Ombudsman: Dial Human Rights was used to persecute – 05/04/2023 – Power

The Human Rights Dial, the main communication channel for protecting vulnerable people, had its function distorted to persecute teachers and health professionals during the Jair Bolsonaro government, says Bruno Renato Teixeira, 45, the new national ombudsman for human rights.

Appointed by Lula’s Minister of Human Rights, Silvio Almeida, he returned to the post after holding the post during the Dilma Rousseff government, from 2011 to 2015.

During the period, the ombudsman created the Disque 100, a call center that operates 24 hours a day and seven days a week, to receive complaints, at first, against sexual exploitation and abuse of children and adolescents.

“Former President Dilma’s goal was to create a center that would serve all people in situations of vulnerability and violation of human rights,” he says.

According to Teixeira, in the Bolsonaro government, there was a distancing of the population from the real function of the Human Rights Dial.

“People were calling, during the pandemic, to harass commercial establishments, health professionals and educators who rebelled against the government’s anti-vaccine order”, he says.

Teixeira also says that the challenge of the new management of the ombudsman is to rebuild credibility with the population. The body wants to motivate society to look for it as a safe space capable of articulating responses to violations.

Last Tuesday (4), Silvio Almeida visited the Dial 100 center to follow the launch of a new exclusive channel via WhatsApp (number 61 9610-0180) for registering complaints of violence against women.

This Wednesday (5), when releasing a guidance guide for the process of choosing guardianship counselors, the minister commented on the murder of four children at a school in Blumenau (SC) and said that “a country that kills children is anything but democratic; it is anything but decent”.

“We are failing miserably with children and adolescents, with the people who need us most. I want to apologize on behalf of the Brazilian State to everyone”, declared Silvio Almeida.

In an interview with Sheetombudsman Bruno Renato Teixeira spoke about the role of the ombudsman in providing data for planning public policies.

What is the role of the National Human Rights Ombudsman? Based on the decree establishing the new Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, the ombudsman’s role is to receive reports of human rights violations and forward them to the competent bodies.

This is the mainspring of the ombudsman’s work, but the decree also establishes other attributions, such as mediating conflicts, acting in loco and acting in the face of serious situations of human rights violations that affect communities.

But this work will only be successful if we rebuild credibility with the population. She needs to look at the ombudsman and understand that the information is safe and will be forwarded to the competent network that will respond to the complaint.

This is the great challenge of the ombudsman. Our primary target is the victim. It is to articulate a network that can provide protection to the victim, without prejudice, obviously, to the responsibility of the suspect.

Between 2011 and 2015, during the Dilma Rousseff government, Mr. was an ombudsman. How was that experience? It was a very rich experience. At the time, we had a very big challenge, which was to install the Human Rights Dial.

The center was born out of a policy that brought together various civil society actors in partnership with the federal government, with the aim of receiving complaints against sexual exploitation and abuse of children and adolescents. It was a small 0800 number.

The objective of former President Dilma was to create a center that would assist all people in situations of vulnerability and violation of human rights.

From then on, we consolidated the tool as a space for social participation, but also for data indicators.

Dial 100 was made available to provide assistance to victims of heavy rains on the coast of São Paulo at the beginning of the year. How can it be used by the population? It is very important that the population appropriate this number, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Dial 100 today operates as a telephone channel. It’s just the person calling 100.

The population can either denounce a violation of human rights or ask for help. But people can also search for information. That is, from the central it is possible to get in touch with the Tutelary Council, the Public Defender’s Office, the Cras network (Reference Center for Social Assistance), the Creas network (Specialized Reference Center for Social Assistance) and the Public Ministry.

Dial 100 is a channel that guides the population about human rights protection services.

The center works via WhatsApp, Instagram and also via letters, which is also the method most used by people deprived of their liberty.

The Human Rights Dial is also a powerful data indicator tool, as it guides public policies to protect vulnerable groups, such as the LGBTQIA+ population and the homeless.

What is your assessment of Mr. What does the ombudsman’s role do in the previous government? What scenario did you find? Even though I participated in the transition process, we have very little information. We already had an expectation that the scenario would not be the best.

The call center service contract needs to be reviewed and there are overdue invoices. We found a very complex scenario from an administrative point of view.

But what scared us the most was the conception given to the ombudsman, which was closed to civil society throughout the Bolsonaro government.

Dial 100, for example, was deconfigured from its original perception to the point of becoming an instrument of persecution of teachers and health professionals.

People were calling during the pandemic to harass businesses, health professionals and educators who had risen up against the government’s anti-vaccine order.

That is, if there was an establishment that restricted access for those who were not vaccinated, people could call to say that they were controlling their right to come and go. See the absurdity that arrived. It was through a decision of the Federal Supreme Court that this was annulled and the central stopped receiving this type of complaint.

[Nesta gestão] the resumption of the ombudsman and the speech of minister Silvio Almeida, when he says that “people exist and are valuable to us”, is what guides our work.

We want to motivate the population to seek out the national ombudsman as a safe space, capable of articulating responses to human rights violations.

What are the complaints of human rights violations most frequently received by the ombudsman? Today, the main complaints still refer to children and adolescents. Now, there is already a movement that we perceive of the resumption of this dialogue with indigenous peoples and traditional communities. They have sought the ombudsman more frequently for the construction and articulation of public policies.

What are the actions that the ombudsman intends to work on or has already started? The first step, as I said, is to strengthen the gateways, expanding our service capacity.

We also want to qualify the forwarding of complaints. This is our main challenge. When I say qualify, we understand which network needs to be activated to respond to the demand that arises.

This is the challenge that is set. We need to speed up this process.

The ombudsman can help in planning public policies to protect human rights. Could you give an example of a policy that was implemented? we had at the time [do governo Dilma]now, we are in this process of reconstruction.

The Dial 100 data, as it is the main gateway for denouncing human rights violations against children and adolescents, is also an indicator when making decisions about which Tutelary Council needs to be better equipped to meet demands that come from particular region of Brazil.

This is a successful case, where the ombudsman points out an indicator that affects a municipal public policy.

There are many others, such as the Public Prosecutor’s Office being able to expand its service capacity based on the Human Rights Dial indicators. With this, he directs his public defender teams to regions where there is a higher incidence of cases that reach the ombudsman.

This is our idea now, to resume the dialogue with the institutions and offer data.

The ministry will create a platform with open data and human rights indicators. What is the role of the ombudsman in capturing this data and how will it work? The ombudsman will be one of the gateways. It is important to emphasize that the ombudsman is a partner of the protection program and is qualified to act not only in the protection program for children and adolescents, but as a human rights program protecting defenders, victims and witnesses.

We are going to expose the data through the platform, but, as I said, it is fundamental that with this information we can promote public policies.

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X-ray | Bruno Renato Teixeira, 45

Born in Rio de Janeiro, he is a lawyer and activist. Graduated in law from Universidade Católica de Brasília, he has a postgraduate degree in criminal law and criminal procedure from UGF (Universidade Gama Filho). He was a human rights ombudsman from 2011 to 2015, during the Dilma Rousseff government.