only with these occasional benefits, which is what? The basic food basket, which is an occasional benefit, right, for a situation of vulnerability and food insecurity, or the funeral assistance, which is what many municipalities provide when someone dies who cannot afford the funeral and burial expenses, right, they are invoking this occasional benefit, right, of funeral assistance, the birth assistance for when we have the birth of children, and all of this are occasional benefits for a specific situation, for a specific reason, of temporary vulnerability that that family is facing. And regarding the protection of children and adolescents, within the scope of SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System), how will he study it? Combined among these various programs, projects, benefits, and services that we have established within the scope of this policy, what is its nature? of prevention or its response character, when some type of violation of rights has already occurred, right, when some type of situation of violence has already occurred in relation to that child or adolescent.
Another point that I think is important for us to mention here, folks, is that the SUAS, for this reason, will have a very strong connection with the justice system. So, thinking about the justice system, that includes the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Judiciary, the Public Defender's Office, and the Governing Council. And then there are people who get confused too, right? You think the Child Protective Services is a social assistance agency, but it's not, right? Although in many municipalities it is administratively linked to the Social Assistance Secretariat, it is not a social assistance service, it is not a social assistance agency; it is administratively linked in many municipalities to this municipal management, which is coordinated by the social assistance department. And also with other policies such as health, education, culture, sports, leisure, among others. Well, when we think about this protection, it's also important to have knowledge beyond the service we've been mentioning here, about the various programs that the SUS (Brazilian Public Health System) also functions as an intermediary for, acting as a guarantor, as a gateway, for this inclusion in education. We could be talking, for example, about the issue of exemption from the Enem registration fee. Those who are PUC students entered via ENEM, right, via PRO, something like that, and had their exemption, right, or were students from public schools or were registered in the Cadastro Único (Single Registry). So, Social Assistance was there too, guaranteeing this access. Yes, today the PED Meia program, right, a federal program, right, that savings, and, you know, what we call this nest egg, this savings, right, during the high school period also to be in the nest egg, right, we're talking about students with a single health registry, popular pharmacy, menstrual dignity with the distribution of sanitary pads, in the assistance itself, the family pocket, the continuous blood pressure benefit, right, the elderly card, right, assistance services in general. And then we have others that are perhaps less known to us, but that also contribute, as constitutive elements of access, the Single Registry and consequently the social assistance policy, the Bolsa Verde program for specific situations, right, of the environmental pockets, the agrarian reform credit, the national agrarian reform program for food security, the food acquisition program, the cistern program, the food distribution program and others, such as, for example, social tariffs for energy, water, sewage, antennas for open TV, digital converters, Minha Casa Minha Vida (My House My Life), Gás do Povo (People's Gas), that is, a series of instruments and benefits, programs that can be accessed, even if they are not directly from the Social Security policy, but that are accessed through this policy to guarantee this great social protection. And then you might be thinking, "Look, but we're going to talk about children and teenagers, why are we talking about all these programs?" Because, to move beyond the basic premise that the protection of children and adolescents, by virtue of the ECA (Statute of the Child and Adolescent), by virtue of the Federal Constitution, [cough][clearing throat] by virtue of the Federal Constitution, by virtue of the ECA, whose duty is it? of the family, of the state and of society. So, what do we need? to have a family with the means to fulfill this protective role. It is the state's duty to guarantee this protection; it is a shared responsibility with society, with the community in general, to ensure this protection. The more tools, the more resources, the more protective measures I have for this family, the greater my chances are that children and adolescents will be protected by their families.
And in that sense, folks, we're already going to break down some myths, right, and some expressions that I bet many of you have heard at some point, right?
We are living in a moment where the media, and some more conservative sectors of society, are criminalizing, for example, the Bolsa Família program, as if the families enrolled in the Bolsa Família program were lazy families who didn't want to work.
I think many of you have heard this before, whether at a bar, or while watching a news report about the labor shortage in the job market, which is a lie.
All the evidence and studies indicate that the Bolsa Família program—and there are very interesting studies available on the Ministry of Social Development website, the World Bank website, and other partners like UNICEF—demonstrates that the Bolsa Família program provides protection for children and adolescents, especially young children and adolescents in early childhood.
Therefore, this also requires a more attentive look, this protective lens for children and adolescents within a family context, and especially within the context of families that are unprotected. We need to guarantee a minimum income, which is what the Bolsa Família program aims to do. Currently, the benefit amount is around R$ 680, which can be increased depending on the number of children and specific situations.
But we provide a minimum subsistence for these families, understanding that income generates protection and that we need to create strategies to guarantee more protection for children and adolescents in general. Well, and in that sense, moving forward a bit in our presentation here, [clearing throat] it 's important for us to think about this social protection for children and adolescents, even more specifically in scenarios of violence. So, how does social science, as a policy that forms part of this social protection, think about the care and support of children and adolescents who are in situations of violence?
It's crucial to point out that social science policy is a relatively new field. When we think about the unified social welfare system built in this organized way, its, right, which is still not very well known, sometimes the Bolsa Família program is better known than the system that operates it, right? It's different from healthcare, where everyone knows about vaccines, but they know the SUS, right? Not here, here we experience something that many people know, almost everyone knows about Bolsa Família, but not everyone knows about SUAS, right, that is, the system that operates the Bolsa Família program.
Well, and because, as I was saying, he's relatively new. We're talking about a SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System) here, right, that's from 2005, so it's about to turn 21 years old, extremely young. Well, within the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System), some of these programs that we've been discussing so far already existed before it was created, while others did not. So, if we think about, for example, the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), the Bolsa Família program, what will they all be? Posterior. Craso, the Social Assistance Reference Center, came after SUAS. So we don't have religious centers that are 50 years old, or 100 years old, like we have, for example, schools and hospitals, which are secular institutions, right? Cras is a much more recent unit. CREIA, which is the specialized referral center that serves children and adolescents in situations of violence, is even more recent, right? It's from 2009. So, we're talking about a young system that has units that are also young in terms of history and public policy, but that are already present in the lives of the population.
And in that sense, some units are a bit more complex and have a longer history, such as, for example, the shelter units, which are also being incorporated into this new social assistance model. The care facilities, the shelters, for example, these are already institutions, you know, more centuries old, dating back to the foundling wheel. We're talking about something from the 10th, 17th, and 18th centuries, each with their own perspectives, right? We're talking here about units that are currently part of the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System), but which are services that predate the SUAS in the context of special social protection. However, in the context of basic social protection, especially the example I used, the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), is something more recent. So the big innovation that SUAS brings is precisely basic social protection with this protective, preventive, and proactive character. It's no use, [cough][clearing throat] I apologize, I have a bit of a cold, so sometimes I'll be pretending here, holding the microphone to cough a little, okay everyone? But, as I was saying, it's no use just focusing on addressing the situation of violence. It's crucial that we have a certain perspective, what? That it serves as a preventative measure so that she does not oppose the violent situation, that it does not worsen, or that it does not recur. So prevention will be very much present for us, right? And in the special social protection system, which is this specialized level, what will we have? The service and itinerary will be for repairs to a method that has already been violated. Consequently, right, special social protection will be working with issues that are what? Much more so is its urgency and emergency in the field of protection. It's the child or adolescent who has been violated and needs more specialized care within the social services system, or who needs shelter, right? So, these demands bring something that we call relational density, that is, a proximity between those who serve the reference teams and the children and adolescents who are being served, which is even greater than in the scope of basic social protection, which will work on the preventive, proactive, and protective character.
And some groups, due to their inherent vulnerability, will be more socially vulnerable. And we're talking about children, teenagers, we're also talking about elderly people, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ population, women, the homeless population, right? Because they bring with them a set of social and economic rights that already presuppose a greater need for protection, and a greater presence of state protective services in relation to guaranteeing the rights of this population. In that sense, folks, it's important to say that issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, ageism, and profanity will not be considered cross-cutting themes of the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System). Transversal means something that crosses, right? It passes through, has passed, has crossed over; no, they are fundamental to these services. Well, how am I supposed to put this? Today our conversation here is mainly about children and adolescents, but we're also going to think about violence against women. How can I say that sexism is pervasive in the life of a woman who suffers violence every day from her partner? This isn't something transversal; this is fundamental. She arrives, right? This woman, most of the time, she arrives there seeking help because of this violence. stemming from this violation of rights. So, I can't treat this as an external issue, but rather as an internal one, an issue that speaks to the essence of SUAS, as a public policy. So, folks, it's also crucial that we consider, and bring this drawing to children and adolescents, that all these markers, which are market markers, intersectional markers, when they are combined, when they are aggregated, when the same person brings more than one of a marker, the more vulnerable they are. In other words, a child— if I'm thinking of a white child, a black child—it's obvious that the child is already in a vulnerable situation compared to adults, but if I think about two children, the black child will be even more vulnerable compared to the white child, a child with a disability compared to a child without a disability, and so on.
So having this perspective on intersectionality is fundamental for us to organize as a network and to organize as a protection strategy. I mean, we've been building a lot here, within the scope of public social assistance policies, on the dimension that protection is done collectively for a long time, and I think that talking about this with psychology students makes a very different sense, right? We have excellent psychologists on our team who have been helping us think through these issues. And I quote Professor Márcia Mansul from the psychology course at PUC, Professor Débora Acma, among others, who have helped us a lot to think about this perspective, that this protection, this response, needs to be collective.
For some time, in the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System) and in public policies in general, we confused, perhaps to put it bluntly, due to the lack of another term, we confused particularized with individual.
And it's obvious that all people who are part of public policies have the right to receive personalized care and support.
Now, this cannot be translated as something individual, as a service that takes place exclusively in the field of the relationship between that technician and that user, because this dynamic ceases to be particularized and becomes an individualization of the lack of protection, as if the blame for that violence, for that violation of rights, lay with the public served in particular, individually, and not in situations that are, right, of collective lack of protection, like those we are talking about within the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System). Addressing the issue of child and adolescent vulnerability within the context of social assistance means working not only with the child or adolescent, but also with the family and, above all, the community. And the territory in the dimension, right, that, right, Milton Santos, right, who is a Brazilian geographer, we are even celebrating the centenary of Milton, right, he will call this the used territory, that is, the territory that brings the elements for the service. It's very common, and I bet you've all seen it at some point, that we have a kind of color-coded calendar in public policies, right? A colorful little calendar. We are, for example, at Mai Laranja, where we discuss violence against children and adolescents, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, sexual violence against children and adolescents. Is it important? Yes, it's important. I'm not saying the opposite.
In just a little while, August will be the month for purple lipstick, when we'll be discussing issues related to violence against women.
But we need to be able to reverse this logic in the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System). It's not just the service that will define the territory. No, the campaigns don't have to be targeted because we have a planned calendar where each month of the year we'll work on a specific issue. No, the logic should be the opposite. The logic should be that the territory dictates the services. If a child or adolescent is a victim of sexual violence in a specific area where the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center) operates, that day and the following day, that must be the central theme of all the work that will be developed within the scope of that CRAS. I have to wait for the following year's Orange May to discuss this subject, right? If a woman dies in a certain territory, on that day, or the next day, this must be the subject of every discussion among all the citizens, all the parishioners of that territory, of that municipality—violence against women—and we cannot wait until August to have this discussion. This means, folks, that we need to let go and perceive the territory as Milton Santos actually described it, as this used territory, this territory that brings its experiences into the service. And not the other way around. Professor Maria Luía Rizote, who is a professor at PUC Paraná, has a saying that I really like and that I always repeat to myself, which is: it's unlikely that two women, one in a technical role and one as a user, in a closed room divided by a table, will be able to overcome issues related to machismo, sexism, and patriarchy. So, if we could give one piece of advice, throw the tables away and break the doors. So what does that mean, folks? This means that we have to let the territory speak for itself regarding its demands. This means that we need to collectivize these demands so that we can collectivize protection, right? And this example was in the context of violence against women, but it also applies perfectly when we're talking about protecting children and adolescents, right? If the territory tells me that a particular location has a high incidence of child labor, a high incidence of sexual violence against children and adolescents, a high incidence of neglect and abandonment, these are the data that, as a public policy, I will evaluate to build my planning, to build this colorful calendar, you know, that I will work on certain themes, right? And from this data about the territory, I will be able to identify the specific themes that I need to work on, and these themes are not limited to the work of a particular month. These months are important for us to work on raising awareness, but they can't be restrictive when we're thinking about the protection options available, right? So this is a point and an aspect, right, that is important for us to emphasize and highlight when we talk about children and adolescents in situations of violation and violence; these data still frighten us a lot. If we consider all the children and adolescents, right, in the year 2025, children and adolescents who entered the PAEF program, which is the specialized protection and care service for families and individuals, right, within one of the services we have at CREIA, within the scope of SUAS.
50.7% of the public served in 2025 were children and adolescents, of which 21.6% were due to sexual abuse and 1.6% due to sexual exploitation. And the highest concentration is in the Southeast region.
This data comes from the monthly service records, which the Ministry of Social Development and Agriculture keeps every month, and which allows us to have these scenarios.
When we think about the more specific aspect of sexual exploitation and abuse, when I'm talking about sexual abuse and exploitation by gender, girls are even more vulnerable, three times more vulnerable than boys, right? So this suggests that we want violence marked by a gender issue. So we can't have a discussion here in isolation when we're talking about age range, you know. Here we have a variable that is very significant, which, when we are talking about children aged 0 to 6 and 7 to 12, is the prevalence of sexual abuse. But when we're talking about teenagers aged 3 to 17, sexual exploitation becomes prevalent.
What's the difference between abuse and exploitation, folks? Sexual exploitation is when someone gains or benefits from something, right? Whether it's economical or not, right? So, teenagers, you know, are in a situation of exploitation, because most of the time, their bodies are already being used as, quote, a commodity, close quote, in the context of exploitation, while children, you know, from 0 to 12 years old, we have the figure of abuse, right? So this is also an important perspective, and I draw your attention to it here, in the case of sexual exploitation, to also have a discussion about sexual exploitation from a contemporary perspective. We are in a moment marked by digital technology, by online platforms, by artificial intelligence, by all these contemporary forms of communication that all of you, all of us, you and I, all of us, are experiencing.
Yes, and those are also environments of vulnerability. If before we talked about territory based on what we could step on, right, the territory, the teacher said, right, she spoke of territory as being this ground of ours, right, ground here, what we step on, today territory is no longer just what we step on. Today, territory can also be a place invisible to the eye, such as digital territories, the clouds, right? So, if before the risk of sexual exploitation, abuse, or other forms of violence was on the street or at home, perpetrated by a specific family member who was the aggressor, today that risk also comes from the computer, from the internet, from the use of social networks, from figures that constitute a digital territory and not just the territory we can step onto. So this is also a fundamental aspect for us to discuss, right? The lack of protection, sometimes we had this logic that a child who is at home is protected, right? That's a lie, twice over. She may be unprotected because there is some perpetrator of violence in that family nucleus who lives [clearing throat] with that family, but she may also be unprotected from access to social networks, right, and other means of communication, right, which also put her in that place of risk. In this sense, it is fundamental that we consider prevention from three perspectives: prevention of incidence, prevention of recurrence, and prevention of aggravation. Prevention of incidents is the process of stopping violence from occurring. The prevention of recidivism involves identifying early signs of this violence so we can stop its escalation, and preventing further harm when a situation has already occurred, allowing us to minimize the damage caused by the violation.
So, uh, for those of you who are joining us— professionals from the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System) or students who want to become SUAS professionals—it 's important to say that the entire system, all SUAS units, whether it's CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), CREIA (Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center), shelter units, POP Centers (Centers for the Homeless Population), all of them will work with prevention. Prevention is no longer just a concept of basic social protection, right? It's not just another concept worked on at the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center); it's a concept that exists today, right? It's a concept of the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System), and all SUAS units, whether they are for basic social protection, special social protection, medium complexity, or high complexity, should be aware of it. And then it also calls into question other public policies, right, health, education, among others, where we will have a large incidence and prevalence of public policies that promote prevention, whether from the perspective of incidence, recurrence, or aggravation.
And it's important for us to say, folks, that the vulnerabilities and risks will be different for each child, each adolescent, and each family.
If I tell a child, for example, that they have been sexually abused, the responses to that vulnerability, to that violence, will be different. There are children who are sexually abused, who will require a protection measure, removal from family and community life, and will be placed in foster care. And there are children who have suffered violence, sexual violence, and who will be supported by the PAEF program within the scope of the CREAS (Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center). What distinguishes this, right? The response we're going to give, as a protective measure, addresses the risk to which this child, this adolescent, is exposed. So, risk, if we were to think of it in terms of a formula, right? Risk equals vulnerability times threat divided by the protective capacity and support network that the child or adolescent has. Therefore, the child's risk will be equal to their vulnerability, to the violence itself. In our example here, the situation of sexual abuse can be aggravated by other types of vulnerabilities, right, more macro-level vulnerabilities, for example, dependency on care, younger children, disability, racism, poverty, lack of access to public policies. All of these will be threats that will further aggravate and amplify that vulnerability, but that vulnerability, that threat, can also [clearing throat] be reduced through the protective capabilities that family has.
If it's a family that has a protective organization, if it's a family that has a child or teenager, you know, who is in the family, who finds care in that family, you know. Well, if it's a family that has access to income, that has access to public policies, that can count on a support network, all of that will reduce that risk. Therefore, the greater my risk, the more complex my response will be within the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System). The lower my risk, the closer my response will be to basic social protection and prevention, within the scope of the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System). Understanding that these risks will be different will allow us to consider what the best service and the best protection strategy is that I should use when I am assisting a child or adolescent in a vulnerable situation, in a situation of violence.
Well, at this point, I also wanted to say that we need to overcome some things we have in the realm of public policies, which is as if families belong to one policy or another, or are within the political framework of one unit or another, right? When you 're in this process of training, you know, but I believe many of you are already involved in public policy in some way, right? And when we go into a network discussion, a discussion, you know, about a family situation within a protection network, it's common for us to have professionals who will turn to each other and get into that ping-pong game, [clearing their throats] in that back-and-forth, you know, passing the family this way, passing the family that way. Ah, this family belongs to CL, this family belongs to Creias. No, this family has a mental health issue, they're at the CAPS (Psychosocial Care Center), they're at the CAPS. No, but there is a situation involving drug addiction, it's from CAPS A and so on. First with her own family, right, guys? First with the teenage children, right? We're thinking about it in terms of being a subject of rights, and then we realize that each of these families, each of these children or adolescents, requires a certain level of protection. So we have to replace this logic of " it's from CRAS, it's from CREAS, it's from CAPS, it's from SEA, it's from CAPSAD, it's from wherever, it's from the shelter, it's from the PAI, it's from Pestalose" with the following question that should guide us.
How much protection does this family need?
How much protection does this child, this teenager, require? Because at the same time that she will require assistance from CREAS, she will also require assistance, perhaps from the social interaction and bonding strengthening service, which is part of CRAS. And it will also require interactivity, because the same child who is in school, or should be, is the same child who has a mobile vaccination unit and a pediatrician at the primary health care center. It's the same child who broke their arm or had their arm broken and is in an emergency room.
So we're talking about the same people, right, the same story. And we can't fragment this story as if it were sometimes told by the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), sometimes by the CREAS (Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center), sometimes by the CAPS (Psychosocial Care Center), or sometimes by the shelter, and so on. We need to think about this individual from the perspectives that each of these networks has had, but above all from the perspective of their different protection needs.
Hey, there's a short video available on YouTube, if anyone's curious can watch it later. It is very good.
Here's a suggestion: the danger lies in a single story by Shimandaia, who is a Nigerian writer, right? And she's going to bring that up brilliantly, showing how often we take a specific fragment of a person's story and define them as just that, forgetting the multiple potentialities that person has beyond that moment.
And we can apply the same thing to this institutional concept here, right? How much more protective is it, in fact, to think about an intersectoral network for this child and adolescent than to limit this child and adolescent to just one unit? as if that unit, you know, were responsible for the full protection of a child or adolescent.
And it's important that our intervention is focused on certain binomials, right? We need to think about the service and the territory, right? This is the place to talk about issues related to the protection of children and adolescents, right? What services are available in that territory, considering the individual's timeframe and the institution's timeframe, which are very different, right?
Sometimes the person's time is now, right?
We require a certain level of protection at this time, and the institutional timeline is different, right? Especially when we're talking about public administration. I like this example, right? At the shelter that cares for children and teenagers, the shower broke down. The subject's time is now. The shower needs to be fixed so we can take a bath. I need to help with the child or with the bath that teenager needs to take. The institution's timeline sometimes overlaps with public bureaucracy; it needs to hold a bidding process just to buy a new shower. In other words, they don't get married, they don't talk, they don't have a dialogue. Similarly, when I have a—I gave a small example here, open quotes, close quotes—but let's think about it, this same logic applies when we have a guardianship or adoption process and, due to a lack of judgment in the district, a lack of technical staff in the juvenile court, or for countless other reasons, the child or adolescent is left waiting for a judicial decision for months and perhaps years. The individual's time has already passed, and the institutional time continues, counting down the time allotted to that institution. Or even at CREAS, at CRAS, when we have a situation of vulnerability that is referred to CREAS for inclusion in the PAF program, and that CREAS is overcrowded, right? that he believes there is a demand beyond what he can handle at that moment. And this child, this teenager, enters what's called a waiting list, meaning that the individual's timeline once again didn't align with the institution's timeline, right? So it's fundamental that we have this understanding. The family and the individual—we need to consider that the family, as Professor Potiara Pereira points out, is not an island unto itself, right? So, the family is a source of protection and also of vulnerability, and it is up to public policy to empower the family so that its protective aspect is increasingly greater than its violating aspect, but in some situations we also cannot fall into a familism that assumes that the family will be able to handle other interventions. That's why we do have the need, in some cases—and these are becoming increasingly exceptional—to interrupt this cohabitation so that the family can, you know, have a [cough][clearing throat] another configuration, uh, you know, reconfigure itself there to be able to protect, uh, those children, those adolescents, or not, if it wasn't possible at that moment, so that the child, that adolescent, can also find protection in a new family.
family.
We also need to think about the individual and the collective, right? To think that this particular aspect shouldn't be considered, as I said, something individual, right? So, the importance of the collective in providing protection, thinking about the user and their care needs, the demand and the response, right? What are the responses that are configured for each public policy regarding risk and protection? What are my risk factors and what are my protective factors?
And it's a discussion that I really enjoy, one that we need to have more often, the discussion about the technical and the political aspects. What is technical and what is political, folks, right? We talk about this a lot, don't we, about the ethical, technical, and political role of our profession, whether it's the psychologist, the social worker, the lawyer, right? All of us who make up the reference teams at Sulas, right?
We sometimes find ourselves discussing this, this delivery of ours that must always be ethical, but also has to go through the technical and the political aspects.
[snoring] And to talk about this, I'm going to bring in Frey Beto, because I think listening to him talk gave me a very good insight into understanding this technical and political dimension.
Play Beto recounts that he was at a training session for health agents in the Baixada Fluminense region, and that he was explaining that the work of a health agent who goes to people's homes involves both a technical and a political aspect. Then a lady gets up, raises her hand and says: "Prebeto, I don't understand when I go to someone's house and my work is going to be technical, and when it's going to be political." And then Fre Bet stops, right, and thinks, and he answers her as follows: when she's there, this health worker is at Dona Maria's house, and Dona Maria has a grandson who, every day that this health worker goes there, this grandson has diarrhea, and his tummy is swollen, and he has diarrhea every time. And then the health worker goes and says to Mrs. Maria, "Mrs. Maria, you need to schedule an appointment with the pediatrician for him, and at this moment, since he has diarrhea, you also need to give him the IV fluids, prepare the solution there with water and sugar so that he doesn't get dehydrated."
This is a technical intervention. Now, when you tell Mrs. Maria, "Mrs. Maria, you need to use the IV fluids, you need to schedule an appointment with the pediatrician, but also, Mrs. Maria, it's important that you get involved and participate in the residents' association."
Complain to the city councilor you voted for, complain to the mayor that your grandson has a stomach ache every day because your house doesn't have basic sanitation. Because when your grandson goes there and poops and flushes and comes running to the yard, he steps in the poop and that doesn't cure his stomach ache.
So that's the political aspect. And how do we achieve this in public service, right? And we have the possibility of doing so all the time, by blending the ethical, technical, and political aspects, because our dimension, our performance, necessarily involves this ethical, technical, and political triad. You're mistaken, aren't you, thinking that when we do this, become a psychologist or another professional, and start working at the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), and learn technical skills, we're not going to do all that. Well, Simona Buquer, who is a great reference in the area of social assistance, is a social worker, and she says that our dimension is essentially political, because we are talking about, right, public policy issues, about the demands of a certain population's lack of protection, and that in this case it is not up to us to be neutral, because neutrality, in the vast majority of cases, in almost all of them, already chooses a side of omission.
And omission is not protection. So, in Simone's beautiful speech, I think we can add, on a Friday afternoon, approaching 6 pm, that neutrality is not acceptable for psychologists, for professionals in the South, regardless of their background. Let's leave it neutral, folks, over there for the soap and shampoo brands. Not us, we are professionals who are ethical, technically skilled, and politically savvy. And we're going to intervene and bring this perspective to the support we provide to families and individuals, whether they are children, adolescents, but also elderly people, people with disabilities, all the cycles and segments that we serve.
And it's crucial, folks, that we break with the practice of blaming the victim. This is still very noticeable, especially when we're talking about children and adolescents, because we have a tendency to minimize the fact, to disqualify the victim, to think that the child is often a liar or fantasizing or may be in a certain process of imagination, etc., or to want to rationalize the fact, to look for pseudo-reasons here. Conservatism, you know, it's a master at that, at rationalizing the fact. Then we hear things like, "She shouldn't have been in that place," "She was wearing those clothes," "Oh, a teenager in that short skirt," and that's trying to rationalize the situation, it discredits the victim, minimizes the event, and we just blame the victim even more, right? So, the victim is never to blame for their issues of violence, right, of lack of protection in this field, right, that we are discussing here, the protection of children and adolescents.
The importance of qualified listening in situations of violence, right? This listening needs to be very attentive to the issues, and it's important to say that the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System) inherently provides qualified listening.
We need to have this non-judgmental listening, we need to have this attentive listening, this listening with a sense of security and acceptance, that is, a place that establishes privacy, a place where the person can feel safe, right, to be able to talk about their situations. And it is, most of the time, through this listening that we will uncover the violence, right? Whether it's an intentional, accidental, or institutional revelation, it usually happens spontaneously, but it can also happen in a different way...?
Targeted, provoked. In that sense, there's a text by Heisen and P that will be bringing here the intentional revelation of those episodes where abuse is reported, in this case sexual abuse, which is frequently observed in older children and adolescents. It's accidental, right, stemming from triggering situations, for example, a medical examination that leads to discovery, and it's stimulated when we have, right, some use of some more specific instrument, right, which will be, right, with the objectives of actually identifying these acts of violence, right, that have occurred. Well, we won't be able to show the video here, but there's a video that has a very striking moment, which I suggest you watch in the series Segunda Chamada, in the second season of the series Segunda Chamada, in episode six, where, you know, Rodrigo is revealing a situation of sexual abuse by the teacher, within the education system, but also within the protection network.
So, I think that's pretty clear, right, in the context of what we're discussing here. So, here's a suggestion for you to watch it, you wo n't regret it, right? Yeah, this episode is really cool overall, uh, the series as a whole is really cool, right? But this episode, and this fragment of the episode that reveals a situation of violence, is very important, right, so that everyone can also watch it.
And folks, given this violence, this violation, it's fundamental that public services develop a protection pathway that starts with access to these services, but also includes welcoming, individualized actions, but also collective actions. We, right, although I'm focused, right, I've emphasized here several times the importance of the collective, it's obvious that some services will have a more individualized character, right, but they shouldn't be the prevalence, they shouldn't be an end in themselves, right? We need to collectivize the demands for protection of public policies, the procedures, and the evaluation, considering whether the objectives were achieved or not, so that we can actually reach a point of protection. And remember that receiving support from the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS) is a right, not a requirement.
And that's a point, right, that we need to work hard on and greatly expand our services regarding this right to protection, right? Sometimes protective measures are presented as a way to blame a particular family. You have to go to the CRAS, you have to go to the CR, you have to do this, but it's almost a way of holding that family responsible for the lack of protection they are experiencing. And actually, you know, we have to give this speech in a reversed way. It is your right to be at Crash, it is your right to have protection offered by CRIAS, it is your right, right, to have an intervention to support you, your family, your mother, father, aunt, grandmother, to help you overcome and reposition yourself in the situation of vulnerability you are experiencing, not as an obligation, an imposition, but as your right, right, to be able to be in this space and in this space, right, to find protection, right? So this reversal of logic is fundamental for us in the SUAS (Unified Social Assistance System), right? Because otherwise we end up repeating a social assistance policy as an act of charity, as if it were, "Oh, I'm being nice, the state is being nice and is offering you this." That's not right. If it 's a right, it can't be granted as an imposition based on a strictly legal and accountability-based perspective, right? We're talking about a social right here.
right? So, we're talking here about access and inclusion, and thinking above all, that this flow, this itinerary of protection, this right to protection, will permeate the issues related to the territory, the issues of welcoming, specialized support, the construction of a support plan, interviews, care, group guidance, workshops, legal guidance, and the study and discussion of cases, so we can think about that. What is the best strategy for protecting children and adolescents, right? It involves not only public policy, but also the entire social protection network that children and adolescents are entitled to.
And I'll finish by quoting Professor Débra Diniz from UnB, who says the following: "The world's pains are not the pains of the elite. The elites manage to survive the effects of inequality. If the world's pains were felt equally by all of us, equality would be a right and not an act of solidarity." I thank each and every one of you who were with us this Friday, late afternoon, early evening, and I leave this open for us to dialogue a little more and continue talking for a few more minutes. Thank you, people who thank you, Régis.
Thank you very much for your care. I think when you thought about this, what you wanted to share with us in this transmission, you mentioned the idea of the SUAS agenda, you mentioned Orange May, but I also want to highlight here, for those who are listening, that May 18th was the national day to combat... Abuse and sexual exploitation of children and adolescents. In psychology, we sometimes remember May 18th a lot, just to talk about the anti-asylum movement, right? But even that date, May 18th, which I just mentioned, was even established before the May 18th of the anti-asylum movement. I even like to draw attention to this, as a former worker in the SUS (Brazilian public health system) for a long time, in fact, my May 18th was that day, right? So, I went out into the streets with my social work colleagues for that "Faça Bonito" (Do the Right Thing) campaign.
And as Professor Mirelle said here in the chat, this discussion you bring up is so important.
Prevention is our responsibility, right?
Yes, that's it, right? So, protecting our children and adolescents is a duty for all of us. Oh, oh Hey Ris, before I call Professor Lucas here to join us, there was a question from Bia that she sent during your talk, uh, which was when you were talking about the idea, right, of sexism not being transversal, but fundamental, right? She asked you this question, uh, but we can't separate violence against women as one of the consequences of the phenomenon of violence against children, Professor. What do you think about that? Thank you for your participation, Bia.
No, I think Bia brings up a super important element, actually, it 's a statement, and what I think about it, first, I think I fully agree with you, okay?
First, I think that in fact we can't separate them. And here, interacting a little with your question, Bia, we can't separate them and we also can't believe, we can't be naive, I don't know if innocent is the best word, but in the absence of another I'm going to use this to say that public policies will also address situations as complex as sexism and violence against children and adolescents, with services often provided through referrals. Let me give a practical example to illustrate what I'm trying to say. Sometimes the concept of " TEA" (Specialized Center for Social Assistance), with the best intentions, refers a case to CREAS (Specialized Center for Social Assistance) regarding violence against a child or adolescent, sexual abuse, a sexual situation, or other violence. It could also be the Public Prosecutor's Office, the judiciary, any actor in the network, and then after 30 days, a month, they'll ask for a report and say, "What did you do, and what's the situation like?"
And then situations of vulnerability that are generational are reduced to, as if in 30 days the service, with all its shortcomings, and the family, which often remains in the same vulnerable situation, couldn't change that?
Obviously not. This will change in 30 days, right? We're talking about generational violence here. There's also a little video that I bet many of you know, called "Vida Maria," right? It's available on YouTube and it shows this very objectively, right? How generational violence is reproduced and aggravated many times, right? From the various scenes, right? From the various Marias, in the case of the video, right? That's what happens. So you're absolutely right, right?
When we, as children, when we're exposed to a situation of violence, this pattern of violence, if it's not addressed in some way, if we don't find a protection network in some way, it tends to repeat itself in different ways. And then, whether in the provocation of this violence, in the authorship of the violence, or in the place where the victim of the violence is, right? And please don't misunderstand me, I'm going to open up. Here, several quotation marks are used, right?
This place of violence is almost normalized. "Oh, but my mother, it was like this with my mother, it was like this with my aunt, it was like this with my grandmother, right?" And how much public policy needs to break this space, right?
It needs to break this cycle. And when we bring in a very individual dimension, breaking this becomes much more difficult, because in fact, that person is left with the feeling that, " Oh, but that's how it is, life is like this, life is really difficult." And we lose references that it's possible to do things differently, right? So, when we're talking here about collectivizing protection, about collectivizing demand, we're also talking about this, right, about power, right, from being all together, from being several women together, right, to think that there are other forms of protection. Ah, I mentioned Professor Márcia Mansor, right, who is from PUC, right, in social psychology, and we were discussing this with her, we were talking... Regarding this, the difficulty that many professionals, both in psychology and in other training phases, professionals in general, have with group work. "Oh, I don't have the profile for this, I can't handle groups." And then they bring up the group, which is one form of the collective dimension, but not the only one, right?
So I think it's important to emphasize this, right? The group is one of the tools that can be used to work on the collective dimension, but it's not the only one.
Sometimes, however, the group happens— of course, the person leading the group is fundamental—but it happens beyond the person leading it. It happens when a woman starts to recount her situation of violence and another woman gets up, gets her some water, and gives it to her. When another woman nearby holds her hand. When another woman who sees her start to cry gets a paper towel and gives it to her. So what's happening there, right? So we have... "We need to plan, yes, we have to be trained to do group work, but the group will happen, right? So I think that's fundamental. And with children and adolescents, it's also obvious that we have to have a very, very high level of sensitivity when we're talking about group work. There are professionals who will be like, 'No, but we're going to do group work with children and adolescents who are victims of sexual abuse and exploitation.'
We will, as long as it's planned. And also, when we're talking about this group, we're not saying that this will be the only subject the group will address, right? We'll talk about other issues, we'll talk about protection, we'll do other activities, so that we can have a protective interaction between families or between that group of children, and other ways of protecting them. Uh, and then, I think I talked and talked and didn't mention the reference to May 18th, right, Gilmar? How awful. [laughs] We're doing it here..." Okay, this conversation, including in relation to this important marker, uh, May 8th, which is a day of much work for us, right, because we have to work, we work on various fronts, in the "Faça Bonito" ( Beautiful Path) movement, we work in the anti-asylum struggle, right? Uh, but it's fundamental, folks, and it's fundamental for us to have these markers as a possibility to broaden the debate, to broaden the debate in the city, right?
We, I, right, today I live in Brasília, but I lived in BH (Belo Horizonte) many years ago, right, and so we have all the actions of May 18th, whether it's the march, from the march on the issues of the struggle, also the "Faça Bonito" movement, which all the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Centers) and CRES (Regional Social Assistance Reference Centers) will be doing some activity.
This is very good for us, above all, to be able to vocalize this theme of protection beyond our walls.
Now, what we can't think is that this is enough, right? What we can't do is have the perception that I'm going to work on the issues of exploitation.
Sexual violence only in May. And then in June, a case happens in my territory there, I'll give an example here, someone from BH, in Barreiro, at the Independência CRAS, right, in the Barreiro region. And there was a situation involving sexual violence, but I just worked on that two weeks ago in the May 18th campaign. I'm not going to revisit that, because I already worked on it. That's what can't happen, because I have to let the territory guide me. If that happens in the territory, it's another reason for me to work on that issue in the territory, right, and not wait for another significant date to resume that discussion. So, right, that's what we understand, right, and what all of us who are here, right, as actors and actresses who do this, need to be aware of.
Great, Réges. I really liked that moment in your speech where you bring that up, right, in the projection, right, of replacing, right, this family is pain, right, and for us to think about this idea of intersectorality, right, for example, I I even saw a few times how it happened and how powerful it really was and how much it contributed to the people we were helping. But I wanted to ask you a question, considering the position I occupy, if you could tell us a little about the role of this Department of Special Social Protection, and in your position, what challenges or concerns do you see in this context of special social protection? What can be done to try to prevent, but also to adequately support children and adolescents in this context of violence?
In your management role, what do you see as the biggest challenge? No, perfect. I think, well, just starting out, today I'm in this management position, but as a SUS worker, a CR technician. I've been there, you know, and sometimes we make this distinction between management and execution, and it's normal, natural, but the difficulty we have is that the things being considered in Brazil are sometimes very far from the reality of a small town in the interior of Minas Gerais. That's when you say, "Wow, they're talking about this, but things are happening here," and that's exactly right, folks. This is the territory used by Milton Santos, which I've mentioned several times, where things happen. And what we need to do first, I think, is to resume, after speaking here in this ministerial role, to resume this contact and this function of building with the municipalities to determine the various guidelines that will govern this policy. So, very recently, Bia brought up the issue of violence against women; a protection track on the prevention of violence against women was recently launched within the PIF (Program for the Integration of Women), precisely to move away from this place... Okay, sometimes, in the same way we talked here, like, "ah, if it's C's family, that's CREAS's family," but we say that because we divided the subjects. We talked about violence or special violations. We talk about an issue that's more about benefits or an issue that's more about prevention, that's basic. And in fact, the demands are there, right, and the various levels of protection, the various units have their competencies in relation to this, right?
Talking about violence against women isn't just a responsibility of the special unit, it's also the basic unit, right? Talking about violence against children and adolescents isn't just the responsibility of the special unit, it's also the basic unit, right? So I think that's fundamental. And answering you a little bit about how we've seen this today, I think we have some scenarios, some fragilities and some challenges that have always been there, like the lack of protection for children and adolescents, how many women, these are phenomena of lack of protection that are already known to us, but... People are experiencing a moment of worsening in other ways. How are these acts of violence happening, right?
So, when we think about the issue of children and adolescents, there's an interview, right, that I think also gives us some insights to help us reflect on, in that Bial program, the conversation with Bal, an interview with the Judge of the 5th Juvenile Court of Rio de Janeiro, uh, with Bial, right, on Bal's program. I forgot her name now, but I can give it to you later, you know. Uh, and then she says, you know, that juvenile offenses have always existed and that you have a certain public, close-quote profile, which is already known to the judiciary, and that they will be there as adolescents, uh, most of the time, who arrive at the judiciary, right, not that it means that they are only these, but that they arrive at the judiciary, as adolescents from the favelas, poor adolescents, black adolescents, and that is a profile that the judiciary has always considered as being adolescents who are serving socio-educational measures.
And this profile, I repeat, doesn't mean that only this profile commits crimes, but only this profile reaches, right? Sometimes they remain in a measure, but the most aggravated forms of violence today are not in this profile, but in that middle-class, upper-middle-class youth who uses the internet, who uses access to consumer goods for certain criminal practices, and these criminal practices are increasingly, right, with cruelty and violence that are increasingly aggravated, right? And then she will cite, for example, a community, a social network, actually, called Discord. I don't know if you've heard of it, but for those who haven't, it's worth researching, right? This Discord platform is characterized by bringing in elements, especially certain challenges, among these young people. And these challenges are recorded and transmitted online. And within these challenges, we have gang rapes, we have violence against girls, We have several other situations of violence that perhaps we are already aware of; violence itself is already well-known to social services— violence against girls, sexual violence—but the way it occurs and the way it escalates brings a new element to us. We need to deal with this, you understand? So, I think these new scenarios, these new territories of violence, are a field that we need to be very attentive to. Another issue that I think is also growing, and that we need to be very attentive to, is the current emergencies. What are we calling current emergencies?
I'll start with the migratory issue, right? We are in a moment of a lot of migration, due to various issues: wars, political issues, economic issues, and so on. To give you an idea, when we look at data from Brazil, if I look at Roraima, which borders Venezuela, right? Well, we have a large operation, Operation Welcome, where we have the entry... From 200 to 300 migrants a day, right, in these states, coming from Venezuela to Brazil.
The data on child labor in the state, in the state capital, Boa Vista, shows that 90% of children and adolescents are migrants.
In other words, migration also brings a sense of vulnerability, and that's something we need to address. If I consider climate change, the issues of major floods, droughts, among others, but I'll focus on the floods. We will all remember, because it's still very recent in our memory, the situation in Rio Grande do Sul two years ago, in 2024. I spent two months in Rio Grande do Sul, practically continuously during that period, and it was very difficult.
I think everyone will also remember the many news reports we had about violence within the shelters, right?
We had shelters there with 8,000 people. 8,000 people is more than many cities in Minas Gerais.
Obviously, I'm not saying it's right, What's wrong, what's justifiable, what isn't. It's not about that. They're saying that the vulnerabilities you had in the territory are now coming to the shelter.
So, the violence against women that already existed in the territory is now inside the shelter, the violence against adolescents that already existed in the territory is now inside the shelter, and these are aggravated by the unprotected situation found there, right? So, these phenomena all bring up an important issue for us. And to conclude, I think another very relevant factor that we also need to be very attentive to is conservatism and fake news. The hate speech we find, this hate speech against women, this hate speech. And then we're thinking about women, girls too, children, adolescents, right? How much this hate speech that conservatism brings, it leaves children and adolescents unprotected, the discourse that ranges from lowering the age of criminal responsibility, the discourse What happens when children and adolescents have to work? The discourse, you know, is sexist, misogynistic, and so on, which objectifies the bodies of girls, right? So all of this, I think, are challenges that we have, right? And I'm not here to say what the Ministry is doing about this.
I think we're doing a lot, but we have to do a lot more, but above all, we need to think, as a public policy, about how much current public policy needs to be attentive to this, right? Because these are the challenges we face today. If we think about it, to finish my answer, which is already getting long, if I ask my father, or if I asked my mother, about a scene of child labor, they would probably think of that classic child labor, the boy at the traffic light, selling things. either a boy in the quarry, or a boy in the garbage dump, right? This is child labor. Yes, and it's no use denying it, our generation of workers in the South, we have to consider that this child labor continues to exist, but we also have to consider child labor related to drug trafficking. I have to think about the fact that some of the kids are involved in drug trafficking, I have to think about the child labor that's happening in the gamification of that teenager who's just there all the time, and that kid is just playing the game, right? So I have to think about various forms of child labor and not just that one, you know, which was the classic one, so to speak, from the book that talks about child labor, right? So I think those are the themes, right? How do we bring these vulnerabilities into the present day as well?
Thank you very much. Wow, I'll invite Professor Lucas to join us here too, please.
Good evening, Regis. Good evening, Vilmar.
I wanted to thank you for your contribution.
I think I'm still processing it all here; I took several notes throughout your speech, you know? I think you bring a systemic framework, right, for us to think about the issue of child and adolescent protection, right, moving away from any clichés, right, focusing our attention on a sensitivity to the territory, analyzing the circumstances, the real contexts in which this violence occurs, but also giving us a reference point for looking at different dimensions, right, for education, for health, for the environment, and so on. I think I'm the one who works most directly with the education network, right? And regarding the issue of protecting children and adolescents, obviously that's the school's responsibility, right? Education as a whole is part of this network, right?
So, not so directly, I don't work so directly with social assistance, right? But I think your speech brings that perspective, right? From a psychologist's perspective, right? Not just for psychologists, right? But I think that here, most of our audience is probably psychology students, right?
But the important thing for us is to think about acting in a way that is sensitive to a diversity of dimensions, right? You brought up the various forms of violence here, right?
Racism, homophobia, and so on, but also contemporary realities that present themselves and produce new forms of violence, right? And that also requires new ways of dealing with it, right? I think it's about the issue of campaigns. I think that, being closer to the context of educational settings, I've seen a lot of this focus on protection based on campaign dates and so on. Sometimes there's a lack of consideration for local realities, a lack of intersectoral dialogue between social services and education, in order to actually define actions that will contribute to the protection network. And you, one point you brought up really caught my attention and sparked some issues I've been experiencing, which is the issue of directing families towards specific resources, right? And so, we see this a lot in relation to the school, this problem, this child, right, has this problem, because this is a family from the CRES (Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center), this is a family from the CRAS (Social Assistance Reference Center), right, and we don't grasp the dimension of how I can act as protection, right, I as being from the school community, that this child who is here is the same child who is in the CRES, the same child who is in the CRAS, and we have to have actions here in conjunction with all these other resources, in the sense of protection, right? So, I think the contribution you brought here today, you know, from someone who's in the ministry, you know, in that area of management, you know, who has a really broad vision about this, right? I'm sure you've contributed immensely to our channel, right, Vilmar? I think it's also for the training of everyone here, and to improve our ways of thinking and acting on this very important problem.
I think I wanted to say thank you, and again for the opportunity to hear you speak, I think that's all. I don't know, Mar, if there's any specific issue. I even had a few questions here, but we went on for quite a while, didn't we? Well, I brought it, I don't know if it fits, Vilmar, but I'm going to, I'm going to, as I noted here, I think it's worth mentioning.
You asked a question about the main demands, but I reflected here on whether there are any specific actions, right, from the ministry to implement this type of... I imagine that this is already part of the actions, right, within social assistance, but to implement this process that you mentioned, a process of actions more focused on the specific demands of the territories, to move away a little from these actions more directed by campaigns. Is there any specific action aimed at strengthening this perspective that you brought up?
Right? No, perfect. First, I'd like to thank you for your consideration and say that I 'm available. What ends is time, not the subject matter. We still have a lot to talk about, right? But I think that what we've been doing, you know, involves two essential functions: one is organizing and guiding policy, right? So, various materials were released, uh, technical publications, right, the reference teams that are working on the cases, believe me, and that really contribute to the training of these teams, right, in this dynamic, right, taking away this very inward-looking perspective and thinking more about, referring to the expression I used, how to break down these doors, right, how to tear down these walls within the institutions, right, so all our material has been written and directed to the teams very much from this perspective.
I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity here as well. We're talking about this, and there are people who will watch it later, right? But it's being recorded, let's say, here on May 22, 2026, right? It's at a very crucial moment for the Social Center, because it's in the Senate, right? PEC 07 of 2026 has already been approved in Congress in both the first and second rounds of voting, right?
Before PEC 383. What is that? A proposed constitutional amendment that earmarks resources for social assistance. I think, as many here already know, health and education have linked resources. This means that, obviously, health and education are also hostage to mismanagement, but the resources are secured and there is a constitutional minimum that must be invested, regardless of the opinions of whoever is sitting in the management chair at that moment. So, this provides greater security for these two public policies as a continuation.
But more than anything else, right? But just as important as providing that security of continuity, it also means they are not at the mercy of what we call budget cuts, right? In other words, funds cannot be blocked mid-year simply because there was a new expense and we need to offset that expense. Well, the resources there are indeed guaranteed; there are no budget cuts.
Social assistance is a different story, is n't it? If you have governments that are committed to social welfare, you will have investment in social welfare. If you have governments that are not committed, you will not have resources invested in social assistance, and you will have a logic of petty electoral problems, right, to serve the interests of a particular manager. Well, and P0, right, from 2026 today, it aims precisely to guarantee this resource for social assistance.
So, we're talking about 1% of the net current revenue.
Sometimes 1% seems like a very small amount, doesn't it?
No, but we're fighting for 1%, yes, we're fighting and fighting, fighting a lot, right, for 1%, but that means, in the case of the Union, right, so you have an idea, uh, four times, right, it will amount to four times over the period, right, what is invested today in social assistance services.
We have states, and I'm not talking about Minas Gerais specifically, okay?
But we have states where that amount represents 10 times the value that the state invests in social assistance. So, we would be able to make a leap in quality and expansion of our network, so that social assistance actually reaches those who require it, those who need it, as stipulated by law.
So, you know, when you ask, what have we been doing? We have been providing guidance, we have been making necessary expansions within what has been possible with a limited budget, such as, for example, resuming the co-financing of municipalities for issues related to child labor, which had not happened since 2019, and has returned.
Irregularities don't go unpunished, public policy isn't passed on with money, right? We can't be naive here, can we? It's no use having good intentions if you don't have the resources, right? Well, we've also been waging a very strong political battle, right, to ensure that this is actually guaranteed, and that we have the conditions, right, even though obviously managers have discretion over certain actions, but with the allocated resources, this provides a much greater guarantee and peace of mind for the public social assistance policy to continue existing and addressing, right, the situations of vulnerability that they create.
Oh, and lastly, for those watching who haven't voted on the PEP yet, mobilize your senators to get this PEC voted on quickly. Go to the Congress website, you know, if you search on Google, uh, public consultation PEC07/2026, you'll be able to vote, and this pressure is very important so that we can actually make the effects of co-financing social assistance effective. It's here in the chat, guys. You can see it by clicking there.
It's Gis, thank you very much, right? I'm going to share another conversation that Mirele had with you, okay? But it's also a thank you, right? I think I couldn't finish without putting it here, right? So, thank you for opening your schedule to us. We are very happy to have you with us.
Well, to wrap things up, is there anything else you'd like to add?
No, just want to say thank you, right? Saying that you can count on me, you can call me and I'll come, right? We'll keep in touch, right? And I think that's what's important, right? We're talking about protecting children and adolescents; we're also talking about protection. A part of Brazilian society that historically, you know, has been partly unprotected, and that part of the Brazilian population, you know, has historically been unprotected, and that part is us, you know, along with so many other great people, you know, but more than great, you know, committed, responsible and competent people, you know, who are making this system happen and guaranteeing protection, you know, for Brazilian children, adolescents and families who require this policy. Thank you, and we'll keep in touch.
Thank you, Réges, Lucas. I'll keep you here for a few more minutes, but as usual, to wrap things up, I need to invite you to come back next week and we'll have a very different, very interesting discussion.
The conversation will be between Professor João Leite and Rafaela Calvocante Bueno, who is a graduate of our postgraduate program, discussing the mental health of DJs in Brazil, folks. It will be interesting. I look forward to seeing you here next Friday, but be sure to follow our social media channels, especially the Psychology Faculty's Instagram, so you don't miss any other activities.
Well, a hug for everyone who watched this broadcast. Whether it's live or recorded, we're going to wrap it up here. Bye-bye, everyone.
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