Damares justifies children’s anti-vaccination note to fight ‘social confusion’

Minister Damares Alves (Women, Family and Human Rights) said this Monday (28) that her ministry issued a technical note against the mandatory vaccination of children against Covid-19 due to a climate of “social confusion” and a fear among minors of going to live in shelters.

The speeches took place during a session of the Senate Human Rights Commission. She was summoned to explain the controversial note and the availability of a hotline to receive accusations of “discrimination” from citizens and parents who chose not to vaccinate or vaccinate their children against Covid-19.

Damares denied that Dial 100 was intended to receive complaints. He also justified that the technical note was issued to guarantee the individual freedoms of those who chose not to vaccinate or immunize their children.

The minister stated that the position of her portfolio was taken only after a manifestation of the Ministry of Health in this regard. Without giving further explanations, she expressed a chaotic environment of great apprehension in society, with parents fearing that they would lose custody of their children.

“Some parents said they didn’t want to vaccinate. The television said so much: ‘You’re going to lose custody of the child. You’re going to lose it.’ would not be vaccinated,” said the minister.

“And that’s enough for our ministry, and I’m the children’s minister. We didn’t get involved, at any time, in the vaccine issue, but when we saw horror and fear in children, then we said: ‘For everything. to enter, because someone has to speak for the children now’. And then we issued a technical note, after the decision of the Minister of Health, saying: we agree with the decision of the Minister of Health that parents are not obliged to vaccinate children children,” he added.

After the session, the minister was asked where she got the information that the children were panicking. She replied that she heard these reports when she came in contact with the people, when she went to church.

“Families call, the ministry belongs to the Family. Families call. Dial 100 they receive information from families. I walk, people, I’m hoarse because I walk all over Brazil, I talk to families. Children [estão] afraid of being taken away from their parents. Because experts said ‘if you don’t vaccinate, you’ll lose your guard’. Child listen to television, people, please. Be careful what you say, don’t cause children to panic anymore,” Damares said.

“I go to church, ok? I go to a church, with two thousand people, families come to talk to me ‘my children are scared’. I listen. Children don’t go to the newspaper to denounce this. I’m not making it up, for the love of God. The children were afraid and I needed to protect these children. No more fear. Discuss vaccines away from children, protective measures away from children. Let’s make children smile and have fun in Brazil”, he added.

report of sheet of January 27 showed that the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights published a technical note in which the ministry defends the decision of the Ministry of Health against the mandatory immunization for this public.

In the document, the ministry makes Dial 100, the government’s main channel for reporting human rights violations, available to anti-vaccination people who experience “discrimination”.

The technical note was completed on January 19. It is signed by three secretaries and a director of the portfolio. Minister Damares Alves endorsed the document and forwarded it to other ministries from the 21st.

Damares initially sought to minimize the importance of the note, stating that it was not an ordinance or a normative rule. It was just the position of the folder regarding the vaccine against Covid-19 for children and adolescents.

Although the text of the note states verbatim that the Dial 100 service is available to receive complaints, in a note that specifically addresses the non-mandatory immunization.

The minister argued that the technical note was directed to other ministries and that her portfolio was still awaiting further guidance. Damares also accused the press of misrepresenting the content of the note – without ever giving more detailed explanations about the note and its content.

“The technical note was created and addressed to the authorities, and at no time does it say, in the technical note, that we are going to receive a call from those who do not want to be vaccinated. Whoever spoke of the note did not read the note,” he said.

Damares said that Dial 100 was intended to hear all kinds of complaints of attacks on individual freedoms during the pandemic, citing as an example accusations of skipping the line. He said that the service was important throughout the time the country was ravaged by the new coronavirus. He said one of the calls that touched her the most was from an elderly woman who said she was raped by an electrical appliance – without giving details of how the case was resolved.

“When we saw the news, we saw what could happen. We reinforced it, asked the attendants to be patient, because there would be a very large flow. We had some parliamentarians who recorded videos, people encouraging people to call there, but there was no no internal flow for us to receive any call speaking for or against the vaccine. Dial 100 receives complaints of violations of all types of human rights. But they interpreted it as they wanted”, he said.

The technical note was questioned in the Federal Supreme Court, which issued a decision against the ministry. Damares herself said that Dial 100 currently maintains a message informing them that, due to a court decision, they cannot meet demands related to vaccines.

Damares was also questioned by the president of the commission, Senator Humberto Costa (PT-PE), about his visit, alongside Minister Marcelo Queiroga (Health), to a teenager who had a cardiac arrest after being immunized. The case was used by bolsonaristas to criticize the application of vaccines against Covid-19 in minors.

The holder of the folder stated that she just wanted to “give a hug” to the teenager. And that she sought to give tranquility to the population, in particular to other children who were afraid of dying because they had been vaccinated.

“I went as Minister of the Family, I went with the minister to hug the family and say: ‘Calm down. Everything will be fine.’ And the girl was fine. They wanted a hug from the State, and that is my mission as Minister of the Family. And I went to see the princess, the princess was fine. When I got there, and the guardianship counselors saw that I was with the girl, the message of my going to hug that girl had exactly the effect I wanted the other vaccinated children to have. from the city say: ‘Whew, I’m not going to get sick!'”, he said.

In one of the most tense moments of the session, Senator Fabiano Contarato (PT-ES) asked the minister if she knew the definition of human rights. Subsequently, the congressman, who is homosexual, began to cite several prejudiced statements by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), against gays and women, and in defense of torture.

Before the session, Damares once again stated that he will leave the portfolio until the end of the month, to run in the next elections. However, he stated that it is not yet defined in which state he will run and for which office.