Part I
The Fight Against Child Labor in Brazil
Report on Two Successful Experiences

Child Labor in Brazil : A Brief History

Brazil’s experience in eradicating child labor is unique. In the eighties, a strong movement to make the legislation concerning children and adolescents more protective focused on concern for children living on the streets of large cities. It was believed that it was better for them to be working than out committing crimes or taking drugs. In the nineties, some social movements began to challenge this thinking, recognizing the radical difference between the ways wealthy children were treated and the proposed ‘solution’ for the children of the poor. Society began to realize that all children should have the same rights and access to protection by the state. With the approval, in 1990, of new legislation under the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, these ideas began to be accepted. The view that "A Child’s Place is in School" gained support across broad segments of society and the movement in favor of eradication of child labor began to grow.

The National Forum for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor was created in 1994, under the Ministry of Labor, with the support of the International Labor Office (ILO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The Forum’s structure relied on the participation of representatives from workers’ and employers’ organizations, the federal government and NGOs. It provided a direct channel for debate and criticism of the government, channeling the demand for effective action to fight child labor.

In 1995, governor Cristovam Buarque launched the Bolsa-Escola (School Grant) program in the Federal District. The idea, which had its origins in a 1987 initiative of the Center for Studies of Contemporary Brazil in the University of Brasilia, was to pay a minimum wage to low income families to keep their children at school and out of employment. It proved to be a very efficient strategy. During the four years of Buarque’s mandate, the Federal District government managed to reach 25.680 families, or 50.673 children, at a cost of less than 1% of the annual budget. The Bolsa-Escola program was widely discussed, giving rise to pressure on the federal government to adopt it.

In 1996, the Child Labor Eradication Program (PETI) was established. This federal program initially aimed at removing children from charcoal production in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul through the strategy of supplementing family incomes by R$25 (US$7), so that children exploited at work could attend school. In its first year, the program benefited about 2,000 children and it currently reaches 800,000 children in all the states of the federation. Brazil ratified ILO Conventions 138 and 182 in 1999 and set the minimum age for work at 16, allowing apprenticeship from the age of 14. According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), about 3.8 million children in the 5 to 15 age bracket are still employed, some 10% of the age bracket. Of these, about 59% work in the farming sector.

In addition to PETI, the federal Bolsa-Escola program was created in 2001, reaching almost 8.7 million children in the 6 to 15 age bracket, from 5.1 million families with a per capita income of no more than R$90 (US$25) a month. The government transfers R$15 (US$4.5) a month for each child attending basic education, up to three children per family, totaling R$45 (US$13). The challenge now is to increase this amount and integrate the program’s actions with PETI and other government programs.

The Background of Child Mission (Missão Criança)

The non-profit organization, ‘Child Mission’, was created in December 1998, with the goal of establishing the Bolsa-Escola throughout the country and raising society’s awareness of the issue of child labor and the importance of school as an instrument of social inclusion.

In spite of its small structure, Child Mission has always been bold. At the state level, it aimed to influence the decisions of the local government in order to prevent the interruption of the program. Despite opposition, it contributed to raising the awareness of mothers receiving the Bolsa-Escola, who were about to be cut off and were motivated to defend their rights. At the federal level, its main objective was to make the government adopt the program nation-wide, since the Bolsa-Escola’s effectiveness had already been proven in the states and municipalities where it had been established. The complete strategy had already been handed to the President of the Republic in 1994, but there was no interest in implementing it. New efforts, in 1998, also failed.

Child Mission has throughout defended the principle that it would be possible to keep children at school if some sort of income transfer or direct payment were made to the families. At the same time, it managed to establish its anchor-program, the Bolsa-Escola Cidadã, in seventeen municipalities, and also obtained international recognition. This strengthened the importance of the program, so much so that it was recommended by the UNO as an effective tool to be adopted by governments.

In Brazil, various organizations were already fighting child labor, and they managed to mobilize several NGOs and government agencies in defense of children’s right to attend school. Thus, at the end of 2001, the Bolsa-Escola program was established in Brazil as a federal public policy, seven years after the proposal was presented. In addition, the project reaches three hundred families abroad in Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Tanzania, Guatemala and El Salvador, all with private funding. The funding of projects abroad relies on the contribution of ‘Action Aid’ and the ‘Parthenor Trust’.

The Objectives and Target-Group of Child Mission

The major aim of Child Mission is to contribute to the social inclusion of children and adolescents through education. The organization followed the design implemented by the Government of the Federal District, adopting as basic criteria for receiving the Bolsa-Escola:

Contrary to common belief, the program never aimed to remove children from the streets, but was seen as a powerful instrument in preventing the problem. Child Mission has believed since its beginning that the Bolsa-Escola addresses two basic issues: it guarantees the right of every child to education and fights child labor, since it is understood that if a child drops out of school in order to work, it is due to economic need and a matter of family survival:

“Some families have a lot of children, so they take a ten or eleven year- old and send her to work as a maid for a family. The child gets no education and works because of need”. (statement of the mother of a child who entered the program)¹

Child Mission’s target group are children and adolescents in the 6 - 16 age bracket and their families. The intended goal, of a thousand families, has already been exceeded, reaching 1,173 families at the end of 2001. Today, 953 families take part in the program. There is no intention of increasing this number, since this would make it difficult to maintain quality.

Another important objective of the organization is to promote social mobilization and raise awareness. The awareness-raising actions are permanently promoted and focus on partner non-government organizations, local managers of the program, families and teachers, through the Voluntary Missions.

Operation and Strategy

Child Mission took as its starting point the strategy originally applied by the Federal District government, and intended, at first, only to provide technical and institutional support for improving projects developed by municipalities and states.However, it developed its own program, called Bolsa Escola Cidadã, with the participation of international organizations, the private sector, trade unions and individual contributors. It has a team of twelve people in charge of the technical and administrative areas. There are also eleven technicians responsible for action. Specific training has been developed for managers, mothers and teachers.

Family - School Integration

A local NGO is selected to manage the project, and information on the children’s performance and attendance is forwarded monthly to the managing organization by the mothers. The NGO reports to Child Mission which children met the attendance criterion, thereby authorizing the payment. This guarantees family participation, since mothers have to visit school to check their children’s attendance. At the same time, they are given information about learning and relationship problems. The unease of the mothers, many of whom are illiterate, has been overcome, and they no longer feel embarrassed going to the school, since they have an interest in information about their children.

Thanks to prior government experience, Child Mission avoided some problems involving family participation in the schools. From the beginning, schools had to provide monthly information about attendance, since the Bolsa-Escola is dependent on at least 90% attendance. The mothers were alert to any failure on the part of the school, because they did not want to be left without the money. The beneficiary families and the school became closer, and even the children’s performance began to be discussed. In this way, external action directly affected schools’ operation and efficiency.

Other sensitive issues came up, such as the fact that the teachers were not adequately prepared to work with poor children, who had several difficulties not shared by other pupils. For example:

Once these problems were detected, a process of checking the best methods of overcoming them was initiated, as it was not possible to interfere directly with the internal affairs of the school. Training courses for teachers were needed, and the action started through local partnerships. At first, the training was carried out indirectly, showing the overall project to managing organizations and revealing how it might contribute to changing the reality of the region.

Next, the school directors were invited, with the aim of showing how they are also responsible for the success of the project and convincing them that in a short time positive responses from the children would occur. After that, training courses were initiated, allowing increased participation in the conduct of the actions and making them aware of the importance of the project in overcoming poverty. The teacher training focuses on providing information about the program and, later, information is provided on how to act in special circumstances, such as dealing with children who are not interested in school, violence and other themes that may be suggested by teachers themselves. The courses are held at weekends, and the teachers become agents in the process of acceptance of these transformations.

Complementary Projects Aimed at Families and Community

The Bolsa-Escola Cidadã program, the core project of Child Mission, is complemented by actions for the emancipation of families, which vary according to the characteristics of the community where they are being applied:

Consultation

Funding and Sustainability

Child Mission receives no federal government funds. In addition to strategic partners such as UNICEF, USAID and UNESCO, Child Mission relies on the financial support of fifty-nine private companies and about three hundred individuals, who provide funds for grants in the various regions of Brazil. It attracts resources through ‘Transparent Financial Management’, by which all potential collaborators are given thorough information regarding financial management. All the revenues come from bank deposits, which facilitates auditing. Companies and individuals can make deposits, and some choose to have their contributions deducted directly from their salary. A ‘judicial account’ allows the Mission to receive indemnities from judicial decisions favorable to former-governor Cristovam Buarque. To raise more funding, Child Mission undertakes institutional campaigns, hands out folders, issues monthly reports and publicizes its actions through its website, www.missaocrianca.org.br

Resources are allocated as follows: 60% for grant payments to mothers, 6% to the managing NGOs, 12% for complementary actions (see below), 6% to the Contingency Fund, 6% for the Bolsa Escola Fund and 10% to administration. The Bolsa Escola Fund guarantees payment of the grant even if donors leave, allowing time to find a substitute and ensuring sustainability. The grant payments are made by check, postal money order or cash, according to local circumstances.

Positive Impacts and Results

Studies and evaluations show that the Bolsa Escola represents an efficient strategy to place poor children in school and remove them from child labor, a fact that directly results in better living conditions in the future. The common conclusion is that the program addresses core issues differently from other public policies with only superficial reach. An evaluation financed by UNESCO in 1996 showed that, in addition to virtually eliminating the problem of school drop-out, the children who receive the grant repeat grades less frequently. Other institutions such as UNICEF, ILO, UNCTAD and the World Bank have already referred to the program as an excellent instrument of social inclusion for poor countries.

Several NGOs have undertaken studies showing that countless significant positive impacts have occurred in the areas where Child Mission works, not only within the families but in the wider community. The most recent study revealed some surprising results:

Full and final evaluation will only be possible after at least eight years: the time needed for a child to complete basic education and acquire the necessary skills to enter the work market in a fairer and more competitive way. Since average schooling in Brazil lasts for only four years, against fifteen in developed countries, it can be concluded that enrollment and continuity in school are instruments that can breach exclusion and poverty. The addition of a few years of schooling eliminates the component that contributes most to continuing poverty. Children who remain in school, at least until the end of middle level education, will be better equipped than their parents and grandparents, who never had the same chance.

Factors Hindering the Development of the Strategy Adopted by Child Mission

A limiting factor that is hard to deal with is related to the lack of commitment with which voluntary work is carried out. The number of people willing to engage in this type of work is still small in Brazil. There is no volunteer culture in the country. Those who do engage in this activity often do not take it up as a serious commitment. It is extremely difficult to develop a fixed agenda and to implement it. At first, volunteers are willing and have a lot of time available, but then personal engagements and other problems emerge and end up disturbing the whole agenda of activities. In the Digital Centers, for example, which they rely on the work of volunteers, monitors have been hired to ensure the continuity of the work.

Factors Contributing to the Success of Child Mission

Several factors have together resulted in the success of the organization. First and foremost, the Bolsa Escola is an excellent strategy that proved its efficiency in fighting the perpetuation of the poverty cycle when it was established in the Federal District, with huge potential for immediate and satisfactory impacts and results upon families, communities and children.

The second most important factor was the relentless search for support from international organizations, such as UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO, USAID, NOVIB and others, which have played an important role in the dissemination of the Bolsa-Escola Cidadã program. These institutional partners have conferred the necessary credibility on the project.

The third factor to be highlighted is the support given by the media. In this respect, its honorary president, Cristovam Buarque, was very important as an intellectual, moral and political figure, in addition to being a passionate advocate of education for all.

The fourth important factor was the efficiency with which Child Mission acted to aggregate companies around the idea of social responsibility. In addition to acquiring the necessary resources for granting the Bolsa-Escola Cidadã, this enabled the development of good cooperation between projects and local government. Even without public resources, the partnership with the private sector allowed the strategy to become well-known and even debated at federal level.

The fifth essential factor was the definition of its role, with clarity about its limits. The organization does not aim to solve all the communities’ problems. The maintenance of a small, easily-managed team, and the quality of the work carried out are criteria that have been maintained.

Another fundamental was confidence in the principle of partnerships. The local managing organizations had already done good work in their communities, which facilitated the development of the actions and allowed the construction of a network helping to ensure social control and better sharing of responsibilities. Thus, decentralization of the project’s operations was of great value. The control systems used by Child Mission do not require a great technical apparatus. Every month, the necessary resources are transferred to the municipalities, more specifically to the managing organizations. The activities of the Voluntary Missions, and the planning of training courses, are organized at the headquarters of the managing organizations.

At the national level, the effective political action carried out by Child Mission has, without doubt, brought about the establishment of the Bolsa-Escola program throughout the country by the federal government. The organization has always been proactive in the advocacy of the Bolsa-Escola and has demonstrated, at the local level, the feasibility of its application.

How can it be Reproduced?

Many of the characteristics outlined above, especially decentralization, make it easier to reproduce the program. For the implantation of the Bolsa-Escola in other countries, consideration must be given to the following guidelines:

Lessons Learned

Among the lessons learned by Child Mission through its years of action, two should be highlighted:

Child Mission firmly believes that wherever there is social sensitivity and political will to stop the proliferation of poverty and social inequality, actions such as it develops are possible. If all act together to search for a solution and an alternative to exclusion and poverty, the world will be a better place for future generations.

Missão Criança

Address: SCLN 107 Bloco C, Sala 101
Brasília. DF
Brazil
Zip Code: 70.743-530
Telephone: (55) 61.273.4620
Homepage: www.missaocrianca.org.br

Names of key individuals
Gladys Pessoa de Vasconcelos Buarque - President
Célio Carlos da Silva - Executive Secretary

Bibliography

Notes

1. Aguiar and Araújo, M. and C. Bolsa Escola - resumo executivo Brasilia, Brazil: UNESCO, 2002.
2. Aguiar and Araújo, M and C. “Bolsa Escola - educação para enfrentar a pobreza”. Brasilia, Brazil: UNESCO, 2002.