BRAZIL: Violence Begins in the Home

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 5 1995 (IPS) - Violence, especially in large cities, begins at home, where parents are used to mistreating their own children, new studies completed here have shown.

A survey in Rio de Janeiro revealed that 83.3 per cent of children have suffered beatings, 92.5 percent of these occurring in their own homes. Mothers and fathers were the principal aggressors, though other relatives were also involved.

In addition, the study of 968 boys and girls from 8 to 12 years of age by two agencies – GPP Planning and Research and Maxima Communication – found that some 64.2 percent of children interviewed said they watched a great deal of violence on television.

Every year in Brazil almost 500,000 children are beaten at home, according to the Centre for the Prevention of Mistreatment to Children (CRAMI). Its findings were based on a 10-year study that covered 10 cities of the state of Sao Paulo.

Of the 500,000, 17 per cent are less than two years of age and 50 percent are less than seven.

In 70 percent of the cases, those beating the children were their own parents, observed Helio de Oliveira Santos, pediatrist and founder of CRAMI and health secretary of Hortolandia, a city of 80,000 near Sao Paulo.

Beatings (52 percent) sexual violation (eight percent, at a ratio of nine girls for each boy), negligence and abandonment (22 percent) and psychological torture (11 percent) constitute the most common types of violence.

“It’s a myth that children are safe in their own homes,” said Oliveira Santos. For each one million inhabitants, almost 5,000 are mistreated in their homes, a global problem which is not reported 90 percent of the time, he said.

Without the intervention of the authorities and institutions of assistance to children, half of all beatings would occur habitually, Oliveira Santos said. And if they become continuous, some 10 percent of the victims would be killed, some 20 percent left with brain damage, often irreversable, he said.

Lawyer Cristina Leonardo, a former coordinator of the Centre for the Defense of the Rights of the Child (CDDNA), in Rio de Janeiro, said that statistics generally understate the “sad reality.”

“Not everybody files a report,” she said. Many were afraid to complain or did not know that they could do so. “We receive between 10 and 15 complaints by telephone every day on beatings – only in the city of Rio.”

Middle class families hide their problems more than other groups. Many extremely serious cases only come to light when someone is taken to the hospital.

Cristina Leonardo recalled that recently a child of two years of age was taken to a Rio hospital bleeding from the genital area. The gynecologist reported the case to CDDNA which reported it to the police as the mother was unwilling to file a complaint against her boyfriend.

“A crime is discovered in the hospital but we must return the victim to the aggressor,” lamented the lawyer. Only a major “consciousness-raising” in the society, in schools and elsewhere can curtail the violence.

Psychologist Andrea Chiesorin, who sees many children through CDDNA, placed much of the blame for domestic violence on the growth of violence in the large urban areas.

She also blamed social marginalization, poverty and injustice but she added that living in a violence-prone family creates habits that last a lifetime.

The majority of children living on the street leave home because of domestic violence, said Chiesorin, and “not because of poverty or lack of food.” The longer they live on the violent street, the greater the risk of becoming criminals, she said.

Children who escape from family aggression are ready to put up with the rough life of the street becuase “it hurts more being battered at home, by someone you know and love. It damages values and generates more rebellion,” the psychologist said.

Paula Balthazar, a psychologist at CRAMI, found a “dialectical relationship, a vicious circle between social and domestic violence.”

Adults take their frustrations out on their children, creating offspring who will also be violent, she said.

The vicious cycle must be stopped, warned Oliveira Santos, but programs and institutions are needed to give these children back their self-esteem.