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Helping a Society to No Longer Accept Sex With Kids
by Jack Epstein, Special to The Christian Science Monitor
SALVADOR, BRAZIL Jose Romulo Silva Santos, a Brazilian policemen, warily eyed his
instructor, who was running down a list of social and economic problems that turn children
to prostitution. "What should I do if I see them stealing or killing somebody?" he asked the
instructor. "Be nice to them? What they need is a sound thrashing." But at the end of the
three-week course in July, Mr. Santos' skepticism had turned to sympathy. With tears in his
eyes, he told a group of fellow officers: "Now I get angry when I see adults with these kids."
Mr. Santos is one of 60 policemen from the northern Brazilian state of Bahia who recently
participated in a human rights course sponsored by the Center of Defense of Children and
Adolescents (CEDECA), a nongovernmental organization here. The class is part of a
public-awareness campaign, begun in 1995 by CEDECA and funded by UNICEF, to end
child sexual exploitation. "There is no doubt that people are beginning to change," says
Helia Barbosa, CEDECA's executive director. "We have awakened many here." Ms.
Barbosa, however, acknowledges that changing society's attitudes about child sex
exploitation and especially teen prostitutes has been an uphill struggle. Many Brazilians
see nothing wrong with adult males having sex with young girls, a practice that has been
widespread since Portuguese explorers cohabited with young Indian girls. Child prostitutes
are typically seen as being "shameless" and involved in prostitution because "they like it,"
according to Barbosa. "Before this campaign, it was a nonissue," says Agop Kayayan,
Brazil's UNICEF representative. "If someone said he went to bed with an 11-year-old, the
typical response wasn't 'how could you?' but 'how was it?' " In a recent publicity campaign
for the Brazil edition of Playboy magazine, billboards highlighted the month's playmate, a
young soap opera star, with the caption: "She may be 18 but she has the body of a
15-year-old." Last summer, an ad in a newspaper for a Porto Alegre nightclub read: "Now
that your wife and children have been packed off to the beach, it's time for you to play with
other peoples' children." According to a 1994 investigation on child prostitution by a special
commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil's lower house, prostitutes were found to be
as young as five years old. "There exists the distorted view that the relationship with child
prostitutes is an affirmation of youth and masculinity," said the report. From CEDECA's
command post above a fishermen's supply store facing Salvador's historic port, Barbosa
and her 10-member staff are busy organizing debates, speeches, seminars, and meetings
with students, unions, lawyers, politicians, and police officials. Barbosa is happy about
CEDECA's new agreement to work with the Salvador police, an institution known for
harassing child prostitutes with beatings and demanding sexual favors. "We [police] have
long been part of the problem," concedes Police Maj. Gautier Amorim Neto. "Now, we want
to be part of the solution." Major Amorim hopes the human rights classes will "awaken my
men's inner sensibilities. We are trained to be belligerent warriors with no orientation
regarding the country's socioeconomic problems," he adds. CEDECA is also working
closely with truckers' unions that have promised to punish drivers who commonly transport
young girls from city to city in exchange for sex. The key to CEDECA's success has been
its "ability to create partnerships with traditional child sex-exploiters," says Cesare de Florio
La Rocca, director of Projeto Axé, a respected nongovernmental organization that works
with Salvador's street children. According to Barbosa, the campaign initially focuses on
making society aware of the socio-economic problems that drive most children into
prostitution such as poverty, domestic violence, and sexual abuse by a relative. This is
followed by an appeal to denounce adults who exploit them. During last year's carnival,
when hundreds of thousands of Brazilian and foreign tourists invaded the city, CEDECA
volunteers passed out pamphlets warning visitors: "Sexual exploitation of children is a crime
and can lead to imprisonment." Posters were pasted on walls showing images such as a
lone man behind bars under the caption: "There are many rooms for those who exploit
minors." The campaign's major publicity boost, however, came from three of Brazil's most
famous samba singers. In a television and radio blitz, superstars Caetano Veloso, Gilberto
Gil, and Daniela Mercury told a nationwide audience that "if you keep quiet, you consent.
Denounce child sexual exploitation now." A hot-line number then flashed across the screen.
As a result, there have been 3,343 denunciations and 204 police investigations, in which
113 cases were turned over to state prosecutors, according to Bahia police records. Three
CEDECA attorneys follow up investigations and offer free services to parents of exploited
children. "The CEDECA campaign has quadrupled my work," says Regina Sampaio, police
chief of the special Division of Protection of Children and Adolescents in Salvador. "Before,
we never received any complaints about child prostitution." In a nation where sex crimes
against children rarely result in an investigation, the hot line has led to several arrests,
including a man selling child pornography, three fathers who raped their daughters, and
two brothel owners, who placed teen prostitutes in a brothel picture window to attract
customers. Most important, the campaign has provoked a fierce debate over the Brazilian
justice system and the reluctance of many judges to prosecute adults who have sex with
minors. Last May, for example, Supreme Court Judge Marco Aurélio de Mello wrote the
opinion in a 3 to 2 decision to release Márcio Luiz de Carvalho, a house plumber
sentenced to six years in jail for raping a 12-year-old girl. In his summation, Judge de Mello
argued that the girl had consented to having sex, had lived a "promiscuous life," and that
"in these times, there aren't little girls, but young women of 12 years, precociously mature."
Despite such views, CEDECA members say some judges are getting their message and
point to a landmark decision by Judge Afrânio de Andrade Machado, a magistrate from the
Bahian coastal city of Caravelas. In May, he shocked many here when he condemned 15 of
the city's leading businessmen to prison terms of eight to 24 years for the 1992 sexual
abuse of two girls, aged 9 and 13. Other CEDECA victories include: * The Salvador City
Council has passed laws making sex education a required subject in public schools and
banning minors from motels, hotels, and nightclubs without parental supervision. * An
eight-member police team has been created to investigate hot-line accusations. * A special
court is being planned to prosecute child sex exploiters. * CEDECA plans to sign an
agreement this month with the police department and Salvador tourist associations to
require hotels, restaurants, and bars to place signs in several languages warning tourists
about having sex with minors. These results have caught the eye of Brazilian President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who last year asked the Justice Ministry to launch a similar
nationwide program, including the establishment of a national hot-line number. "We are
reversing a centuries-old practice," says Arlinda Uzêda, a CEDECA attorney. "It may seem
like a drop in a bucket, but the drops are increasing."