Julio T is a 15-year-old vendor of handcrafted costume jewellery in Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, near the FIFA Fan Fest. He says sales are good during the World Cup because there are a lot of tourists. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 24 2014 (IPS)

The FIFA World Cup being played in Brazil has sounded a warning for organisations fighting exploitation of children and adolescents, during an event that has attracted 3.7 million tourists to the 12 host cities.

As well as revenue, business and employment opportunities, the football World Cup also increases the risks of labour and sexual exploitation of children under 16, according to social organisations and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“We do not have statistics to quantify the problem, but factors surrounding the World Cup create more vulnerability to exploitation” among children and adolescents, Flora Werneck, the coordinator of Childhood Brasil, told IPS.

The wave of tourists between Jun. 12 and Jul. 13 in the cities where FIFA (International Association Football Federation) World Cup matches are being played has multiplied temporary demand for services and increased child labour and the vulnerability of children’s rights, Werneck said.

Childhood Brasil has been combating sexual abuse in this Latin American country for the past 15 years.

In Werneck’s view, the fast pace of construction and infrastructure projects for the World Cup created dramatic growth in temporary jobs, migrant workers and family evictions, and the school holidays are now another risk factor.

Children and teenagers may be coerced into illegal activities like selling drugs and child prostitution. “They are more exposed to these and other risks,” Werneck said.

Violations of children’s rights are exacerbated by social factors that increase vulnerability, such as inequality, poverty, lack of access to education, consumerism and the culture of machismo, said Werneck and other experts consulted by IPS.

The sexual exploitation of children related to major sporting events is a problem that has been silenced and neglected by public policies.

A 2013 study carried out by Brunel University, in London, commissioned by Childhood Brasil in association with the Oak Foundation , pointed to factors determining increased numbers of cases of violence against children, due to the existence of “significant risks” to children around major sporting events.

In addition to this year’s World Cup, Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

The lack of data measuring the magnitude of the risks does not mean these do not exist, the study says. “We should not assume that no data = no problem,” it states.

The experts consulted say that there is a profound lack of data related to child exploitation in Brazil. The figures that exist are from the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency’s rights abuse hotline “Disque Denúncia Nacional” (Dial 100).

In 2013 the hotline received more than 120,000 denunciations of violations of children’s rights.

Five of the 12 states that are hosting matches in this World Cup are at the top of the list for child abuse complaints: São Paulo (17,990), Rio de Janeiro (15,635), Bahia (10,957), Minas Gerais (9,565) and Rio Grande do Sul (6,269).

“No child should suffer because a football stadium is built, nor should they be victims of exploitation through sex tourism. There are no firm data that can prove that mega events are related to a rise in child abuse,” Alessandro Pinto, the coordinator in Brazil of the Save the Dream campaign, told IPS.

But, he said, “we are here to watch this phenomenon closely in Brazil for the next two years.”

Save the Dream is a joint initiative of the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and the Qatar Olympic Committee.  Pinto said that the campaign will attempt to gather concrete data about the link between mega sporting events and violence against children until the 2016 Olympics.

“Sport has a great responsibility towards human beings, society and human rights,” said Pinto.

On Jun. 20 Pinto took part in an event to publicise the preliminary results of the Proteja Brasil (Protect Brazil) campaign against sexual exploitation of children, under the auspices of UNICEF and the Brazilian government in the framework of the World Cup.

One of the strategies to encourage reporting acts of violence against children was the creation of an application that can be downloaded free to smartphones and tablets. The Protect Brazil app is an unprecedented initiative worldwide, said Ideli Salvatti, the minister of the Human Rights Secretariat.

The app aims to make use of the more than 70 million cell phones in Brazil, a country of over 200 million people, to spread reporting of child abuse. It is available in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

Casimira Benge, chief of UNICEF’s child protection programme in Brazil, said that as Brazil is a country of mega events, violence against its 56 million children and adolescents is also on a large scale.

“We learned a lot from the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Children had no classes because the schools closed during the championship, and so they were left unsupervised. Here in Brazil we are working to provide accompaniment and support for children, even during the school holidays,” Benge told IPS.

Since the launch of the online app on May 18 until Jun. 20, it has been downloaded 60,000 times and 3,800 telephone calls were made to child protection agencies. According to UNICEF, in just one month the campaign reached 40 million people.

Analysis of reports to the Dial 100 hotline found that nearly 50 percent of victims were female, 60 percent were Afro-Brazilian, and victims of violence were mainly aged 8-14, with 65 percent of the aggressors belonging to their immediate family.

Sexual violence ranked in fourth place among the Dial 100 complaints in 2013, at 26 percent. In 2012, when there were over 130,000 reports, one-third of them were related to sexual violence.

In Benge’s view, the best strategy against violence is prevention and enabling reporting of incidents.

Sexual violence is classified in two categories, she said: domestic abuse of a minor, like statutory rape, and sexual exploitation for profit, like prostitution. In 2013 there were 28,552 reports of abuse and 10,664 of sexual exploitation.

Benge said cities in the north and northeast of Brazil, like Manaus and Ceará, deserve special attention because they are more vulnerable.

“There must be vigilance in all 12 host cities, but greater attention must be paid to those with a higher incidence,” she said.

Since the FIFA World Cup began there have been no reports of arrests in the host cities for offences of this nature, but two weeks beforehand the police closed two venues in Rio de Janeiro, allegedly for child sex exploitation.

The fans of the Brazilian team Fluminense during an exhibition game with the Italian team on the eve of the FIFA World Cup. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO , Jun 14 2014 (IPS)

The seven-year-old got bored after running here and there for five minutes, amidst a group of a dozen classmates. He eventually stomped off the field because he hadn’t managed to kick the ball even once.

“Football is like that, you have to be patient,” he was told by the phys ed teacher who was introducing the group of young students to the sport. Although it might not seem like the most necessary character trait for practicing sports.

So how to explain the passion ignited by football in the most varied regions and cultures of the world? Why does the FIFA World Cup, which opened Thursday in Brazil, awaken so much enthusiasm on all of the world’s continents?

Romario de Souza Faria, one of the greatest Brazilian footballers, whose five goals in the 1994 World Cup in the United States ensured Brazil’s victory, actually spent very little time with the ball in any particular 90-minute game. He became a national hero with his lightning fast strikes.

In 2007, when he tried to convert the thousandth goal of his career, a reporter noted that Romario held the ball for only 16 seconds in the entire game. At one point he went 30 minutes without touching it.

The few goals in any given football match – there are even games that end 0-0 – are tedious for many who prefer the faster pace of basketball or volleyball, where games end with dozens, and generally more than 100, points.

Other people think some of football’s rules are irrational, such as offside, which interrupts the play at a peak moment, when the forward is in an ideal position to score – and drive the fans wild.

There are others who complain that football is too violent. Broken bones and other injuries are all too common as players kick and elbow and crash into each other – sometimes without even being penalised. The opposite of volleyball, where excessive physical contact is avoided.

But despite everything, football has won over huge majorities of the population in much of the world, and is still growing in popularity, overcoming traditional preferences and resistance, like in the United States and Japan.

Still, it can’t be described as a completely universal sport, because it has yet to win significant support in some large countries like China and India.

The secret of football’s overwhelming popularity and consequent success on the business front does not appear to lie in the fields, the players or the ball, but in the minds of the spectators. It is as a show, more than as a sport to be practiced, that it became the champion.

Many sports, especially team sports, have managed to draw enormous audiences in person and on TV. For example, there is baseball in the United States and Japan, basketball in many countries, or cricket in India, Australia and other former British colonies.

But football has singular aspects that make it the most popular sport, capable of attracting an estimated 3.6 million stadium-goers during the 20th World Cup, which is being hosted by 12 Brazilian cities from Jun. 12 through Jul. 13.

Several children, one of them wearing the Brazilian team’s colours, in the street where football legend and now legislator Romario was born in Jacarezinho, a poor neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. All three boys were sure Brazil would win the 2014 World Cup being hosted by their country. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

One fundamental element is that fans feel powerful, by supporting their team or analysing the players’ moves.

More than spectators, fans feel like participants and designers of alternatives in the games, because football is an open work of art, a stimulus for creativity. Their collective support tends to influence the results more than in any other sport.

The fans have a big picture of the game; they can see the entire field and follow all the moves, unlike the players, who are in the thick of things, surrounded – and harassed – by their rivals, and have a more narrow view of what is going on.

As the saying goes, every Brazilian is a coach. Fans reach their own conclusions about tactics, plays, the best use and combination of the players’ skills – infinite details that can be decisive.

The discussions and arguments are endless, as is news about the sport. Perhaps there is no journalism so exhaustive and widely read as football coverage.

Two decades ago, Brazilian João Havelange, former president of FIFA (1974-1998), said offside should not be eliminated since the “imperfection” of football is one of the reasons it is so popular, because it generates so much debate.

Football in its extreme complexity makes it possible for anyone to feel expert or knowledgeable enough to evaluate, analyse, have their own ideas about games, teams, referees, coaches and players.

The fact that it basically involves the feet, running counter to human evolution that concentrated people’s skills in their hands, adds uncertainties that bring it close to chaos theory. Secondary factors can be decisive, all of the actors count, and – another essential aspect – it is a team game.

The best teams tend to win more, but every king has his plebeian days; no one is invincible. Because of all this, the support of the fans has a much greater influence than in other sports – which is recognised in many tournaments, where a goal scored on the rival’s field is worth more than one in their own stadium.

The frequency with which fortuitous events end up determining an outcome encourages fans as well as the practice of football. The most mediocre players, no matter how few chances they get, can score a goal at some point or make a good play. Like in the lottery, that hope or faith moves athletes and fans.

The success of football as a spectacle grows with each World Cup and is reflected in the more than 18,000 journalists accredited for the current edition in Brazil as well as the thousands of non-accredited reporters.

The result is excessive commercialisation, according to many Brazilians who have complained about and protested the concessions that the Brazilian government made to FIFA as conditions for hosting the World Cup, including nearly 12 billion dollars in investment in stadiums, airports and urban infrastructure.

The hero of 1994, Romario, now a Socialist Party legislator, said in January that FIFA is “the real president of the country” until the Cup ends. Brazil has become the “slave” of an institution that is “100 percent corrupt,” he said on another occasion.

The suspicions grew in the last week, after the British press alleged that corrupt payments were made to Asian and African officials with influence in FIFA to secure the choice of Qatar as host of the 2022 tournament.

What sporting or market criteria would justify that choice? That question is hanging in the air as the world’s largest sporting event is in full stride.

Three-banded armadillos. Credit: Caatinga Association

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO , Jun 2 2014 (IPS)

The FIFA World Cup 2014 mascot was inspired by the three-banded armadillo, which is unique in its ability to roll up in a tight ball. The species is endangered in Brazil, which is hosting the upcoming global sporting event.

The idea emerged in 2012 from an online social networking campaign by the Caatinga Association, an environmental group that proposed the three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus) – known in Brazil as tatú-bola, or ball armadillo – as the symbol of the championship whose matches will be played from Jun. 12 to Jul. 13 in 12 cities in Brazil.

FIFA, the international football federation, accepted the proposal and named the mascot Fuleco – a portmanteau of the words “futebol” (football) and “ecologia” (ecology).

The three-banded armadillo is an exclusively Brazilian species, which is threatened with extinction, Rodrigo Castro, executive secretary of the Caatinga Association, a non-profit organisation that works in the preservation of the caatinga biome in Brazil’s semiarid northeast, told Tierramérica.

“It lives in a little-known and poorly protected ecosystem [the caatinga] and has an incredible ability to roll up into a ball when it feels threatened, due to its flexible bands of skin,” he added.“Our question for FIFA is simple: the tatú-bola gave life to Fuleco – but Fuleco isn’t doing anything for the tatú-bola. Why not?” – Environmentalist Rodrigo Castro

The semiarid caatinga covers nearly 10 percent of Brazil’s national territory, encompassing an area between 700,000 and one million square km.

Millions of Fuleco plastic dolls, plush toys and other products carrying his image have generated a huge revenue inflow for FIFA, and have become a common part of the landscape in Brazil – unlike the small armadillo, which is increasingly rare in its habitat.

On the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the Tolypeutes tricinctus is listed as vulnerable.

But the Brazilian government plans to announce a change in the animal’s status next year, from “vulnerable” to “at risk of extinction.”

“This means that if nothing is done, the animal could be extinct in the next 50 years,” Flávia Miranda, a biologist and veterinarian with Projeto Tamanduá, a conservationist project, told Tierramérica.

The Tolypeutes tricinctus, endemic to Brazil, is one of two species of armadillo that can roll up in a ball. The other is the southern three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes matacus), found in northern Argentina, southwestern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.

A three-banded armadillo rolled into a ball – the position that gave it the name “tatú-bola” in Portuguese – can fit in the palm of a hand. Credit: Marco A. Freitas

The three-banded armadillo has a combined head and body length of 45 cm and weighs approximately 1.5 kg. The armour is composed of three ossified dermal scutes connected by flexible bands of skin. Its diet consists mainly of insects.

The species has suffered a 30 percent decline in population in the last 10 years. “We estimate that it has lost 50 percent of its habitat over the past 15 years,” said Miranda, who is also a consultant to the Caatinga Association.

The main threat to the species, said Castro, is shrinking habitat, caused by deforestation in the caatinga and the neighbouring cerrado savanna ecosystem, which is characterised by low-growing bushes and scattered twisted short trees, where the armadillo also lives.

But hunting is a factor that cannot be ignored. “Hunting armadillos is a traditional cultural practice in rural communities,” Castro said.

“The meat is very popular,” Miranda said. “Many hunt it to sell the meat, because it fetches around 50 reals [23 dollars] a kilo.”

On the eve of the World Cup, Brazil’s Environment Ministry launched a five-year National Action Plan for the Conservation of the Tatú-Bola, drawn up together with the Caatinga Association.

The national action plan is a public commitment to preserve the species. “We are going to work together with universities and public and private institutions to reduce deforestation and hunting,” Miranda said.

The plan will also lead to the creation of conservation and reforestation units.

Ugo Eichler Vercillo, general coordinator of the government’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, told Tierramérica that under the plan, a task force would be created to combat hunting of the armadillo.

In addition, actions will be promoted to compensate the loss of protein in poor communities where the armadillo is a target of subsistence hunting, he said.

One initiative will be “green grants” – monthly economic payments of 100 reals (45 dollars) for residents of poor rural communities, who will also be signed up to other social programmes and cash transfer schemes that target the extreme poor.

“These are populations who live on what they gather, plant and hunt,” in the remote hinterland of the states of Bahia, Pernambuco, Piauí, Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, Vercillo explained.

These low-income residents of isolated rural areas value the armadillo “because they don’t have other sources of protein,” he said.

In 2013 the Caatinga Association, the IUCN and The Nature Conservancy launched the programme “I protect the tatú-bola”, aimed at curbing the risk of extinction.

“Our project, which should last about 10 years, will map the areas where the species is found, and we will collect information on threats, to work on them,” Miranda said.

Making the Brazilian armadillo the mascot of the FIFA games is aimed at turning it into “a kind of symbol for the preservation of the caatinga, and of other species of fauna and flora that inhabits this ecosystem,” she pointed out.

With its decision, FIFA says it hopes to increase awareness of the threat of extinction faced by the three-banded armadillo.

But Castro hopes for something more from FIFA. “Our question for FIFA is simple: the tatú-bola gave life to Fuleco – but Fuleco isn’t doing anything for the tatú-bola. Why not?”

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Professors and public employees of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, a state in northeast Brazil, in a demonstration during the strike they have been holding since March. The state capital, Natal, is one of the 12 cities hosting the FIFA World Cup. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 26 2014 (IPS)

As the FIFA World Cup approaches, the streets of Brazil are heating up with strikes and demonstrations, and there are worries that the social unrest could escalate into a wave of protests similar to the ones that shook the country in June 2013.

Groups of public and private sector workers have been on strike for days, creating a hectic backdrop for the Jun. 12-Jul. 13 global football championship.

In the southern city of São Paulo a strike by bus drivers last week generated the worst traffic jams in the history of the city. And on May 21, some 8,000 police marched to the esplanade of ministries in the capital Brasilia, in a protest supported by the federal and military police forces.

In the 12 cities that will host the World Cup matches, at least 15 protests are scheduled for the event’s opening day.

Trade unions are taking advantage of the spotlight on Brazil to pressure the centre-left government of Dilma Rousseff to meet their demands.

Even workers in over a dozen Brazilian consulates in the United States and Europe, responsible for issuing visas to those interested in flying to Brazil for the sporting event, went on strike last week.

And staff at LATAM airlines – the region’s largest carrier, formed by the merger of Brazil’s Tam and Chile’s Lan – threatened a strike or slowdown that could bring airports to a halt and disrupt hundreds of international flights during the World Cup.

Professors at 90 percent of the country’s federal and state universities and teachers at state and municipal primary schools across the country have also gone on strike, while many public cultural foundations and museums have closed their doors.

“A general strike hasn’t been ruled out,” Sergio Ronaldo da Silva, secretary general of the main federal workers’ union, CONDSEF, told IPS.

“This isn’t all happening because of the World Cup,” he said. “We had been talking for a long time about going on strike. Our complaints aren’t connected to the championship – they are demands we have been voicing for years.”

If the situation remains unchanged, this country of 200 million people could grind to a halt during the World Cup, Ronaldo da Silva admitted, after pointing out that the authorities have not set a date for negotiations. He added that as the opening match approaches, relations could become even more tense.

“The federal government should have foreseen this scenario,” the trade unionist said. “They want to show the image of Brazil as a first world country, but our health system is almost broken down, and the same thing is true of education and public transport.”

CONDSEF represents around 80 percent of Brazil’s 1.3 million federal public employees.

“On May 30 we’re going to discuss the possibility of a general strike, in our confederation. The government has been hearing the message since last June’s protests,” Ronaldo da Silva said.“The government generated an exaggerated sense of expectation among the public, which has fallen flat. It promised a lot and has delivered very little. The outlook has changed and the protests are a reflection of those changes.” -- Pedro Trengrouse

In late 2013, the government signed more than 140 labour agreements with a number of different trade unions, pledging – among other things – a 15.8 percent raise, to be paid in three annual quotas.

But at that time, the projected inflation rate was much lower than today’s rate of 26 percent, the unions complain. “Of the agreements that were signed, 70 percent are not being fulfilled,” said Ronaldo da Silva.

Another problem facing the public sector is the exodus of public employees. In the latest recruitment process, in 2011, 240,000 were hired – and nearly half have already left their jobs, according to CONDSEF.

Since February 2012, legislators have been discussing proposals for preventing strikes during the World Cup. Draft law 728/2011, currently under debate in the Senate, would limit strikes ahead of and during the global sporting event.

Under the bill, unions organising a strike would have to announce it 15 days ahead of time, and 70 percent of workers would have to remain on the job.

And in February the government introduced a bill to limit protests and strikes, but there are doubts that it will be approved in the next few days.

Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo said strikes, demonstrations or other measures should not create chaos and disorder or generate economic damage or violence.

“The police, who serve the constitution, know that strikes are prohibited by Supreme Court rulings,” he said. “We can use the national security forces and the armed forces to guarantee law and order,” he added, to reassure the public.

On May 13, Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo predicted that the World Cup would be a peaceful time of public celebration.

“If protests occur, they’ll be isolated incidents,” he said. “I believe the country is ready because Brazil’s legislation protects peaceful demonstrations and prevents violent protests. I don’t think there are many people interested in seeing the World Cup turn chaotic because of violent protests.”

“I think we’re prepared, that public security is going to work. The safety of visitors and guests is assured. There is no risk,” he maintained.

But Pedro Trengrouse, a member of the Brazilian Lawyers Institute who specialises in sports law, said there is a climate of frustration that is very different from the initial enthusiastic reception of the 2009 announcement that Brazil would host the World Cup.

“The government generated an exaggerated sense of expectation among the public, which has fallen flat. It promised a lot and has delivered very little. The outlook has changed and the protests are a reflection of those changes,” Trengrouse told IPS.

When Brazil was selected as the host of the 2014 World Cup, no one was thinking about protests, he pointed out, because 80 percent of the population at the time supported Brazil’s bid for hosting the event, according to opinion polls.

Today, however, 55 percent of respondents say the World Cup is likely to bring the country more problems than benefits.

In 2008 and 2009, Trengrouse worked as a United Nations consultant in the service of the Brazilian government for legislative affairs related to sports, especially the World Cup.

The lawyer said the government associated the World Cup with the major structural transformations that Brazil needed, but that they would have had to be carried out with or without the mega sports event.

And in two years time, Rio de Janeiro will also host the 2016 summer Olympics.

“A balance must be struck,” Trengrouse said. “The workers’ right to strike for better conditions is inalienable. But strikes must not hurt the public. There is opportunism in some sectors. Protests cannot be allowed to give rise to criminal activities, vandalism and fascist rallies.”

Stands in the Arena Dunas in the city of Natal in Northeast Brazil, one of the eight FIFA World Cup stadiums granted a sustainable construction certificate. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
NATAL, Brazil, May 15 2014 (IPS)

Brazil’s efforts to promote the image of an environmentally sustainable World Cup have focused on the stadiums built for the tournament. But the 12 cities where the matches will be played are in a race against time to complete the urban transport projects.

Natal, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Norte in the Brazilian Northeast, is one of the cities that will host the World Cup 2014, and four games will be played here. This city of 800,000 people is known in this country as the “city of the sun” because there are more than 300 days of sunshine a year, enjoyed by visitors to the state’s 400 km of beaches.

This is the city with the cleanest air in South America, according to a study carried out in 1994 by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in partnership with the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Water quality here is also excellent, because the water is “filtered” by the vast dunes surrounding the city.

Natal, which receives 1.5 million tourists a year, is now seeking an image of a sustainable city during the World Cup, which will take place in Brazil Jun. 12-Jul. 13.

The Arena Dunas stadium in Natal was officially inaugurated on Jan. 22, with a capacity for 42,000 spectators. The cost went 30 percent over the 190 million dollar budget, but at least the project is considered environmentally sustainable.

The OAS construction company, which built and is managing the stadium, will harvest rainwater, which will cut water consumption by 40 percent. And nearly 100 percent of the waste generated will be recycled.

In contrast with how early the stadium was finished, the urban transport works in the city run the risk of not being completed by the World Cup kickoff match on Jun. 13 – which could hurt the image of Natal as a sustainable World Cup city.

Unfinished transportation works around the stadium in Natal where the first of the four FIFA World Cup matches to be hosted by this city will take place on Jun. 13. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

Of the seven transport projects planned, only one was completed, a year ago. At that time the remaining six were still only on paper, and three ended up being cancelled, after the city government admitted that it was unable to implement them.

The mayor of Natal, Carlos Eduardo Alves of the opposition Democratic Labour Party (PDT), told IPS that the city would be ready to host the World Cup thanks to 250 million dollars in federal funds.

“When Natal was chosen to be one of the host cities, it had 53 months to build the infrastructure and complete the projects. When I took office in January 2013, there were only 18 months to go, and nothing had started yet,” he said.

A total of 1,450 people are employed in shifts, 24/7, on the infrastructure projects.

Alves guaranteed that six tunnels and a viaduct would be finished by May 31. A second viaduct won’t be done on time, but it will nevertheless be open to traffic during the World Cup.

“Natal won’t end after the World Cup,” the mayor said. “It will leave us with the biggest drainage system in the city, which cost 60 million dollars, and which will be 70 percent complete by the start of the World Cup.”

He added that 4,000 trees would be planted around the city.

He also said the big problem facing Brazilian cities today is traffic congestion, which is why tunnels and viaducts are being built, to ease traffic jams.

But the coordinator of transport research in the Civil Energy Department of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Enilson Medeiros dos Santos, doubts that the six transport construction projects around the stadium will be finished in time for the tournament.

“I don’t think they’ll be completed,” Santos said. “The viaduct of the BR-101 freeway [next to the stadium] was not in the original project and doesn’t stand a chance of being finished – work got started on it really late.”

Santos, a prominent voice in urban planning in Natal, complained that his team was not consulted when the transport plans were drawn up.

“The city that it took the longest for the federal government’s funds to reach was Natal,” he said. “The moment for planning is past; now concrete spending plans are needed.”

Santos also complained about a lack of information. Of the cities that will host the World Cup games, Natal was ranked the lowest on transparency in investment in 2013 by the Ethos Institute.

“No one has access to the executive projects, it’s all a total mystery,” he said.

According to Santos, Natal was the fruit of an accelerated development process and is one of the cities in the Northeast with the highest number of motor vehicles per capita.

The city has one motor vehicle for every four inhabitants, while demand for public transport is falling. There are more than 260,000 vehicles in the city, and since 2000 the number of cars has risen at a rate of 20,000 a year.

“The city does not have chronic congestion, but traffic has gotten worse quickly in the last 10 years. We had already pointed out the problem in 1998, if the city failed to put in place high-quality public transport systems,” Santos said.

In June 2012, during the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), FIFA, the international governing body of association football, announced that it would invest 20 million dollars to make the 2014 World Cup the first with a comprehensive sustainability strategy.

The strategy included “green” stadiums, waste management, community support, reducing and offsetting carbon emissions, renewable energy, climate change and capacity development, according to FIFA and the Local Organising Committee.

FIFA also stated that it would give priority to environmentally-friendly suppliers, and that it would carry out studies to assess the environmental impacts on the areas around the stadiums.

In addition, the construction projects had to obtain environmental permits, as a condition for receiving financing from the country’s state-owned development bank, the BNDES.

Another BNDES requisite was for the stadiums and other installations to receive LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification granted by the U.S. Green Building Council, which is recognised by more than 130 countries.

Eight of the 12 World Cup stadiums followed sustainable construction guidelines, using water and energy saving technologies and recycled materials such as demolition waste.

But what apparently will not be sustainable is the use of the stadium after the World Cup. There is a danger that the Arena Dunas will become a white elephant because football matches in that area do not generally draw more than 6,000 people, OAS business manager Artur Couto acknowledged to IPS.

That means it would take over 3,000 matches just to pay off the construction costs.

But Couto defended the stadium as a multi-use structure. “It was built with the concept of multi-functionality, to be a living cell in the city. There are 40 dates for football games a year, but there are other uses as well, such as concerts and shows.”

The recently rebuilt Maracaná stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Rio de Janeiro government CC BY 3.0

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 9 2013 (IPS)

With three years to go to the 2016 Olympic Games, hundreds of athletes in the Brazilian city that will host the games were evicted from the only public track field, and have had nowhere to train for the past six months.

The mega-construction projects underway to provide Rio de Janeiro with the infrastructure needed to host the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games have even affected athletes who aspire to compete in 2016.

“They decided to demolish the only public athletics stadium in the state of Rio de Janeiro. And the sports community was not even given advance notice,” the president of the state athletics federation, Carlos Alberto Lancetta, told IPS.

The stadium he was referring to, the Célio de Barros arena, was built in the 1970s as part of the Maracaná sports complex, which was inaugurated for the 1950 world football championship.

The iconic Maracaná stadium, a symbol of Rio, is undergoing a privatisation process, and its administration will be granted in concession to a consortium of private companies for 35 years.

The Célio de Barros athletics arena, covering 25,000 square metres, had a capacity for 9,000 spectators and a track that was upgraded for the 2007 Pan American Games.

The 800 athletes and students who worked out every day at the complex now have nowhere to train, because the concession involves the demolition of the track, the Olympic swimming pool and even a public school that operates within the complex.

Several athletes with Olympic aspirations had to abandon the complex to train in public parks and military installations, Lancetta complained.

“The Olympic city is losing its athletes. The situation is chaotic; Brazil’s track and field discipline is dying,” he said.

Lancetta, who has been in the field of athletics since 1962, is a former coach who now presides over the Rio de Janeiro federation. He says the discipline has never faced such bad conditions in Brazil as it does today.

Of the 600 athletes who used to train in the stadium, 150 were high performance and several competed in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, he said.

The consortium that won the concession plans to build a new athletics arena and Olympic swimming pool. Meanwhile, the athletes were transferred to the João Havelange Olympic Stadium, popularly known as Engenhão, which opened in 2007 and was leased for 20 years to the Botafogo football club.

But in March, the authorities temporarily shut down Engenhão because of structural flaws in the roof.

The improvised solution found for the athletes was to send them to train in public parks and military installations.

Lancetta said the Célio de Barros stadium should not have been closed down until a new Olympic arena and pool had been built.

But they are not set to be completed until a month ahead of the Olympic Games, and 30 months after the bidding opens in August.

This is “genocide against Olympic sports, and we can’t do anything to stop it. The Olympic Games aren’t doing Brazil’s athletes any favours,” said Lancetta.

Jan. 9 was a day that many track and field athletes and coaches will never forget, because when they showed up at the Maracaná complex, they found that the doors were closed.

Former athlete and coach Edneida Freire was not even able to get inside to collect the materials she uses in the activities she carries out with children, adolescents and the disabled, partly with the aim of discovering new talent.

“They evicted us,” Freire told IPS. “They didn’t even give us any notice; we just got here one day and the gate was closed.”

She feels she is in mourning because many of her students can no longer attend the classes she now gives in public squares, because of the lack of safety.

“Many of them showed promise,” she said. “The great majority were boys and girls from the favelas (shantytowns), and some had problems with the law, and they were practicing sports as a socio-educational activity. All of that is at risk today.”

But Freire still hopes to return someday to Célio de Barros, after the new complex is built. “We couldn’t be any worse off than we are now; we have nowhere to train and compete,” she said.

The “people’s World Cup and Olympics committee”, which groups some 50 social movements, NGOs and trade unions, as well as academics, believes there is still time to turn the situation around, at least partly.

“They’re going to build a parking lot and shopping centre there. They want to boost property values in the area. They announced that they would build another building, but they won’t. It’s all just empty promises,” Committee member Marcelo Edmundo told IPS.

Top school to be closed

The 350 students at a public school that has functioned in the Maracaná complex for nearly 50 years are also facing imminent eviction.

The Friedenreich municipal school – named after football player Arthur Friedenreich (1892-1969) – is ranked the fourth best public school in the state.

It is not clear where the students and teachers are to go. They have to be off the school premises by year-end.

“We will go when the company granted the concession builds us a new school. They want to drag us to another school,” said Carlos Ehlers, a representative of the school’s committee of parents, students and alumni.

Ehlers said one of the biggest problems is that the school has a classroom for students with disabilities.

There is a lack of dialogue with the construction company, he said. “The concessionaire has already decided that we have to go. They said there was no chance of us staying here. But today, I think we have a 50 percent probability of avoiding eviction.”

The conditions of the concession, presented in November 2012, stated that the company that won the bid was to invest 210 million dollars in the complex by 2016, including the demolition and reconstruction of the pool, the Célio de Barros track and gymnasium, and the school.

The bidding process, which was won by a consortium made up of the Brazilian companies IMX, Odebrecht and AEG Administração de Estádios, was challenged in court.

The prosecutor’s office argued that there were irregularities in the plans for the administration of the complex, and questioned the need to demolish the existing installations.

Recently reconstructed Maracaná stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Governo do Rio de Janeiro CC BY 3.0

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 17 2013 (IPS)

As Brazil prepares to host several sporting mega-events, human rights abuses and authoritarian interventions by the authorities are going on behind the scenes, favouring major urbanisation projects and stadium remodelling, a study says.

The state has forced almost 30,000 families across the country to leave their homes, according to the Comité Popular da Copa e das Olimpíadas (World Cup and Olympics People’s Committee), made up of around 50 social movements, researchers, NGOs and trade unions.

The Committee’s report, “Megaeventos e Violações dos Direitos Humanos no Rio de Janeiro” (Mega-events and Human Rights Abuses in Rio de Janeiro), says that in this city alone, which will host the 2016 Olympic Games, 3,000 families have already been displaced from their homes and another 7,800 are facing eviction.

The forced displacement of thousands of people and the privatisation of public areas constitute the dark side of Brazil’s sports projects, claims the study which was presented in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday May 15.

Brazil will host the FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) World Cup, which is to be held in 12 cities, in 2014. A dress rehearsal for this will be the ninth FIFA Confederations Cup, a tournament between the top national teams from each continent, from Jun. 15-30 this year.

“Our fears are being confirmed. The benefits and social legacy that are so widely trumpeted really hide a dark legacy: an elitist, segregated and unequal society. It is a sad thing to see,” said Orlando Alves dos Santos Jr., a sociologist and urban planner and one of the study coordinators.

In the view of dos Santos Jr., a researcher at the Observatório das Metrópoles and the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning and Research at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the multi-million dollar investments carried out under the cloak of preparations for the World Cup and the Olympic Games go beyond the scope of sports facilities and are part of a grand project of urban reform.

Interventions in cities, like evictions, are having an immense impact in terms of social exclusion, the report says.

“We show that poor people are being relocated outside the areas of investment, which are concentrated in the centre, south and north of Rio de Janeiro. These are areas where real estate has vastly increased in value,” dos Santos Jr. said.

He said the rise in housing prices has been largely based on the displacement of the poor towards the outskirts of the city.

“All this has been accompanied by a complete lack of information for the evicted families, as well as coercion, the use of violence and human rights abuses. What is happening in the city is extremely serious,” he said.

Christopher Gaffney, a U.S. geographer who studies public policies on sports and security for big events, told IPS that evictions and the privatisation of public spaces represented a great failure of democracy in this country of over 195 million people.

“The policy is a big step backwards. It represents a reversal of values that eliminates the role of government as the guarantor of essential citizen services, like housing and culture. Forced evictions are a clear violation of the right to housing. Real estate speculation is rife in Rio,” he said.

Gaffney, who is also a member of the People’s Committee and a researcher with the Observatório das Metrópoles, said that there is no “coherent practical criterion” being applied in the eviction of thousands of families, and that those affected by the policy complain of a lack of dialogue, transparency and information.

“The uncertainty associated with being made homeless creates constant panic, and terror methods are being used to expel these people from their communities at any price,” he said.

“There have been cases where families have been told they must vacate their homes, without any time for them to collect their belongings; and others where their eviction has been negotiated right alongside the bulldozers that were ready to demolish the houses. This is enormous psychological pressure,” he said.

Only a few families received a decent house after their eviction, Gaffney said. The authorities provide indemnities for expropriation that are not enough to buy a new house, or they put families into housing plans that have requirements that many of them cannot meet, such as that the head of household must have a formal sector job and a bank account.

The report argues that the real Olympic legacy in Rio de Janeiro will be that of “an even more unequal city, which will exclude thousands of families and destroy entire communities…a project that will appropriate the majority of benefits for a select few economic and social agents.”

One of the main criticisms is the privatisation of public spaces worth millions of dollars. In Rio de Janeiro, sporting facilities like the legendary Maracaná stadium are being renovated, as well as infrastructure and transport facilities, and urban remodelling projects have mushroomed.

The initial budget for investment in the city for the upcoming events has risen by 95 percent, from 1.1 billion dollars to 2.1 billion.

Construction and renovation of stadiums represent nearly 25 percent of this total. Maracaná stadium, where the finals of the 2014 World Cup will be played and where the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games will be held two years later, is the focus of controversy because it has been granted in concession to a private consortium for 35 years.

The cost of the works undertaken was 600 million dollars, compared with the 370 million dollars initially envisaged. The concession of the stadium into private hands for the first time led the public prosecutor’s office to launch an investigation into the state’s investments for the sporting mega-events.

In Gaffney’s view, the sporting facilities will be transformed from cultural spaces into consumption centres.

“Stadiums are the platforms where local culture is expressed in football. It would be virtually cultural assassination to substitute faithful, traditional fans with ‘clients’ or higher class consumers,” he said.

Moreover, the private initiative will also lead to the demolition of a major aquatic park, a public school, an athletics track and a prison, in order to build two multi-storey car parks for 2,000 vehicles, a heliport, a shopping mall and a football museum.

“This shows the vulnerability of Brazilian democracy, even as Brazil is trying to build stronger institutions. The FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games are accelerating anti-democratic processes,” Gaffney said.

Dos Santos Jr. said that society has taken the multi-million dollar renovation passively, and that construction of the Maracaná complex “will bring about the destruction of multi-purpose facilities that were used to practise other sports.

“It will only be a space for show and a commercial centre. Athletes in other disciplines will not have a place to train. And the entrance tickets will be too expensive,” he said.

The People’s Committee intends to present its study to public authorities, FIFA, the International Olympic Committee and international organisations such as the United Nations through its Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing.

Morro da Providência. Credit: Daniel Garcia Neto CC BY 2.0

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 12 2012 (IPS)

Opinions are divided in Morro da Providência, Brazil’s oldest favela, over construction works for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. While some residents are optimistic about the improvements that lie ahead, others point out that hundreds of dwellings will be demolished.

The letters SMH painted on the walls of some of the houses in this Rio de Janeiro shantytown were at first a complete mystery to local people. But now they know only too well what is in store for the houses that they say are branded “like cattle.”

“SMH means Secretaria Municipal de Habitaçao (Municipal Housing Secretariat) which is the agency that is going to evict us,” Morro da Providência resident Jailce Felix dos Santos told IPS.

“It’s depressing. Many people have fallen ill. Arriving home and seeing those letters and knowing that your house is marked for demolition is terrible,” dos Santos, whose house was marked even though the area is regarded as part of the city’s historic heritage, told the press.

A total of 832 houses have been earmarked and 140 have already been demolished, according to the Port Community Forum, made up of people in Rio’s port area affected by works being undertaken for the 2014 FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

The Rio de Janeiro city government says the house clearing is necessary to build an overhead cable car across the favela that will connect to the “Central do Brasil” railway station, Rio’s most important train terminal and a transport hub.

But as the favela has some of the most beautiful views of Rio de Janeiro, it will also attract large numbers of tourists. A funicular tram that will take people to the top of the “morro” or hill, and other works such as a sports centre, sanitation and upgrading of the roads, most of which are so narrow as to be barely passable, are also being built.

Jorge Carvalho, who has worked as a dockhand at the port – which is also being upgraded – for 45 years, pauses for breath on a landing of the steep stairway of nearly 200 steps that is currently the only way up into the favela.

“I’ve given up counting the stairs,” he said. “Now, with the cable car and the funicular, it will be like flying up in a jet plane!”

But another local resident, who preferred not to be identified, said he had nothing to be happy about, because the house where he has lived for over 40 years, and which he now shares with seven relatives, has been marked for demolition. He built it brick by brick, and said the money the municipal government is offering as compensation is too little, while the alternative housing they offer is too far away from his place of work.

But the main issue for this resident, who took us proudly around historic places in the favela, is how the planned transformation will wreck a neighbourhood regarded as part of the city’s history. The Morro da Providência, where the earliest settlements date back to the late 19th century, was the first favela to emerge in Brazil.

The origins of the favela, located between the “Central do Brasil” and the port district, date back to another instance of housing injustice in the history of Rio, formerly the capital of Brazil.

The national government failed to make good its promise to provide housing for soldiers returning from the 1896-1897 War of Canudos – a civil rebellion against the central government, in the northeastern state of Bahia. So they occupied the hill they called Morro da Favela and built their own houses.
According to historical accounts, the word favela was probably taken by the soldiers from the Alto da Favela, a hill overlooking Canudos that was named for a shrubby local tree.

Some of the existing buildings, like chapels and churches, date from that time. The earliest houses were made of clay, so it is easy to identify their ruins. Morro da Providência was also the cradle of one of the first “escolas de samba” or samba schools in Rio’s carnival.

Dos Santos sold a bar she owned, where funk and other music popular among young people in the favelas is played, and opened another called “Favela Point” close to one of the cable car stations, anticipating the arrival of foreign tourists.

Morro da Providência, the scene of new “battles” between drug trafficking organisations and the police in the 20th and 21st centuries, is one of the favelas in Rio where “Police Pacification Units” (UPPs) have been set up.

“The Providência community was neglected for a long time, but after the UPP arrived it became better known and changed a great deal,” dos Santos said enthusiastically. “Recently, the number of firefights has gone down, and now there are job opportunities in the community because of the infrastructure projects.”

But as someone who was born and raised in the favela, she is compelled to recognise the “sad” side of the “progress” that has arrived and the changes that her community will have to accept, not just in physical terms. “They are taking away our friendships, and creating distances between people,” she said.

Carolina Pacheco, who works at the Casa Amarela, a cultural centre in Providência, also fears the social changes coming to the community. She predicted that the cable car would bring up “all sorts of people and we will have to keep a closer eye on the children, because anyone will be able to come to our neighbourhood, and some of them may not be good people.”

This future scenario, which scares her, contrasts with the life of the community, where “things are safe because there is no public transport; everyone knows everyone else, everyone looks out for the kids, and when a stranger appears we all know he or she is an outsider.”

However, Pacheco also said the coming “transformation”, as such, “has a good side and a bad…The positive side is that these projects will bring development.”

But while some people are happy with the changes, no one can hide their distress over the forced departure of those whose houses are marked. “They will have to leave at a moment’s notice, after living here all their life,” she said.

In some cases, the Rio de Janeiro city government argues that the evictions are for safety reasons, because the houses are built where there is a risk of landslides.

But in the view of Caroline Rodrigues da Silva of the Port Community Forum, this is just another chapter in real estate speculation that has unleashed an endless spiral of price rises in property sales and rentals.

“There are two major issues behind it. One is state violence that legitimates the implementation of the infrastructure projects. An example of this are the UPPs in Rio de Janeiro, deployed only in the favelas that surround the sites of the big sporting events. This is a city for sale. The population control measures are to make people accept what’s coming,” Rodrigues da Silva said in an interview with IPS.

“The other is the use of public spaces that had been left aside for many years. Now, that land has become valuable and the entire area has been restructured, so there is more and more speculation,” she said.

The people who know this best are the residents of Morro da Providência, who lived with the effects of neglect by the state for decades, and now fear that after the mega sporting events, they will once again be forgotten.