Children in the Streets of Brazil:

The presence of vast numbers of unsupervised and unprotected children is a phenomenon that is common throughout Latin America, and in few places are the street children more visible, and reviled, than in Brazil. Estimates of their numbers in Brazil have ranged from 7 to 17 million, but more informed assessments suggest that between 7 and 8 million children, ages 5 to 18, live and/or work on the streets of urban Brazil. Accounts of drug abuse among street youths in Brazil are commonplace. Numerous scientific studies and media stories have reported the widespread use of inhalants, marijuana and cocaine, and Valium among street children. Also common is the use of coca paste and Rohypnol. Risk of exposure to HIV is rapidly becoming an area of concern because of the large number of street youths engaging in unprotected sexual acts, both renumerated and non-renumerated. Moreover, Brazil's street children are targets of fear. Because of their drug use, predatory crimes, and general unacceptability on urban thoroughfares, they are frequently the targets of local vigilante groups, drug gangs, and police "death squads." Although there have been many proposals and programs for addressing the problems of Brazilian street youth, it would appear that only minimal headway has been achieved. The United Nations Center for Human Rights has estimated that by the year 2000 half of the world's population will be under 25 years of age and located in cities, and that significant numbers will be living in poverty (UNICEF, 1996a). The United Nations also estimated that by the end of this century there will be almost 250 million more urban children in the 5-to-19 year old age cohort then there were in the mid-1980s; that more than 90% of these youths will be living in developing nations; and that by the year 2020 there will be some 100 million indigent urban minors in Latin America alone. It is likely, furthermore, that many of these children will be living in the streets (UNICEF, 1996b).