In a report submitted to the United Nations by the government of Jair Bolsonaro, the country neglected data on Brazil’s social situation, ignored hunger, and made no mention of the death toll from covid-19, one of the highest in the world. Also, no reference is made to police brutality, deforestation and the dismantling of human rights monitoring institutions in the country.
Document delivered by the government as part of the Sabbath, which the Bolsonaro administration will present to the UN Human Rights Council in November. For observers, however, the report was turned into an election campaign with a list of programs and measures adopted by the government, without addressing the reality of the problems facing the country.
All governments go through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN to assess whether a government is meeting its international obligations. But for a network of NGOs, social movements and activists, the document “far from reflecting the current sad reality, the collapse and setbacks of human rights that have taken place in the country in recent years”.
Itamaraty, called this morning, has yet to respond to questions raised by the report. If you do, the comments will be included in the text.
Right at the beginning of the official document, the government claims that the current report only complements the data submitted by the country in 2019. However, the Coletvo RPU blames the government for each point of the report. “duplication, delay and lack of public protection, attacks and elimination of human rights policies”.
Coletivo RPU – Brasil is the main national coalition of 31 organizations, networks and collectives of Brazilian civil society. The initiative, coordinated by IDDH, aims to monitor the implementation of the UN review’s recommendations and demand transparency from the Brazilian State to increase social inclusion. Organizations that are part of the movement include the Expression of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples, Article 19, the National Campaign for the Right to Education, the Indigenous Missionary Council, the Conectas, and the National Human Rights Movement.
Despite listing every step taken by the government, the official report ignores the extent of the problems. According to Coletivo RPU, “there are all issues that are handled, such as the issue of human rights defenders.” “Given the complexity of the issues, the quality of available information is at least inadequate,” he says.
In a parallel document, Coletivo RPU Brasil pointed out that the absolute majority of recommendations made to the government four years ago were either not implemented or were setbacks.
Health and covid-19
For example, the official document does not refer to the more than 600,000 deaths caused by covid-19 and Bolsonaro’s attacks on vaccines. The government document talks about different programs to support the population in case of covid-19. However, such references for NGOs do not show the reality of the crisis. According to them, the pandemic “has been treated irresponsibly by the Federal Executive and genocidally in relation to certain populations such as quilombolas and indigenous people”.
In announcing its priorities, the government stated that “the human rights policies undertaken by the Brazilian State are geared towards guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable populations”.
“Thus, women, children and adolescents, the elderly, traditional peoples and communities, and especially the disabled stand out among the peoples prioritized by public policies. The groups are among the approximately 68 million Brazilians directly and primarily covered by Emergency Aid. The pandemic’s financial impact on people and families. “As head-of-family mothers trying to mitigate their effects are receiving double financial assistance given their greater vulnerability,” she assured.
In this context, the government stated that it has taken action to purchase vaccines. However, he concealed the delay in dosing, the initial decision not to be a part of international projects, and the insistence on taking drugs without proven efficacy.
Regarding more global health issues, organizations warn that Brazil is a “sick country”. “The public health system, while beautiful in the word, has many gaps, infrastructure challenges, skilled staff and the level of funding that existed at the time of implementation, after the Spending Ceiling (Constitutional Amendment n. 95/2016),” they warn. They also point out that reproductive health rights are “mainly abolished, with health professionals using bias to deny basic humanized services to women and girls.”
Contrary to what Itamaraty insists on presenting to international organizations, and while its diplomats in Brasília seek to create parallel realities in the country, the organizations point out that the crisis in the industry is serious.
They condemn “Brazil is experiencing an accelerating decline in its health sector, increasing the vulnerability of the poorest segments of the population, but not limited to the growth of institutional violence against women, especially as it affects all social classes”. .
activists
One of the main complaints of the social movements is the lack of detail in the government report on the plight of human rights activists. According to them, the document refers to human rights defenders in one of its titles, but there is not even a description in the text.
“In other words, it’s as if there was nothing to report on the plight of human rights defenders in the last three years, incidentally when the current government was in charge of the Executive Power,” they say.
“In fact, during this period, the situations where the areas of participation and social control were closed or controlled, which made the environment worse for civil society, it got worse,” they warned.
poverty and hunger
The document also draws attention with the lack of any evaluation regarding the poverty dimension in recent years. The report is limited to providing data on how many people have benefited from the government’s programs and said the packages have been retained “due to the ongoing challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic”.
“It is noteworthy that in May 2021 the Bolsa Familia Program broke a record of historic concessions by serving 14.69 million families. With the end of Emergency Aid 2021 in October, the challenges of post-pandemic restructuring have been challenged by the Government, to protect families, and to address poverty and extreme poverty. “To combat the recovery of the economy in a constructive way, not in a punctual or temporary way, to reduce losses for the most vulnerable families and promote the recovery of the economy.” the scale of the crisis or the impact of aid.
“Over time, the Brazilian state has faced serious challenges in reducing the poverty of the vulnerable population living in the country and tackling inequalities. However, this situation has only gotten worse lately,” the civil society organizations warned.
For them, there was a setback, in addition to budget cuts and reduced public investment, actions that made access to data more difficult and social control and worsened the overall situation of income inequality.
The fact that data on hunger in Brazil was not included in the government’s report angered non-governmental organizations. “The collective RPU has found that hunger has risen over the past year, inflation has fallen to food, and the government has made little or no effort to reverse this situation,” they warned.
indians
The government was still seriously attacked by social movements for its response to the international community’s demands on the indigenous issue. Four years ago, the country received 34 recommendations that directly and indirectly address concerns about the plight of indigenous peoples and the environment.
They pointed out that “Brazil needs to make progress in promoting and respecting indigenous rights, demarcation of indigenous lands, preventing racism and discrimination, protecting indigenous leaders, mandating prior consultations, promoting the health of indigenous people, infant mortality, food and sanitation in villages, and implementation of climate policy and reduction of deforestation”.
Today, according to the movements, “not only have these recommendations been implemented, but much of them have been reversed in Bolsonaro’s government, with the demarcation of regions, the disappearance of universities’ social inclusion, the disfiguring of legislative initiatives for indigenous constitutional rights, the loosening of environmental legislation, and government officials. The spread of racist and prejudiced speech against indigenous peoples”.
The report states that the government “funded the purchase and distribution of more than 400,000 food baskets to indigenous and quilombola families between 2020 and 2021.” “Aiming at families of food-sensitive ethnic minorities, this action provided adequate food for indigenous and quilombola children,” he said.
The action largely took place only after a court order required the government to take such measures.
For this reason, the document submitted by the government was deemed inadequate by indigenous movements and civil society. “The report that the government will take to the UN, without facing any advice, brings information that an online course has been introduced on its ‘indigenous agenda’, distributed and prioritized ‘more than 400,000 food baskets to indigenous and quilombola families’. Indigenous peoples are in the late Covid-19 vaccine campaign” said.
“The disdain shown by the Bolsonaro government towards indigenous peoples and its attempts to open its lands to the predatory exploitation of natural resources are evident in these brief remarks, which in recent years point to the deterioration of the country’s indigenous and environmental policy, in the opposite direction. International commitments undertaken by the Brazilian State”, attacks the organizations.
source: Noticias
