A transformação do internamento "assistencial" em internamento por "negligência": tirando a cidadania dos pais para dá-la às crianças

Resumo

In Brazil, children are today at the center of attention thanks to the
new Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente. If, on the one hand, this
legislation guarantees the right of children and adolescentes to be raised
and educated in their own families, on the other, it demands that their right
to health, education, food, leisure and sports be assured. Many social
workers who deal with children consider than since poor families do not
guarantee these rights, they are being negligent with their offspring. Thus,
acting in the name of the child, for its own good, they may withdraw it from
its original family. On the basis of a study of social workers, psychologists
and pedagogues employed by the state orphanage in Rio Grande do Sul,
we examine how "socio-economic problems" - the category which ten
years ago justified most internments, has been transformed in the post-
Statute period into the category of "negligence". Today, the idea of
protecting children is given top priority, even if it involves infringing the
parents' rights. In other words, although children may have gained in
"citizenry", the adults they will soon become - lower-income men and
women - appear to have lost ground.