Damares management fears dismantling of programs due to PT revanchism

Members of the former Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights (MMFDH), headed by Senator-elect Damares Alves (Republicanos-DF) during most of Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) government, are concerned that the current management of the Ministries of Women and of Human Rights and Citizenship dismiss important programs of the portfolio carried out between 2019 and 2022. The extinction of some policies that have little dialogue with the PT primer was already expected, but there is a fear that even ideologically neutral programs be abandoned out of sheer revanchism.

In the field of family policies, for example, it is feared that a blank slate mentality will result in the discarding of projects focused on family empowerment. “We are fully convinced that what has been done at the National Secretariat for the Family over these four years is State policy, not government policy – ​​that is, they are above political partisanship. Of course there were our priorities, but they are actions that could be maintained by a government that is in a different position of the political spectrum. We chose, from the beginning, to take as a starting point what is most consensual”, explains Marcelo Couto Dias, former director of the Department of Training, Development and Strengthening of the Family, body of the National Secretariat of the Family of the extinct MMFDH.

One of the former portfolio’s main programs, Familias Fortes, promotes parental education as a way to reduce violence, drug addiction, school dropouts and early pregnancy. “Families Fortes was recommended for Brazil in 2013 by the UN (United Nations), through the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It was no right-wing conservative organization, no think tank the kind you recommended. It is a program that has been in Brazil since 2014. We have done significant work to expand its reach”, says Couto Dias.

Over the last few decades, several studies have proven the correlation between healthy family ties and a lower risk of involvement with violence and drugs in youth. In a 2016 study by the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, for example, parents’ attention and interest in their children’s education was found to significantly decrease the chances of juvenile delinquency. Along the same lines, a 2008 survey by the University of Connecticut showed that feeling close to parents considerably reduces the likelihood of alcoholism and drug use among young people.

Another program of the Secretariat of the Family, Reconnecte, has several aspects that could be used regardless of ideological issues. Its objective is to improve family relationships through a more moderate and conscious use of communication technologies. The program trains parents, teachers and health professionals to help children and adolescents make better use of electronic devices.

In another project of the former government, Family at School, the State seeks to promote the partnership between the family and the school, with training in parenting skills and support for pedagogical monitoring, with the aim of strengthening family ties. The former management hopes that these two projects will be preserved by the new government, even if they change folders (there is, for example, the possibility of transferring them to the Ministry of Education).

“We hope that there will be a focus on the common good in this regard and that these programs will not be discontinued”, says Angela Gandra Martins, former secretary of the Family.

Secretariat for Persons with Disabilities decreases by half in relation to the management of Damares

One of the main criticisms of former members of Damares’ portfolio is regarding the cut in policies for people with disabilities. The number of positions of trust in the National Secretariat for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (SNDPD), for example, decreased from 27 to 14.

Furthermore, the SNDPD will have only one department, instead of the two it had until December, and the number of its general coordinators will increase from seven to five. Sources heard by People’s Gazette they fear that the general coordination of Rare Diseases and Leprosy will cease to exist. This could limit the way for people with rare diseases to gain rights.

In the case of leprosy, general coordination is the main way to judge claims for compensation of people who, as children, were removed from living with their parents due to misguided public policies to combat leprosy. Between the 1920s and the 1980s, the government segregated some children from their parents with leprosy as a prophylactic measure, and many of these children ended up in orphanages because of this.

The report of People’s Gazette contacted the new Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship to clarify doubts about the ongoing changes. The new team stated that the folder is still in the process of being assembled and that it will give a return “in an opportune moment”. There is a forecast that the new secretariats will start working on January 24th.

Former minister, who was also secretary for Women, criticizes lies about her management

Members of the former MMFDH have been bothered by the current government’s discourse that the past management had neglected human rights. The narrative that the Bolsonaro government would have promoted a dismantling of policies for this area, and that the new government will recover them, provokes indignation in people who worked in the portfolio between 2019 and 2022.

Cristiane Britto, former minister and former secretary of Policies for Women, criticizes, for example, the false information that the Casa da Mulher Brasileira was being “resumed”, as disclosed by the Minister of Women, Cida Gonçalves, in her speech of possession, implying that the initiative had been abandoned. During Cristiane’s management, investment in the Casa da Mulher Brasileira increased.

“My impression is that they will take what we have already built and say that they built it. Why do they open their mouths to say, for example, that we have stopped work on the Casa da Mulher Brasileira? This is absurd, because the works are there for everyone to see. What are they going to do? They will inaugurate, for example, nine houses that we, Damares and I, left to be inaugurated now in March (2023), women’s month”, says Cristiane.

The emphasis in Cida’s inaugural speech on the narrative that there was neglect of the female population irritated former members of Damares’ portfolio, who see policies for women as precisely one of the great assets of the Bolsonaro government in the area of ​​human rights. The improvement and modernization of ombudsman services such as Dial 100 and Call 180, for example, were essential to facilitate complaints of violence against women.

Even so, former members of the portfolio hope that some of their programs will be preserved. Qualifica Mulher, for example, which promotes women’s economic autonomy, may change its name, but there is an expectation that it will be maintained.

Other programs, however, must be eliminated. Cristiane regrets, for example, the fact that Mães do Brasil will end. The program supports women with problems in the exercise of motherhood, from conception to early childhood. “We used the support network, for women’s health. If the woman simply didn’t want to have the child, didn’t want to raise the child, we presented her with the option of adoption. That was Mães do Brasil, which we worked in partnership with the Ministry of Health, to take care of pregnant women in vulnerable situations”, says the former minister.

For ideological reasons, it is likely that the current government will discontinue the program. Cida Gonçalves, Minister of Women, is in favor of legalizing abortion.