Paula Menna Barreto
Reporter - Agência Brasil

"Protect her as if she were your daughter," is the slogan of the National Campaign to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents, which starts today (15). The purpose of the campaign is to encourage truck drivers and other transportation professionals to condemn situations involving sexual violence and abuse committed against children and adolescents on Brazilian highways.

Pamphlets and posters will be distributed on the country's highways. The objective is to alert the population about the practice of this crime. The Ministry of Justice says that the penalty ranges from 25 years to a life sentence. The life sentence is when the victim is killed.

A federal government study discovered that there are more than 900 cities in Brazil in which sexual exploitation of children and adolescents goes on. The Federal Highway Police mapped out 844 risk points for children and adolescents around the country's federal highways. In the last seven months the free telephone number of the Secretariat of Human Rights has received more than 10 thousand calls with accusations of sexual violence against children and adolescents in the country.

Translation: David Silberstein