Brasília, 7/10/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Drug trafficking, gang wars and death squads. Life is not easy for some children and adolescents in Brazil. More and more frequently, the victims of those criminal activities have a similar profile: they are young boys with little schooling, from poor families that reject them, reports the Special Secretariat of Human Rights (SEDH).

As part of a plan to reduce the problem, the head of the SEDH, minister Nilmario Miranda, has launched the Ministry of Justice's Program to Protect Threatened Children and Adolescents. The launch was announced to celebrate the 13th anniversary of the Statute of Children and Adolescents which took place last Sunday.

An SEDH study has found that most youngsters who are victims of violent deaths, die at the hands of drug dealers or professional criminals for three reasons. First, when they try to break away from crime they are killed because they are seen as knowing too much. Second, they are killed for not paying debts. Third, they are victims in territorial disputes between drug lords.

Other problems youths face, according to the study, are when adults make them take the rap for crimes, when they are involved in conflicts, the increased use of firearms, child prostitution and, when they go to reform school, disputes in reform schools.

Miranda also announced the creation of a joint work group with the Ministry of Communications to establish a human rights hotline, as well as an Internet site for denouncements of crimes against youths. (AB)