Infant Mortality Records Historical Reduction in Brazil, Says UNICEF

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) promoted on Wednesday, November 27th, a session at the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The organization has produced a report that recognizes Brazil for having improved, over the years, indices such as mortality, child labor, and school deprivation.

According to UNICEF, from 1990 to 2017 there was a “historical reduction” in the total number of mortality among children under one year of age. In the period, the national rate fell from 47.1 to 13.4 per 1,000 live births. In addition, between 1996 and 2017, 827,000 lives were saved.

The mitigation actions coordinated by the governments generated national impacts, also in São Paulo. In the state, the reduction in the rate decreased from 22.5 to 10.9, from 1996 to 2017, when 103,000 babies’ lives were saved.

The drop in immunization coverage rates, cautions UNICEF, has been a gateway to diseases that were considered eradicated until recently, such as measles. “In 2016, infant mortality rose for the first time in more than 20 years and has not yet returned to the 2015 levels, triggering a warning signal. A total of 42,000 children under the age of five still die each year in Brazil,” reports the UN fund in the report.

UNICEF’s representative in Brazil, Florence Bauer, says the country must strengthen the advances it has made so far, turning its attention to early childhood and adolescence. “Most indicators are worse in the Northeast and North of the country. And worse among the indigenous, black and mulatto populations,” she says.

Florence illustrates her argument by commenting that it is not enough to maintain schools, but also to ensure that everyone can access them, particularly children in situations of social vulnerability.

“That is why it is necessary that the policies, more than ever, focus on equity, and it is not enough to give the same opportunities to everyone. What we need are policies that allow any child or adolescent to have access to these same opportunities. For instance, it is not enough for a school to exist because there is a part of the population that will not have the opportunity to get there”.

Florence comments that the convention’s contribution is to strengthen the notion that the rights of children and adolescents are “non-negotiable and indissociable”. The only organization named in the treaty, UNICEF, says Florence, has called on the presidents of the signatory countries to “reaffirm their commitment” to its principles.

Homicides more than doubled

The high incidence of homicides of adolescents is another point addressed in the document. UNICEF points out that, between 1990 and 2007, the total number of homicides more than doubled.

“From 1996 to 2017, 191,000 children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 were victims of homicide,” the report’s authors state, adding that an average of 32 girls and boys in this age group are murdered every day.

In the municipalities of São Paulo, in the decade ending in 2017 alone, the UNICEF document points out that 8,200 children and youths in this age group were murdered. The rate reached 9.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants two years ago.

It is estimated that more than one million minors live in areas affected by armed violence in the city of São Paulo.