“Poor, needy, black, subordinate to a man, convicted of the crime of drug trafficking and an irresponsible mother”. This is how pregnant and lactating women with children up to 6 years of age who arrive at the penal system in Brazil are described by members of the Judiciary and the Public Ministry, reveals a study carried out by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). According to the study, even after the decision of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) granting house arrest to all pregnant women and mothers of children under 12 arrested in preventive custody, three out of ten pregnant women are still arrested in the country. With the title Reports of invisibility: representations of public actors on the application of the Legal Framework for Early Childhood in the female penal and socio-educational scenario, the research provides a broad diagnosis, with data and interviews with 180 interlocutors, 62 of them professionals who worked in services of the municipal or state executive branch, 40 representatives of the Judiciary, 32 of civil society, 23 of the Public Ministry and also 23 of the Public Defender’s Office. “What the results, whether in the quantitative or qualitative scope, portray us is that, despite normative achievements, we still have many challenges for the actual implementation of the Legal Framework for Early Childhood”, says UNDP researcher Paola Stuker. According to her, what happens in practice is what appears in the title of the research, the invisibilization of these cases. Even after the decision of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) granting house arrest to all pregnant women and mothers of children under 12 arrested in preventive custody, three out of ten pregnant accused are still arrested in Brazil – Arquivo/Agência Brasil According to Paola, in view of this regulation, the actions must also reach both adolescents in detention and pregnant women prisoners or mothers. “It’s very important to look at this audience, because it’s important to look at all the audiences that are related to raising human beings in early childhood. Looking at all families, all professionals who are responsible for the care and protection of children in early childhood. We also have to look at all pregnant women, all mothers, regardless of the conditions in which they find themselves”, says Paola. Decrease in incarceration The report shows that there was a decrease in the percentage of incarceration after the Legal Framework for Early Childhood. While, in 2016, the percentage of decisions for incarceration for pregnant and non-pregnant women in custody hearings was practically equivalent, 49.5% and 49.6%, respectively, the proportion increased, in 2020, to 31.6% and 42.4%, respectively. This shows that one in three pregnant women is still incarcerated. “We do need to improve a lot”, says the assistant judge of the presidency of the CNJ, Karen Luise de Souza. “We see that these judgments do not observe everything that has been said about the impacts on the development of children, who end up being deprived of living with their parents and guardians or end up developing within an environment of deprivation of liberty.” One of the excerpts from an interview with a member of the Public Defender’s Office, who is not identified, published in the study, matches what Karen Souza says and shows that the results of trials depend a lot on the judge. “It depends a lot on the person who is there judging. There are judges who, yes, assist in this sense. They understand childhood as an absolute priority and say: ‘despite what happened, now let’s think about this child who is coming, or who has already arrived and who needs his mother’. There are judges who don’t. Then we have to turn around. There are cases that come to court. In court, depending on the class, we are also unsuccessful. Sometimes, you have to take it upstairs, you have to take it to the STJ [Superior Tribunal de Justiça]. So it’s very relative. It’s like I said: ‘the issue of the infraction comes up a lot’”. Another excerpt from the report emphasizes that, among adult women, many are seen, especially by members of the Judiciary and the Public Ministry, as “irrecoverable”, so that the mother-child relationship seemed to be mobilized, in many moments, as an additional mechanism of punishment. Actions by the CNJ According to Karen Souza, the CNJ seeks to guide judges so that they consider the issue of early childhood a priority in their decisions. Manual Resolution nº 369, available on the CNJ website, has an entire chapter on Elements to facilitate decision-making. “A [Resolução] 369 comes exactly to offer these tools, to help colleagues in decision-making, to establish procedures. Based on it, without interfering with functional independence, we intend to modify what is there and that directly impacts the lives of children and adolescents”, says the judge.
Agência Brasil
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