Poverty, Unemployment, and Death Squads: The Brazilian Abuse of Rights
Brazil prospered economically from 1964 through 1990, yet they suffered from extreme poverty, an unequal wealth distribution, and various human rights abuses. Human rights abuses occurred every day. The labor market, education, demographic transition, and inequality allowed for violations of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC). This resulted in death squads and police brutality which were liberal rights violations. Human rights abuses were not individual issues, but overarching, interconnected injustices of society. When liberal and ESC rights abuses occur together, solving the individual problems will do nothing for the overall society; in order to eliminate these
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Poor individuals were said to be Preto and part of the traditional sector while wealthier people were called Mulato, Pardo, or White and were often part of the modern sector (Penglase 9-10). The darker skinned individuals tended to rank lower in wealth and economic status and was a large percentage of the poor (Penglase 9-10). Likewise, Brazil’s wealthiest individuals, 10% of the population, received 46.2% of the total income, while the poorest 40% earned 8% (Penglase 9-10). The divide in society was based on race or economic class. This distinction supported the longevity of the economic hierarchy. The government enforced mechanisms that resulted in binding classes for a lifetime, making it extremely difficult to overcome the vast poverty that many families suffered from. Brazil was one of the most highly populated countries in the world and experienced a rapid population transformation that added to the economic problems. In the early 1960’s, Brazil was in stage one of the demographic transition, marked by low standards of living, low life expectancies, and a high birth rate. These conditions were due to the broad triangular shape of the population distributions seen below in figure 1. Industrial production increased at the beginning of the transformation from a developing country to a developed