Brasília - A report prepared by a network of 27 non-governmental organizations dedicated to defending the rights of children and adolescents indicates that, if specific policies are not adopted, Brazil will achieve only three of the eight goals set out in the document, A World for Children. The document is an agreement signed by 189 countries, Brazil among them, on ways to improve the living conditions of boys and girls around the world.
To reach these goals, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched the President, Child's Friend plan in December, 2003. Based on indicators gathered for the period 1990-2002 and the investments that Lula's government intends to make in the area of childhood and adolescence in coming years, the Child's Friend Monitoring Network - comprising institutions such as the United Nations Childrens Fund (Unicef), the United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization (Unesco), the Abrinq Foundation, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) - drafted the report, A Brazil for Children, released yesterday (10).
According to the report, the country will manage to decrease infant mortality to a third of its current level. It will also be possible, the document states, to reduce by two-thirds the number of homes without sewage and drinking water at accessible prices and halve the number of school-age children who are not enrolled.
However, the report also points to the areas in which Brazil is not on the correct path. Among the goals that will probably not be met are the reduction of the maternal mortality rate to a third of what is now, improvement in the quality of education, and the reduction of malnutrition in children under five years old to a third of the current index.
According to Minister Nilmário Miranda of the Special Secretariat of Human Rights, the government's analysis of the report should appear by October. But the Minister vouched right off that the reality of economic growth and renewed job creation in the country is favorable to the achievement of more goals.
Agência Brasil
Reporter: Juliana Andrade
Translator: David Silberstein
08/11/2004
