Minha fala no encontro

Let me introduce myself to you. I am Manuela and I am from the south of Brazil. I believe I am the only member of South America.
My country is going through a great period of economic and social development.
Over the past eight years, this development has also allowed us to rebuild our cultural values ​​and enhance the promotion of human rights and values ​​for all Brazilians. We have promoted the rescue of the historical rights of indigenous people and descendants of slaves, "Quilombolas", we have changed our law to combat domestic violence against women.
Due to this development, we have also made considerable progress in guaranteeing our citizens’ human rights.
We have made sure that 38 million Brazilians do not starve anymore, we have widened the access to university for 863 new students. Also, we have seen 20 million people joining the middle-class. We are therefore focused on ensuring that the economic and social rights are
fulfilled.
I believe that is the main question - or one of the central issues - in developing countries when it comes to human rights: it must be ensured that our people eat, study, are healthy.
But this country that is growing and that left a Dictatorship Military just over 25 years, still has many civil and political rights to ensure, so that all dimensions of human rights are a reality.
So you see, next week, Congress will approve a truth commission - the name given to an organization that will make enlighten the facts of the military dictatorship. 25 years later!
But beyond the mistakes of the past, we still have in Brazil a serious social problem arising from social inequality: our prisons.
We have half a million prisoners and only 1% of those went through college. This means that those who study do not commit crimes? No. It means that, in Brazil, only the poor are punished.
Of the total of the prisoners, the majority (127,000) are less than 24 years and are there due to the drug traffic. Discuss trafficking drug is, therefore, for countries with conflicts in this area, a issue of human rights. Unfortunately, I have no time to discuss these theme.
But I'm working on it and I would like to speak with organizations that invest in the rehabilitation of these young people to return to society with dignity and opportunity.
Look at this example:

I was imprisoned for eight years and eight months. I entered the prison inexperienced. I left it as an expert." This phrase reflects the stage of development of the Brazilian penitentiary system.
A crisis situation has been worsened over the years. A situation in which thousands of Brazilian citiziens are treated ad useless subjects. While waiting, they are thought to unlearn all the basic principles of life in society. They are thought how to do better in the criminal lilfe.


If the time spent in prision is instructing the prisoners how to commit more crimes, what role the is state playing? This is the discussion we have proposed in the Human Rights and Minorities Commission of the Congress House. This is not about the
defence of the end of punisment although some still insist that human rights is the defense of bad guys. Our law and our justice act accordingly. They fulfill their role as punitive agents when necessary. The question that we propose goes beyond the
surface: it addresses the lack of policies to recover these citizens and the viability of perspectives so that they can change the course of their lives.


If a young person commits a crime, he or she has to pay for it. But beyond the punitive role, the state must give this Young people prospect of a paradigm shift. This young man or woman, who paid for his ou her crime, must have na opportunity to leave the prison. There can’t be a gap between the willingness to change and the reality that is given. But this problem remains invisible.

We only know the role played by non-political anda non-govermental groups and organizations. The AfroReggae, for example, plays it. In three years, 2069 people were employed. 914 were former convicts. None turned back to crime. This group, like others from Brazil, are fulfilling a gap, play a role that should be the State’s.
And that's what we have to think about and discuss frankly and openly.

While we neglect the public policies for the reintegration of former convicts, we are abandonig part of our population. The public administration must structure a comprehensive system for reintegration with the professional training of former convicts. We should adjust the separation of prisoners accoording to the type of the crime and we should protect the former detainees from the threats from criminal gangs and from the police. If we avoid this debate, we enlarge the world of violence, crime, marginalization.

Violence is not fought with more violence. The answer is to give back to society employed and reinserted citizens. Therefore we are studying the possibility of presenting, through the Commission, a bill to regulate the rehabilitation of former prisoners.

We need to rethink the role of the criminal justice system. One must think of all the journey from the situation where a crime is committed, to the moment of the release of the convict. We must prevent the crime. We need an efficient system. But above all, we need to show those who are leaving the prison today that they can have a different life Of course, with less money than drug
trafficking, but with the chance of having a family. With the certainty that is possible to plan the future without stunting the future of the next.

This must be the center of our debate. While we do not think about the rehabilitation of those who leave the prison after paying for their crimes, we are always walking in vicious circles, fighting violence with violence, intolerance with intolerance. The State must be a protagonist of the change that we all need.
The State needs to think about the work developed by AfroReggae as a model and take it to the whole country, to all the prisoners. Only with a full rehabilitation of those who commit crimes we will have a society with less violence and more rights guaranteed to all.