Opinion: Covid pandemic caused a human rights crisis in Brazil

What is there to celebrate on International Human Rights Day 2021? Today, December 10th, is the date that refers to the officialization of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN (United Nations Organization). In Brazil and in the world, we are facing a health crisis, which is also an unprecedented human rights crisis.

Here, we reach more than half of the Brazilian population with the complete vaccination schedule. You can’t celebrate: internal inequalities are still striking and few states have reached vaccination levels that protect the population. More than 615,000 lives of Brazilians and Brazilians were lost to Covid-19. Those who are here are survivors.

Hungry millions are fighting over bones and garbage; unemployment hits records; there are those who are sick in the SUS queues with no provision for care; there are millions of children and adolescents deprived of school or without adequate conditions to return to face-to-face study; the indigenous population, the quilombola communities and the water and forest communities are under attack; and some politicians still lack courage and commitment to name the woes—they try to shirk their constitutional responsibilities to act in defense of the rights of all.

Human rights have been neglected in Brazil since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. And this sad situation in 2020 remains —inert and disastrous — in our retrospective of 2021. Amnesty International Brazil denounces the poor management of the pandemic and the negligence of the State in relation to guaranteeing rights, reducing social inequalities and the formulation and implementation of effective public policies to serve the population, especially social groups that are systematically vulnerable.

This population had its rights violated in several areas, inevitably connected to each other — employment and income, education, access to medicines and health equipment, food, housing, security, among many others. The State continues to fail in its constitutional duty to protect economic, social and cultural rights and to resolve or mitigate the effects of their violations, which have a major impact on a significant portion of the population, historically marginalized and discriminated against.

We are talking about inequalities that, rooted in racism and other structural inequalities, had an influence on deaths by Covid-19 and on all kinds of suffering that permeate people’s lives in today’s Brazil. For example, we are talking about black women, who already represented the largest portion of the poor population in the country before the health crisis, and who, during the pandemic, were the most impacted — 38% of them began to live in poverty.

We cannot forget unemployment, school dropouts, inadequate housing conditions, police violence, and other ills that disproportionately affect the black population, residents of favelas and suburbs, people deprived of freedom, including young people from the socio-educational system, homeless people, people with inadequate housing conditions, cis and trans women, quilombolas, indigenous peoples and other traditional populations, self-employed workers, LGBTQIA+ population, children, adolescents and the elderly.

It is for these people, who need to live with dignity and have their rights back, that Amnesty International Brazil launches today the report “Covid-19 and human rights in Brazil: paths and challenges for a just recovery”. The study brings together multiple alarming data regarding the violation of human rights in the context of the pandemic.

These are information related to the rights to work, education, housing, health, food, safety, territory and other topics. They were collected from public bodies —such as the Ministry of Health, Fiocruz, the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health, the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and Ipea (Institute of Economic and Applied Research)— and from monitoring carried out by coalitions and civil society organizations —such as the Alerta group, Apib (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil) and Conaq ​(Coordination of Articulation of Rural Black Communities in Quilombolas). The study also brings content produced by universities and scientific and technological development institutions. In addition, of course, to information from the consortium of press vehicles.

We, at Amnesty International Brazil, present a set of recommendations for a fair recovery, which will only be possible when measures to overcome this public health crisis and its impacts on the population, especially on the most vulnerable groups, favor compliance with human rights of all. Brazil, as a State party to several international human rights treaties, has immediate obligations related to the pandemic and related issues or aggravated by it.

Countless rights have been disrespected so far. We have reached the end of 2021 devastated and devastated, but with the strength we need to identify the challenges that remain on our horizon. With the campaign Omissão Is Not Public Policy, throughout 2021, Amnesty International Brazil and 19 other civil society organizations demanded accountability for preventable deaths — and we are still waiting for the allegations presented in the report of the Covid-19 Parliamentary Inquiry Commission to be determined by the Federal Public Ministry. But we need to go further.

It is urgent to stop and repair the countless human rights violations caused by the action and inaction of the Brazilian State. Time is ticking and it is urgent that the authorities take action and fulfill their responsibilities and duties. We need justice and a just recovery: comprehensive, effective and urgent.