January 1, 2004
Police and prison violence, including torture and extrajudicial killings, continue to be Brazil's most serious human rights problems, and those responsible for abuses continue to enjoy near-total impunity. Brazil's new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has taken effective steps to combat the entrenched problem of child labor and has created programs to protect human rights defenders and promote racial equality. The government has also given priority to the fight against hunger, extreme poverty, and social exclusion, and instituted an ambitious "Zero Hunger" program as well as a family grant program to bring poor children into schools. But it has yet to deal meaningfully with the systematic torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects, unacceptable detention conditions, and widespread impunity for perpetrators of abuse.
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- Torture
- Police Violence
- Conditions of Detention
- Juvenile Detention
- Forced Labor
- Impunity
- Key International Actors
Torture
Torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects and prisoners is a systemic problem in Brazil. Police (both civil and military) and guards routinely torture suspects during and after arrest, in pre-trial detention facilities, and in prisons. Children held in juvenile detention centers are commonly beaten by police and by other detainees. The mistreatment of prisoners and police abuse of criminal suspects, including electric shocks and beatings, occurs while police or guards are trying to extract confessions, information, or money. Victims tend to be poor, brown or black common criminals. Torture is facilitated by unacceptable detention conditions and gross neglect of detainees' basic rights, including the right to counsel. Impunity for torturers gives police and prison guards no incentive to employ alternative methods of control.
Police Violence
Police violence is endemic and police ties to organized crime and death squads aggravate the problem. Death squads, usually made up of police and other state agents, intimidate those deemed socially or politically undesirable. Poor young black and brown men are often targeted because of their social background. More than 800 civilians reportedly died in police shootings in Rio de Janeiro during the first eight months of 2003 alone. In many cases such killings are officially classified as "resistance followed by death," thus turning the tables on the victims and precluding an investigation into police conduct. A report by the Global Justice Center (Justica Global) on summary and extrajudicial executions in Brazil from 1997 to 2003 detailed how some state authorities have even "created incentives for law enforcement agents to kill, employing salary bonuses and promotions or guaranteeing impunity for police that distinguish themselves for engaging in fatal shootings."
Conditions of Detention
Brazil's prisons, jails, and police lockups subject prisoners to truly abysmal conditions. They are woefully overcrowded and unsanitary. According to official figures quoted in the Brazilian press, Brazil's 903 penal institutions housed 235,000 inmates as of April 2002, well above the system's capacity of 170,000. Detention facilities continue to be characterized by what the U.N. special rapporteur on torture described in 2001 as an "intolerable assault on the senses." The lack of space, combined with low numbers of correctional staff, has led to frequent prison riots and other outbreaks of violence, and has resulted in hundreds of deaths each year.
Juvenile Detention
In late 2002, a total of 9,555 youths were in detention in Brazil (2.88 youths for every 10,000), according to the Ministry of Justice. Youths in detention are predominantly male, black or brown, and poor. Juvenile detention centers throughout Brazil are notorious for their appalling conditions. A March 2003 Human Rights Watch report found that children in northern Brazil are routinely beaten by police and detained in abusive conditions. Children face violence at the hands of other youths, are unnecessarily confined to their cells for lengthy periods of time, and often do not receive the schooling to which the Brazilian constitution entitles them. Beatings often occur at police stations, where Brazilian law allows children to be held for up to five days while they await transfer to a juvenile detention facility.
Forced Labor
The use of forced labor in Brazil's ranching and timber industries has long been an extremely disturbing problem. According to the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission, at least 25,000 people were working under forced labor conditions in Brazil in 2002, often with the tolerance of local authorities. In March 2003, President Lula announced a sweeping initiative intended to eliminate slave labor. The plan calls for hiring, training and providing good salaries to more than 650 new labor inspectors and stepping up police raids on ranches, logging operations, and mines, as well as heavier fines and criminal penalties for offenders. As of August 2003, inspectors had freed more than 2,000 forced laborers, mostly in the Amazon region, and levied heavy fines.
Impunity
A leading cause of impunity is the federal government's inability to investigate, prosecute, and punish serious human rights crimes. Brazilian law grants jurisdiction over many of these cases solely to state-level authorities, who often are susceptible to undue influence by local political and economic elites. The result is that most serious crimes go unpunished. A constitutional amendment pending before Congress that could address this problem by granting the federal government jurisdiction over grave human rights violations continues to languish. Despite endorsement of the amendment by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial and summary executions, and oral support from the minister of justice, the government has taken no significant steps to promote its adoption.
Key International Actors
During 2003, two rapporteurs of the U.N. Commission of Human Rights—on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography—visited Brazil, receiving the fullest cooperation from the authorities. The former, Asma Jahangir, had a long and substantive meeting with President Lula. But, disturbingly, two witnesses who met with Jahangir to talk about death squad activity were later killed. The president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, José Zalaquett, also received full cooperation during a visit that set the stage for a future visit by the full Commission.
