Abu Ghraib Is Here, in Brazil

Why do we not confront the evils of child prostitution, of child
labor, of degraded schools, of abandoned childhood, of street
children? Because we are more indignant about the photos of the
distant Iraqi prison than the photos of our own local Abu Ghraib.
Child abuse degrades our children in a graver way.

Cristovam Buarque

In the last few weeks the images of the treatment of Iraqi prisoners within the Abu Ghraib Prison have frightened the entire world. Many more people would be horrified if international television would show what Brazil does with its children.

Child prostitution degrades our children and adolescents in a way that is graver than the shameful acts occurring in that Iraqi prison. All across our nation hundreds of thousands of girls and a growing number of boys are taken from their families and submitted to the evils of the sexual trafficking exploiters and usurers. Instead of becoming horrified, every week we receive planeloads of sexual tourists from Europe to mistreat our girls.

The Brazilian judicial system has already sent an American pilot back to his country for making an obscene gesture at a federal police officer; the federal government has already invalidated the work visa of an American journalist who wrote heedlessly about the President.

But how many sexual tourists who have mistreated our girls might we have returned to their countries? Certainly very few. First, because our politicians and judicial system seem to be of the opinion that a newspaper article opposing the President or a gesture directing against a police officer hurts the national honor more than a foreigner's sexual violence directed against our children. Second, because the tourist pays in dollars, a little for the girl and her family, more for the hotels and restaurants.

And so we continue to close our eyes to our own Abu Ghraibs.

A joint Congressional Commission of Inquiry (CPI) confirmed the names of dozens of people involved in the sexual trafficking of children and adolescents. Among those identified are personalities, authorities, people society considers respectable.

And all those concerned with the matter are asking themselves what is going to happen to those criminals. If they should at least be punished, like the American soldiers who tortured in Abu Ghraib, or if they will continue laughing and committing their crimes.

If the speech made in the Federal Senate by Senator Patrícia Saboya Gomes were to be circulated as a videotape, the entire world would call for immediate measures against these brutalities.

But we cannot merely concern ourselves with punishing those responsible. The American government decided to suspend torture as an interrogation method; it prohibited maltreatment in the Iraqi prisons. Yet we do not show the necessary will, do not use the necessary energy, the necessary resources, to put an end to our own Abu Ghraib.

Nothing Done

In February 2003, when the Lula Government had been in office less than two months, a meeting was held to discuss the problem of child prostitution and define the means of confronting it. From then until now, as Senator Patrícia Saboya Gomes recently stated, nothing concrete has been done.

In that meeting it was said that four steps would suffice to solve the problem. First, defining that it is a priority, not only from the point of view of aiding the girls who continue to be prostituted, but from that of abolition, so that child prostitution will cease to exist in Brazil. That decision has not yet been clearly made, as if we do not believe that the problem has a solution.

Second, setting a time limit for this solution to take effect. We cannot continue merely trying to confront the problem without defining when it will cease to exist, running the risk of being asked every day to explain how the confrontation is going. It is better to be held responsible for the incapacity to do something than for the shame of not having an objective.

Third, naming a coordinator to take responsibility for the matter, one who would be dismissed in a few months if he or she could not show results. As long as the problem is handled in a scattered manner, without a central responsible person, by so many ministries and groups that aid victims or repress crime, we are not going to eliminate it.

Finally, implanting the programs that we already know—a special Bolsa-Escola (school scholarship) for those girls and their families, psychological care, daily scholastic monitoring for each of them.

In the Federal District between 1995 and 1999, the government showed that it is possible to confront the problem. Naturally it costs money. But it costs much less than what we spend upon other things, many of them less important.

This was what was done with each project that Brazil carried out throughout its history, all much more difficult. We built a capital, hydroelectric plants, freeways, universities while all around we allowed children to continue in prostitution.

Why do we not confront the evils of child prostitution, of child labor, of degraded schools, of abandoned childhood, of street children? Because we are more indignant about the photos of the distant Iraqi prison than the photos of our own local Abu Ghraib.

Cristovam Buarque - mensagem@cristovam.com.br - is a professor at the University of Brasília and a Workers Party (PT) senator for the Federal District. He was also Brazil's Education Minister during the first year of the Lula administration.

Translated by Linda Jerome - LinJerome@cs.com.