Closing the Gap Between Rights and Realities for Children and Youth in Urban Brazil

This report describes successful attempts in Rio de Janeiro and several other
cities in Brazil to develop, for the first time, policies to assist street children
through the federally mandated mechanism of Children’s Rights Councils. In
Brazil there is a wide gap between legal rights guaranteed to children and
their daily lives.

The subject of our concern, children in the situation of the streets, refers to
urban children who fall into two groups: a small group who spend their days
and nights on the street; and a much larger group who spend their days on
the street hustling for loose change and hanging out, but who spend their
nights in a variety of unstable accommodations off the streets.